stars – In the Woods

koshyk z kvitamy

“A Basket with Flowers” by Zinaida Serebriakova

As the sun sets and hills grow dark,
as the birdsong ends and fields fall silent,
as the people laugh and take their rest,
I watch.
My heart hurries
to the twilit gardens of Ukraine.
And I hurry.
O, how I hurry with my thoughts,
as my heart yearns for rest.
As the fields grow dark,
as the groves grow dark,
as the hills grow dark,
I see a star.
And I weep.
Hey, you star! Have you reached Ukraine?
Do dark eyes scour the blue sky for you?
Or don’t they care?
May they sleep if they don’t.
May they know nothing of my fate.
~ Taras Shevchenko
(To N. N.)

showing up as a blossom

“Twilight Landscape with Birches” by Anna Billing

When the apple tree blooms
the moon often shows up as a blossom,
paler than any of them,
shining over the tree.

It is the dead summer,
the blossoms’ white sister who returns
to see us
and bless us with her hands
so the burden won’t be too heavy when hard times come.
For the Earth itself is a blossom, she says,
on the star tree,
pale and with luminous
ocean leaves.

~ Rolf Jacobsen
(Night Open: Selected Poems of Rolf Jacobsen)

freedom within

“Portrait of a Little Girl” by Jahn Ekenæs

They shut me up in Prose —
As when a little Girl
They put me in the Closet —
Because they liked me “still” —

Still! Could themself have peeped —
And seen my Brain — go round —
They might as wise have lodged a Bird
For Treason — in the Pound —

Himself has but to will
And easy as a Star
Look down opon Captivity —
And laugh — No more have I —

~ Emily Dickinson
(The Poems of Emily Dickinson, #445)

roses de noël

What is the flower that blooms each year
In flowerless days,
Making a little blaze
On the bleak earth, giving my heart some cheer?

Harsh the sky and hard the ground
When the Christmas rose is found.
Look! its white star, low on earth,
Rays a vision of rebirth.

~ Cecil Day-Lewis
(The Christmas Rose)

50 years!

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments; love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no, it is an ever-fixèd mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand’ring bark
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come.
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom:
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
~ William Shakespeare
(Sonnet 116)

For many of the early years of our marriage we had this sonnet taped to our bedroom door, and over the years I’ve never found a better estimation of true love. It was printed with an old-fashioned font on paper that looked like parchment. At some point when we moved from one home to another it got lost, but I’ve never forgotten Shakespeare’s insights.

When we were young and wide-eyed, we used to wonder what it would be like to grow old together. Decades later, after heart disease and cancer entered our lives, we started wondering if we would grow old together. But somehow we made it, and now we know. ♡

(image credit: sipa at pixabay)

where the great heron feeds

7.18.22 ~ Groton, Connecticut
great blue heron feeding

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
~ Wendell Berry
(The Peace of Wild Things)

in the depths of winter

“Chestnut Trees, Louveciennes, Winter” by Camille Pissarro

This is the season of the long night and the leafless tree. The cold seeps into our bones and life sleeps beneath the soil. ….. We know that the worst of the winter is yet to come, and we must endure this, but the solstice sun is reborn and, with it, our hopes for growing light and warmth. In the depths of winter, summer plants its seed and the dark stillness explodes with starlight.
~ Maria Ede-Weaving
(The Essential Book of Druidry: Connect with the Spirit of Nature)

stargazing

My best Acquaintances are those
With Whom I spoke no Word —
The Stars that stated come to Town
Esteemed Me never rude
Although to their Celestial Call
I failed to make reply —
My constant — reverential Face
Sufficient Courtesy
~ Emily Dickinson
(The Poems of Emily Dickinson, #1062)

cutting our ancient shortcomings

Yesterday, everybody smoked his last cigar, took his last drink, and swore his last oath. Today, we are a pious and exemplary community. Thirty days from now, we shall have cast our reformation to the winds and gone to cutting our ancient shortcomings considerably shorter than ever. We shall also reflect pleasantly upon how we did the same thing last year about this time.
~ Mark Twain
(Mark Twain Speaks for Himself)