{"id":16871,"date":"2015-06-19T12:22:08","date_gmt":"2015-06-19T16:22:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=16871"},"modified":"2015-07-18T06:54:51","modified_gmt":"2015-07-18T10:54:51","slug":"a-day-of-small-things","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2015\/06\/a-day-of-small-things\/","title":{"rendered":"A Day of Small Things"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"'Invasion<\/a><\/p>\n

[Image: “Invasion of Nature,” by user AndreasS on Flickr<\/a>. (Used under a Creative Commons license.)]<\/em><\/p>\n

From whiskey river<\/a><\/em>:<\/p>\n

The contemplation of nature has two correlative aspects. First, it means appreciating the “thusness” or “thisness” of particular things, persons and moments. We are to see each stone, each leaf, each blade of grass, each frog, each human face, for what it truly is, in all the distinctness and intensity of its specific being. As the prophet Zechariah warns us, we are not to “despise the day of small things.” “True mysticism”, says Olivier Cl\u00e9ment, “is to discover the extraordinary in the ordinary.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Kallistos Ware [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and<\/a> (italicized portion):<\/p>\n

The things that make our lives are so tenuous, so unlikely, that we barely come into being, barely meet the people we’re meant to love, barely find our way in the woods, barely survive catastrophe every day<\/em>…<\/p>\n

Everyone has stories of the small coincidence by which their parents met or their grandmother was saved from fire or their grandfather from the grenade, of the choice made by the most whimsical means that led to everything else, whether you’re blessed or cursed or both. Trace it back far enough and this very moment in your life becomes a rare species, the result of a strange evolution, a butterfly that should already be extinct and survives by the inexplicabilities we call coincidence. The word is often used to mean the accidental but literally means to fall together. The patterns of our lives come from those things that do not drift apart but move together for a little while, like dancers.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Rebecca Solnit [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

A Blessing for Wedding<\/strong><\/p>\n

Today when persimmons ripen
\nToday when fox-kits come out of their den into snow
\nToday when the spotted egg releases its wren song
\nToday when the maple sets down its red leaves
\nToday when windows keep their promise to open
\nToday when fire keeps its promise to warm
\nToday when someone you love has died
\nor someone you never met has died<\/span>
\nToday when someone you love has been born
\nor someone you will not meet has been born<\/span>
\nToday when rain leaps to the waiting of roots in their dryness
\nToday when starlight bends to the roofs of the hungry and tired
\nToday when someone sits long inside his last sorrow
\nToday when someone steps into the heat of her first embrace
\nToday, let this light bless you
\nWith these friends let it bless you
\nWith snow-scent and lavender bless you
\nLet the vow of this day keep itself wildly and wholly
\nSpoken and silent, surprise you inside your ears
\nSleeping and waking, unfold itself inside your eyes
\nLet its fierceness and tenderness hold you
\nLet its vastness be undisguised in all your days<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Jane Hirshfield [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Not from whiskey river<\/em>:<\/p>\n

The Second Music<\/strong><\/p>\n

Now I understand that there are two melodies playing,
\none below the other, one easier to hear, the other<\/p>\n

lower, steady, perhaps more faithful for being less heard
\nyet always present.<\/p>\n

When all other things seem lively and real,
\nthis one fades. Yet the notes of it<\/p>\n

touch as gently as fingertips, as the sound
\nof the names laid over each child at birth.<\/p>\n

I want to stay in that music without striving or cover.
\nIf the truth of our lives is what it is playing,<\/p>\n

the telling is so soft
\nthat this mortal time, this irrevocable change,<\/p>\n

becomes beautiful. I stop and stop again
\nto hear the second music.<\/p>\n

I hear the children in the yard, a train, then birds.
\nAll this is in it and will be gone. I set my ear to it as I would to a heart.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Annie Lighthart [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

With her fork she bisected a crisp slice of bacon, a piece so brittle the fork barely had to touch it; she then halved the two fragments, then the smaller four, then the resulting eight, and so on, working with the quietly fanatical precision of all those people whose job it is to divide small things into smaller things, who live on the rim of insanity; finally there was nothing left of the slice but a hundred decimal points. Did the bacon represent the insignificance of numbers; the futile quest for infinity; the indivisible nature of God as opposed to the fractional promiscuity of numbers?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Don DeLillo [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

Mowing<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sleepy and suburban at dusk,
\nI learn again the yard’s
\ngeometry, edging around the garden
\nand the weedy knots of flowers, circling
\ntrees and shrubs, giving
\na wide berth to the berry patch,
\nheavy and sprawled out of its bounds.
\nShoving such a machine
\naround a fairway of dandelions,
\nit is easy to feel absurd.
\nThe average lawn, left alone
\none hundred years, could become
\na hardwood forest. An admirable project.
\nStill I carry on, following week on week
\nthe same mowing pattern, cutting edges,
\nalmost sprinting the last narrow swaths.
\nAnd tonight, as I mow over
\nthe bushels of fallen peaches,
\nsending pits soaring over the neighbors\u2019 fences,
\nseems hardly any different.
\nBut on one crooked march I walk
\nacross the thin hidden hole
\nto a yellowjacket hive. The blade pulls
\nthem up from their deep sweet chamber
\njust as my bare legs go by.<\/p>\n

A bee lands heavily,
\nall blunder and revenge, and the sting
\nis a quick embrace and release,
\nlike the dared kid\u2019s run and touch
\nof a blind man. I’m blind now
\nwith the shock and pain of it,
\nhowling in a sprint toward the house,
\nthe mower flopped on its side, wild blade loose
\nin the darkening air.
\nLater,<\/span>
\nthe motor sputtered quiet, starved by tilt,
\nI\u2019m back in the twilight,
\na half-dozen stings packed in wet tobacco,
\ncarrying a can of gasoline, a five-foot torch.
\nThe destruction is easy: shove can
\nslow to entranceway lip, pull
\nback and light torch, use torch
\nto tip can. One low whump and it\u2019s over.
\nA few flaming drones flutter out and fall.
\nStragglers, late returners, cruise
\nwide circles around the ruins.
\nIn the cool September night they fly
\nor die. In the morning I finish my chores.<\/p>\n

All the way to winter the blackened hole
\nremains. On Christmas Eve a light
\nlate snow covers it and all
\nthe lawn\u2019s other imperfections: crabgrass
\nhummocks, high maple roots,
\nthe mushroom-laden fairy ring that defies
\nobliteration and appears every spring
\nmore visible than ever. Standing
\nin the window, the scent
\nof pine powerful around me,
\nthe snap of wood undoing itself in the stove,
\nI wonder at this thin and cold
\ncamouflage, falling,
\ngradually falling over what has gone
\nand grown before. And I hear
\nthat other rattle and report, that engine
\ndriven by another fire. I think of a gold
\nthat is sweet and unguent, a gold
\nthat is a blaze of years behind me.
\nI hear wind in its regular passes
\nblowing across the roof,
\nfeel in my legs a minute and icy tingling,
\nas though I have stood too long
\nin one place or made again another wrong step,
\nas though the present itself
\nwere a kind of memory, coiled, waiting,
\ndying to be seen from tomorrow.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Robert Wrigley [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Image: “Invasion of Nature,” by user AndreasS on Flickr. (Used under a Creative Commons license.)] From whiskey river: The contemplation of nature has two correlative aspects. First, it means appreciating the “thusness” or “thisness” of particular things, persons and moments. We are to see each stone, each leaf, each blade of grass, each frog, each […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[183,247,1393,250,5,50,251],"tags":[270,1423,3533,3884,4072,4073],"class_list":{"0":"post-16871","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-everyday-life","7":"category-ruminations","8":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","9":"category-art","10":"category-06_writing","11":"category-language-writing_cat","12":"category-poetry-writing_cat","13":"tag-jane-hirshfield","14":"tag-don-delillo","15":"tag-robert-wrigley","16":"tag-rebecca-solnit","17":"tag-annie-lighthart","18":"tag-kallistos-ware","19":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-4o7","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16871"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16871\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16881,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16871\/revisions\/16881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}