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The Twelfth Of Ever
We slept in our recliners again last night, and it was a good sleep, as soundless and swaying as if we had been in the depths of the salty sea. Good until 1:30 AM, that is. That was the hour Jinx decided to say hello to his cousins, the coyotes, who were up on the far ridge singing their aria to the open face of the moon. He was right under the windows behind us, and he chuffed one short bark, then lifted his voice in a baritone howl that lasted a good quarter of a minute. I sat up and felt the atavistic hair on the back of my…
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The Adolescence Of The Season
We slept in our recliners last night, and other than a bit of tossy-turnyness, it wasn’t a bad night’s sleep. When we awakened, I found that it had gone chilly overnight. Rain is supposed to move in again later today, and the next few days the temperatures will drop a bit, with frost a possibility. Spring in this region is a sort of seasonal adolescence. Unsettled and mercurial, with expected patterns and routines suddenly tumped-over by exciting or terrifying changes, then calming back down to a slow flow. This makes the days seem shorter, the evening skies more dramatic after the cloud sprites have had at the heavens with their…
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Content
When I stepped out onto the damp boards of the back deck before dawn, I could hear the spring frogs down in the holler, calling from the natural marsh of the stock pond. Dixee brushed past me out the door, pattering down the steps to relieve herself in the grass, and a cardinal in the pines warmed up, his chips and clicks crescendoing into a song of dark morning color. I saw the wisp of light in the eastern sky and longed to stay at the farm, longed to stay away from town, away from chattering voices and intrusive opinions and the moldy crumbs of civility that pass for conversation…
- Church Life, Daily Life, Holy Days, I Never Thought I'd Be In This Situation, Lectio Divina, Prayers, Reflections
Lourdes, Lourdes
I’ve avoided writing about the current health scare for the same reason that I’ve avoided talking about it at length. There are too many sources of disparate, conflicting information, almost none of whom I trust, and I lack both the intellectual rigor and the sort of personality that delights in wading through all this dismal stuff. I suppose my stance on this situation is akin to my grandmother’s. I remember one day in the Seventies when a young plumber tried to engage her in a conversation about diet and heart disease. He presented all sorts of facts and figures in an evangelist’s voice, his eyes shining in his earnest face.…
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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…
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Winter Has Ended
Today is for me a vivid reminder of all that slumbers during the cold and bleak times, when all seems dark or lost or hopeless or lonely or silent or uncaring. Beneath the covering of dead and moldering leaves, beneath the sheen of tenacious frost, behind the apparently lifeless gray sticks and clumps — life itself slumbers. May the Giver of all life bless us with a strong sense of His presence, and may we expend our energies in following our own unique God-given paths, and less energies in worrying about the jackals that howl and bark from the underbrush on either side. The world is awakening from its slumber.…
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Even Within A Mere Ninety-Six
At the end of a trying day, I was driving home through the late winter mist, watching the cars near me for the too-frequent signs of someone texting while driving, thinking of the long walk I would take Jinx on after I got home and fed him supper, determined to find a way to control some of his excess energy. My phone rang. My wife was calling. “I have some sad news,” she said. “Okay….” “Helen [our nearest neighbor, from the next farm over] called me. A man came by, and he was looking for his dog. It was Jinx.” I felt my throat close like a fist. “Oh…
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Luck Of The Paw
I took off yesterday from work so that I could take care of some things on which I’ve been procrastinating. It was Friday the 13th, so it seemed an appropriate day to venture out and seek accomplishments. The main objective was to take care of some business with the Veteran’s Administration. The closest VA center is located a few towns over, and we got an early start. My wife and I found our way to the sprawling campus and were surprised at how busy it was. Friendly guides were everywhere, helping the incoming veterans to park and to find which building they needed to transact their business. We watched silver-haired…
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Blood Flowing
In cold weather, cardinals nest together in the boughs of evergreen trees, huddling as a group for warmth. Just now, as the faintest line of light ran along the eastern horizon, I heard the faint pip of a cardinal in the large pine outside. And I have to wonder, as I sometimes do, if they stretch when they wake up. Dogs do. Cats do. Do cardinals open their masked eyes , yawn with their conical beaks — that’s another question…do birds yawn? I can’t recall if I ever saw any of my chickens yawn — or open their wings wide and get in a good pinion-cracking stretch, just to get…
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Aches And Pains
Sometimes I feel ancient. When I do, I look over at the little Texas girl I married, and I remember, and it all softens down into gratitude and the fullness of life that only comes with quiet ruminations, heads close together, shared sighs, shared tears, shared worries, conversations without human speech. We’re together. And for me, together is enough, because even death will see us holding on with the grip of love. Of love. ~ S.K. Orr