A summer adieu

Whyte’s evening v formation fearlessly floats across the sunsetted horizon pointing to a trusted destination unseen. The fact that the distance between this point and there is not a straight line is of no considered consequence to the honking sojourners. Oranged yellowed red leaves are shaken by the breath of God. Coasting carefully to a final resting place the once shade and nest providers become piles for innocents to dive and hide. Purpose fulfilled, they nurture the mother who breeds new seed.

Bishop’s sandpipers and resident union gulls buy another moment of authenticity as the tide continues to kiss the sand. Abandoned Lifeguard stands and their sister rescue boats rest alone and unmoved as they still may be called upon to serve and save. Beach footprints once used to inspire stories of savior companionship and consolation are washed away remembrances. High-pitched laughter of children chasing waves and the echoes of whistle alarms cautioning riptide challengers have been swept to sea by the same breath that shook the leaves to freedom.

Oliver’s inspired jotted journal reflective recollections accompanied by a select few digital representations affirm the experience that remains ineffable. “Farewell friends!” some lost inner voice echoes softly to the spirits that comforted the pilgrim in that season passed. Turning to face the wind of change a grateful humble anticipatory “welcome” is solemnly whispered.

The Journey - by David Whyte (click link)

http://www.panhala.net/Archive/Journey.html

Sandpiper - Elizabeth Bishop (click video)

Autumn Poem

In the last jovial, clear-sky days of autumn
the mockingbird
in his monk-gray coat
and his arrowy wings

flies
from the hedge to the top of the pine
and begins to sing — but it's neither loose, nor lilting, nor lovely —

it's more like whistles and truck brakes and dry hinges.
All birds are birds of heaven
but this one, especially, adores the earth so well
he would imitate, for half the day and on into the
evening,

its ticks and wheezings,
and so I have to wait a long time
for the soft, true voice
of his own glossy life

to come through,
and of course I do.
I don't know what it is that makes him, finally, look
inward

to the sweet spring of himself, that mirror of heaven,
but when it happens —
when he lifts his head
and the feathers of his throat tremble,

and he begins, like Saint Francis,
little flutterings and leapings from the pine's forelock,
resettling his strong feet each time among the branches,
I am recalled,

from so many wrong paths I can't count them,
simply to stand, and listen.
All my life I have lived in a kind of haste and darkness
of desire, ambition, accomplishment.

Now the bird is singing, but not anymore of this world.
And something inside myself is fluttering and leaping, is
trying

to type it down, in lumped-up language,
in outcry, in patience, in music, in a snow-white book.

--- Mary Oliver

For all my friends who are gone especially  - Dennis , Fr. Joe and Kathy who left us this past summer



amdg