It’s a curious thing, keeping ordinary time these last two years. In some respects everything is very ordinary. We don’t leave our homes very much; each day feels much like the previous one; we see the same people, the same walls, the same garden beds. Yet in other ways nothing is ordinary. We long forContinue reading “Ordinary Wednesday: The New Ordinary?”
Tag Archives: seasons
Ordinary Wednesday: In due season
My eldest is a budding geographer. At nearly four years of age he loves reading books about the earth and its continents, its flora and fauna. We often find ourselves having quite technical discussions about the reasons why some plant or animal species are dying out, or why we have seasons. The seasons have beenContinue reading “Ordinary Wednesday: In due season”
Snowdrop
In Winter’s garden bed I saw you,plucky yet tentative,white bursting but drooping at the stem,head bowed in humble prayer,hopeful of the day to come,whispering its name.
The Long Ordinary
Winter sets in,rubs his damp feet all through the laundry,wipes his everwet hair with each handtowel,breathes ice on my windscreen,cries soggy complaints on my feet.And somewhere we are lostbetween fire and candle, lostin the long, slow ordinary that yawnsin between.Days blink; you miss the momentof daylight, the chanceto dry out and be.Only blessingspans the gapContinue reading “The Long Ordinary”
Advent 10: Waiting
Bulbs in soil await the spring,and fruit awaits the sun,parched earth waits for thunderstormand watchmen wait for dawn. Guilt awaits the gavel’s fall,fear awaits the dreaded thing,hope waits for what is not seenand voices wait to sing. The busy spirit does not wait;“Time waits for no-one,” it will shout.Impatience sooner dies than waits,and reason tendsContinue reading “Advent 10: Waiting”
Advent 9: No despair
…we are almost ready to fall in love with our own desolation. (Christina Rossetti, Seek and Find) Whether height of summer or bleak midwinter, there’s death: in bare-branched trees or brittle grass. Fire or frost, the end’s the same, both killers and destroyers alike. And the greatest foe of all’s despair, the sickness blighting notContinue reading “Advent 9: No despair”
The first day of spring
began with honeysuckle and clover, the constants of the winter yet rendered more redolent by the scents of September and a bee buzzing about a flowering cactus and ended with a downpour that sent me rushing to the clothesline while my son stood in his raincoat and listened to the rain with all things –Continue reading “The first day of spring”
For the New Year: Again
And so it starts over: our spinning wayAround the sun; our cycle of light, dark,Hot, cold; plants losing, gaining leaves and bark.If we hear what the seasons have to say,It will be only their incessant bay,Their insistant reminders – at the parkOr down the street – to heed the sparkOf summer light, and the dyingContinue reading “For the New Year: Again”
New Season
Fig Season? The garden holds promises, and I visit them daily: minuscule at first, fluffy, unsure, like hesitant children, awaiting the world. This is not quite their season: the Rabbi knew as much, yet visited expectant nonetheless. And, as frost and dew recede, there they are, peeping and proffering garden-bound joy. Too early toContinue reading “New Season”
Late Winter
I fought against the wind and, though I won, It threw its debris all about the place, Tossed hair asunder, tug-of-warred my face And left me with a sense of being stung. The wind did battle with the joys of sun, Though still the early spring bore marks of grace And, pulled this way andContinue reading “Late Winter”
The Consolations of Writing 