Poetry | Dawn

Posted on November 24, 2015 by Laura Lindblom under Uncategorized

Dawn: A Poem

I love the earth before the dawn
When sleeping things awake,
When pearly breezes kiss the grass
And birds their lovesongs make.

Before the day has yet awoke –
Those fleeting moments, oh! How few!
Before the golden dawn has broke
And turned the hoary frost to dew,

Then a shimmering spell is cast
And all the world in slumber dreams.
There isn’t heard nor breath nor sigh
|And the moon on mirror waters gleams.

The softest stirring in the trees –
A rosy blush where sky meets earth,
A hidden joy, a waking love,
A welling forth of mirth.

For then! The light of glorious sun!
The east in flaming glory stands
And paints each hill and rock and vale
As if by touch of tender hands.

And at the first light of the dawn
The silver world is bathed in light
Of amber sun and sapphire sky
And all forget the night.

Winter Comes

Posted on November 22, 2015 by Laura Lindblom under Uncategorized

DSCN0156.1lowreaz As lovely as the snow is by day, I find the glimmering whiteness even more enchanting by the light of the moon, when the silver light filters through the bare branches of trees, casting strange and silent shadows on the flawless snow. Instead of blinding brilliance, the ground glints with a cold, unearthly sort of a light. The moonbeams seem to stream from the sky in a transparent flood, and the very air seems richer, almost as if it could be cupped in the hands and tasted.

IMG_4531.1lowrez The cold seems less significant in the moonlight. I don’t know why. But with the cloudless sky winking with stars and the snow winking with diamond-light, the moon streaming silver and the wind hushed about the trees, unmoving and silent, the cold seems reluctant to chill or burn or bother. When I lift up my face to the moonlight, with the snow glowing and reflecting and shimmering, I almost feel that my face could be washed by the light.

Today, though, winter is retreating, temporarily. The earth waits expectantly. Or, perhaps, sleeps in contentment. Either way, the earth is still.

IMG_4502.1lowrez The spell of the first snow, as fragile as a snowflake dissolved by a single, warm breath, has faded in the warmth of the springlike November air, unseasonably mild and sweet. Ice remains on the creeks and lakes, in places where the sun doesn’t reach, holding fast to the sheltered banks, but slowing giving way to the water. Only patches of snow cling to the northern slopes of hills and beneath the branches of trees, like memories of shadows.

For now, winter is still elusive. But she will come.

Laura Elizabeth

First Breath of Winter

Posted on November 21, 2015 by Laura Lindblom under Uncategorized

Something about the snow, a fresh snow, transforms the landscape of my mind. When the snow starts to fly, I can’t seem to stop smiling – my soul can’t stop smiling. There is a newness, a freshness, a wonder about the snow, flying and swirling from an invisible sky above and transforming the drabness of dying autumn into the glory of waking winter. The cold ceases to matter. The snow seems to bathe life with madcap delight.

I came downstairs yesterday morning, before the sun had peeked into our hollow, and I was greeted by the wonder of snow. Everything was covered – the rough-cut fences, the branches of every tree, old tires sitting out by the chicken coop, the wind chimes, windowsills, the yellow grader – everything was covered in a layer of pure, undefiled white.

There outside was Anna’s black kitten, Kashka, enjoying the experience of her first snow. She frolicked and dashed madly about, plunging through snow drifts, jumping up a tree, in the throes of delight. She didn’t even try to sneak into the house, as is her habit. As I drove up our winding driveway to work, a few does startled up from their bedding ground, kicking up their heels – the cold and snow and delight of winter had gotten to them, too. When I got home last night, I couldn’t resist a mad dash around our place – T-shirt, flannel pants, and snow boots, the thermometer reading 15 degrees, and the wind laughing in the trees.

Today, the sun is shining and the sky is the pale blue of winter, behind transparent clouds – The world sparkles in the chill sunlight. Delight and quiet seem to walk hand-in-hand in a world transformed: The chirrup of snow underfoot, the gentle chuckle as snow falls from trees, the icy rustle of a rabbit in the tall grass, the sigh of windblown snow on snow. It is a fragile spell that might shatter like an icicle on stone, shaken loose by a mere sigh of a breeze. But fragile or not, while it lasts the spell is binding.

This is the first breath of winter.

Laura Elizabeth

Dusk

Posted on November 16, 2015 by Laura Lindblom under Uncategorized

I love the dusk. And I love my Dad. The two make a great combination. Dad has a couple of game trail cameras and over the last few weeks he has been monitoring places on our property – He’s pretty excited for this hunting season. So this evening, we went on a little hike to pick up the trail cameras.

The sun had already sunk behind the hills and we were walking in deepening shade. We heard a low snort and saw a flash of of white – evidence that God has a sense of humor, I think. A white-tailed deer’s white tail doesn’t serve any purpose, but it sure makes me smile!

The moon was just a sliver of silver in the pale amber sky, and Harney Peak darkly brooded in the west, slate-blue at the end of the horizon. The world out here seems so large, yet so small. When I’m sheltered in the woods in the bottom of a ravine, with trees reaching to the sky, and rocks rising high above my head, I feel so small – Distance seems to grow. What is around the next corner, or over the next hill? Delight. Sheer delight. And when I’m standing on top of a hill looking away at the skyline, distance seems to compress and the horizon seems near enough to touch. Bliss. Sheer bliss.

As the dusk settled further, the air grew heavier with chill – I was toasty warm except for my ears, which were giving me a headache, but I didn’t care. How could I? With the smell of fresh-cut pine from the logging we’ve been having done, and the gentle crush of pine needles beneath my feet, the slide and scramble down a steep hillside, the rattle and clatter of rocks sliding with me, the opalescent sky turning darker and dimmer, and my Dad right there with me – How could I be anything but thankful?

We turned towards home, following a short draw, steep wall on one side and gentle slope on the other. The first stars appeared in the east. The blanket of dusk was pulled from east to west. And the moon flickered coldly in the western sky, tangled in the branches of the pines.

Laura Elizabeth

Quiet Day

Posted on October 30, 2015 by Laura Lindblom under Uncategorized

A good day is a quiet day. The savor of life, for me, is the quiet and enlivening action of being. In our society, we have all but forgotten how to simply be. We have an agenda for the whole day, meals mapped out, road routes planned ahead of time, work schedules set practically in stone, social lives that keep us away from home, all in an attempt to be full, to live life to its fullest, to be efficient, to be productive, to be visibly successful – That is the mark of our society – Meshing cogs, perfectly timed machinery, society run like efficient computers, filling our minds and our lives so full that what we’ve retained is irretrievable, lost in the stimulus.

But what about a full life that is full in its quietness? What about a life that is brimming with possibility, instead of a scheduled, itemized list? What in the meshing cogs of our society really leaves room for creativity, spontaneity, and breathing deep of life? What about forsaking some of the world’s marks of success to pursue a kind of success that is soul-deep, built on relationships with God and people? My heart hungered for a slower life, even when I didn’t realize it, but out here where there are miles upon miles of hills and trees and craggy peaks and rugged ravines, I find it easier, so much easier to simply be.

I want to live a life that is full of purpose and hard work, that is productive and industrious and useful, but I want that productivity and industriousness and usefulness to be plaited together with quietness, solitude, and relationships, and detached from the matrix of society. A four-day-per-week work schedule is ideal! I am so thankful.

On my days off, I feel as if I flee into God’s creation, hungering to see nothing of what people have made, and simply to revel in the wonders of the natural world. For a couple of months, I’ve tried to make it down to Hole-in-the-Wall, one of my family’s favorite haunts. Finally! Sarah and I had an hour and a half or so yesterday and we made a quick jaunt down our old jeep trail to that wonderful place.

The hardwood trees have all lost their leaves by now, or mostly, and the air was crisp and ripe with autumn. We hiked along the creek bed for most of the way, scrambling over rocks, jumping from one to the other, getting tangled in young trees which are growing bravely up through the rocky creek bottom. Battle Creek was flowing high this summer. Sarah is a tall girl, and the clumps of tangled grass and leaves above her head show the waterline to have been at least 7 feet deep in this bend of the canyon!

Hole-in-the-Wall is whittled away a little more each year, but there it has been for about 100 years. I wonder how much longer it will be there, and big enough for us to climb through and hike over? I hope I never have to see it collapsed, the whole ridge crumbled to a pile of rock, but one never knows – A little more of it tumbles down with every rain. It still enchants me.

The canyon leading to Hole-in-the-Wall was glowing brightly – Blue sky, a little breeze, and warm sunlight. What more could we ask for? I guess the one thing we could have asked for was a little more time. Salsa preparations and housework in the early afternoon and small group in the evening didn’t leave a lot of time, but we still had the leisure to enjoy our scramble to and from, to stop and marvel at fallen leaves, garnet sand, and orange berries. We had time to be.