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Mow No Mo
Late yesterday afternoon, I decided to do my final full mowing of the year, since the temperatures are slated to drop steadily throughout this week. This is typically the timeframe in which I drive the little yellow tractor out of the barn for the last time of the season. It was a most glorious day to ride the machine and cut the grass down. I did the front and back yards, along with the front meadow. My neighbor’s son always mows the south pasture because he rakes and bales the grass for hay. I chewed up the leaves with the blades and they will make good compost material; I’m determined…
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A Short Testament
Often, prayer is beyond me, and this is due to many things. Poetry can so often herald the inner storm that might burst into prayer, but sometimes does not. This poem by Anne Porter is one of those lightning-rod works. I hope you feel its power and its pathos. ~ S.K. Orr A Short Testament by Anne Porter Whatever harm I may have done In all my life in all your wide creation creation If I cannot repair it I beg you to repair it, And then there are all the wounded The poor the deaf the lonely and the old Whom I have roughly dismissed As if I…
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Melancholy’s Voice: A Familiar Timbre
Today, a poem each from two of my favorites, Elizabeth Jennings and Edward Dixon Garner. Since my first encounter with each of these poets, their words have arisen from the page like incense, like the breath of two wistful friends speaking in my ear. On days like today, I seek them out, and they are faithful to me. ~ S.K. Orr Answers I kept my answers small and kept them near; Big questions bruised my mind but still I let Small answers be a bulwark to my fear. The huge abstractions I kept from the light; Small things I handled and caressed and loved. I let the stars assume the…
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Behind A Pane of Glass
In 1992, the English poet Elizabeth Jennings was awarded the Commander of the British Empire (CBE) by Queen Elizabeth II for “highly distinguished and innovative contribution on a national level.” By this time, Jennings, a fragile and eccentric woman and a brilliant poet, was beginning to show stress marks. She was increasingly reclusive and erratic, and perhaps many of her friends thought she was fantasizing when she told them that she would receive the CBE from Her Majesty, the Queen. On the day of the ceremony at Buckingham Palace, Jennings’ sister Aileen helped her dress for the event. She wore a flowered skirt, knitted sweater, red wool beret, black oversize…
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Something That Will Not Rest
I have been a foolish, greedy, and ignorant man; Yet I have had my time beneath the sun and stars; I have known the returning strength and sweetness of the seasons, Blossom on the branch and the ripening of fruit, The deep rest of the grass, the salt of the sea, The frozen ecstasy of mountains. The earth is nobler than the world we have built upon it; The earth is long-suffering, solid, fruitful; The world is still shifting, dark, half-evil. But what have I done that I should have a better world, Even though there is in me something that will not rest Until it sees Paradise…? Johnson in…
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Notes From The Devil’s Trumpet
Last weekend, we went to a small town an hour north of us, one of those little places that we’ve been aware of but never explored. The main draw was a used book store, where we thought we might find some treasures. Before going to the store, we detoured to a park located at the top of a nearby mountain. The mountain has several campsites, picnic areas, and hiking trails. There is a series of reservoirs where one can boat. The day being quite hot, we decided not to hike, but took careful bearings related to all that we saw, and we determined to return at some point and do…
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Hidden, Buried, Forgotten
Hidden, Buried, Forgotten There’s no mistake, we have our stretching conversation. He’s been alive before my name was bound but he’s fully new to me, calling to me when I daydreamed past him on a sultry afternoon. This time I stopped and leaned against him to loosen my boot and spill a pebble into the grass, and I thought I felt him shift beneath the puny press of my hand. I noticed how a board was fastened to him with large nails, making him a part of the cattle fence beside his trunk. The green-stain of moss was daubed along the bark, a raw patina of time and what he’d…