Landmark

Bone Shard Tree Trunk ©dorahak

Somehow this decayed tree trunk standing upright like a shard of a giant’s bone brought me to a standstill during a recent walk.

Landmark

Unignorable as stone
Is the giant bone that lies
Alone
In a long forgotten zone
Left there by a sullen
Crone
Now she lives in Provolone
Eating cheese upon her
Throne


For Cee’s Flower of the Day: “Don’t forget that my FOTD challenge accepts gardens, leaves and berries as well as flowers.

Haiku Bouquet

can it be
you and me
in heaven?

        in the spring
        dance begins
        to flower

                come summer
                time’s bouquet
                radiant

                                in autumn
                                we breathe scents
                                of harvest

                                          winter turns
                                          on icy
                                          heels, shivers

                                                            time is now
                                                            eternal
                                                            singing day

                                                                                   first Adam
                                                                                   fell, second
                                                                                   Adam saves


1 Corinthians 15:21-28
For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead.
For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.
But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ.
Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power.
For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.
The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For “God has put all things in subjection under his feet.” But when it says, “all things are put in subjection,” it is plain that he is excepted who put all things in subjection under him.
When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all.

Retro Haiku 3-3-3
Eugi's Weekly Prompt – Bouquet – September 16
Cee's Flower of the Day

Perfect Peace

Gingko leaves

You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.

Trust in the LORD forever, for the LORD GOD is an everlasting rock.

Isaiah 26:3-4
For Cee's FOTD, August 22, 2021: See the beautiful pink hibiscus on her site!
Flower of the Day Challenge (FOTD).  
"Please feel free to post every day or when you you feel like it.  
Don’t forget that my FOTD challenge accepts gardens, leaves and berries as well as flowers."

More Arms to Reach You

If I had more arms to reach You
Would that help? But You say,
Two will do now
To reach my neighbor.

Eyes upward, arms outward: Happy Lord’s Day

“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.

John 15:12

Check out more flower photography at Cee’s FOTD challenge for April 25, 2021

Bald Cypress

Cee’s FOTD Challenge

Cee’s Flower of the Day 9-10-2020

A Bald Cypress with summer-ripened seeds
Cypress trees are able to endure harsh climates and poor soil.
Unique seed of the Bald Cypress: The cypress tree often symbolizes healing and eternal life.

Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress; instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle; and it shall make a name for the LORD, an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.”

Isaiah 55:13

Common-Place Jotting: “Planting Trees”

Common-Place or “Locus Communis” — a place to remember

John Updike (1932-2009) still casts a long shadow on the literary landscape. His writings were varied and many, but his craftsmanship set the standard among his contemporaries. He was only one of four writers who won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction more than once.

Born in Reading, Pennsylvania, he once described his subject as “the American small town, Protestant middle-class” everyman. His clarity of style and expression is the hallmark of his writing, causing a critic for The Guardian to warn, “The clarity of Updike’s poetry should not obscure its class.”

The following poem quickly became one of my favorites for its simple directness and descriptive force in conveying the grace available in the simple act of “Planting Trees.” The poem is from his fifth collection of poetry, Facing Nature.

Planting Trees                                                                 John Updike

Our last connection with the mythic.
My mother remembers the day as a girl
she jumped across a little spruce
that now overtops the sandstone house
where still she lives; her face delights
at the thought of her years translated
into wood so tall, into so mighty
a peer of the birds and the wind.

Too, the old farmer still stout of step
treads through the orchard he has outlasted
but for some hollow-trunked much-lopped
apples and Bartlett pears. The dogwood
planted to mark my birth flowers each April,
a soundless explosion. We tell its story
time after time: the drizzling day,
the fragile sapling that had to be staked.

At the back of our acre here, my wife and I,
freshly moved in, freshly together,
transplanted two hemlocks that guarded our door
gloomily, green gnomes a meter high.
One died, gray as sagebrush next spring.
The other lives on and some day will dominate
this view no longer mine, its great
lazy feathery hemlock limbs down-drooping,
its tent-shaped caverns resinous and deep.
Then may I return, an old man, a trespasser,
and remember and marvel to see
our small deed, that hurried day,
so amplified, like a story through layers of air
told over and over, spreading.

2560px-john_updike_childhood_home_shillington_berks_county-1

Light Showers and Maple Leaves

For Cee’s FOTD challenge, an unexpected summer rain had me scurrying under this young maple tree and wondering, Where do trees go to hide from storms? Or is the canopy of the sky providence enough, frowning though it may be? From it God waters thirsty roots and showers drops of light to hang on parched leaves, and oh, how they glisten and shake with joy in the breeze!

maple-leaves-in-rain-2