For The Beauty

The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees
Is my destroyer.
And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose
My youth is bent by the same wintry fever.

The force that drives the water through the rocks
Drives my red blood; that dries the mouthing streams
Turns mine to wax.
And I am dumb to mouth unto my veins
How at the mountain spring the same mouth sucks.

The hand that whirls the water in the pool
Stirs the quicksand; that ropes the blowing wind
Hauls my shroud sail.
And I am dumb to tell the hanging man
How of my clay is made the hangman’s lime.

The lips of time leech to the fountain head;
Love drips and gathers, but the fallen blood
Shall calm her sores.
And I am dumb to tell a weather’s wind
How time has ticked a heaven round the stars.

And I am dumb to tell the lover’s tomb
How at my sheet goes the same crooked worm.

— Dylan Thomas

This morning we’re awaiting the delivery of a new washer and dryer. I hated to spend the money, but it’s a true necessary purchase. The washer has never been a good one. We bought it a few years ago and it worked well for about a year, and then started doing all kinds of squirrelly stuff, stopping in the middle of cycles, not cleaning well, spitting green pea soup at us. What was particularly vexing was that it was one of those without a central agitator. Reputed to clean clothes reeeeeeeeally well, and using less water, and all that virtuous green jazz. When it became possessed by the demon of Malfunction (say…that actually does sound like the name of a demon, doesn’t it?), we scouted around for repairs and found out that these high-tech things usually cost over $400.00 to diagnose and repair. No deal, Lucille. so we toughed it out and manually advanced the cycles and did other homegrown tweaks to make the thing work.

But last week, the dryer quit working on us. We bought it about twenty years ago in Texas at a small family-owned appliance store with a big guardian angel on the sign out on the highway. It has worked perfectly for all these years, until about the time that the worthless washing machine began to go south. At that time, the dryer began making a loud rattling noise as it would near the end of a drying cycle. So when it finally completely died on us last week, we decided to replace both them in one fell swoop. My wife did exhaustive research and found us a budget-friendly pair, as low-tech as she could find, and the washing machine has a big, scary agitator dead in the middle of the bin, or tub, or bucket, or whatever the place where you put the clothes is called. She also got us free delivery and a small charge to carry off the old appliances. So here we wait, listening for the phone to announce that the deliverymen are enroute.

Outside, the world is a pure wonder. Inside, too. A few minutes ago, I started to hand my wife her laptop, and saw a large red wasp crawling cross its black surface. I got a cup and trapped him, then slid him off onto a book with the cup over him, then took him to the door and tossed him into the cool morning air. I felt like Rutger Hauer with a dove. In the rain. Except that it wasn’t raining.

But I stood there at the door and drank in all that I could see and hear and smell. The necklaces of young leaves on the weeping willow tree, and the pink blossoms of the peach and nectarine trees behind it, and the clumps of wild onions humped up across the front garden, and the rain-filled birdbath with the breeze pushing ripples across its surface that would have done credit to any lake or pond. The glistening sticks of the Japanese maple with its weensy buds up and down their maroon lengths. The damp grass-tang on the back of my tongue as I inhaled, and the braying call of an impatient bull up on the ridge. As every season does, the spring resurrection has taken me unawares, unprepared, flat aback like an unwary midshipman. My thoughts are already worrying with the lawn mower and the various implements and tools that I will begin using after their half-year rest.

There in one of the Japanese maples are the cords with the hooks at the ends from which will dangle the hummingbird feeders. There across the frame over the stone bench are the already-filling grape vines. There behind the fence are the blossoming forsythia, as yellow as the pollen that will coat every surface and torment my wife for months to come. There are the drowsy bumblebees, already investigating the miniature azalea that hasn’t yet put its spring wardrobe on display. Here are the cardinals, the blue jays, the chickadees, the robins, the nuthatches, the titmice, the cedar waxwings, the Carolina wrens, the meadowlarks, the wood thrush, the sparrows, the starlings, the hawks, the orioles, and yes, the crows, each singing and soaring and calling and watching and eating and waiting in this largest of all rooms, the hall of creation.

I stood there and let it all enter me, and I loved every molecule of it. And I do believe, my skeptical friends, that it all loved me back.

It’s glorious, isn’t it? Look at the humble grass, or the lowly dandelion. What can stop the power that lifts it up and causes the life to course through it and leads it through its life-cycle? Who can interfere with it? Even in the middle of an urban area, go and look at the weed or the stalk of grass pushing up through the asphalt or the sidewalk crack. Can you touch your finger to the palm of your hand with the amount of force the weed exerts against that implacable stony stuff? No…you do not have the ability to be that light, that gentle. Nor do you have the patient power to push aside such overwhelming mass.

But look out your window, out your door. Behold all that power, all that life-force. The word “awesome” has been overused to the point of tediousness, but what you see outside on this March day is truly and profoundly awesome. The force that pulses through those countless green fuses is staggering. And it is all around us. Look not to the trifles of the inconstant people around you. Look to the eternal glory of that force…and to its Source. Look to the mystery: the force that gives us life will one day kill us. And this is a good thing. It is a truly good thing.

What a glorious day. And what a wonder to be driven by the force of life within us, the force freely given to us.

~ S.K. Orr