We don’t lay our heads down to read and sleep until close to midnight. Sunday near the witching hour our Blink camera system alerted us to activity in our front yard. Alerts at night are either a moth flying around, winds, or the occasional spider web. But this night was different.
Category: Nature
Summer weather is stalling here in the Pacific Northwest. A day here or there. Maybe two. Yet we are still waiting for warmer days.
Weather predictions of an atmospheric river brought in rain showers last Friday. The large magnificent rhododendron blossoms we had watched open didn’t last long. Intermittent heavy rain showers changed them quickly.
Sitting here in the Pacific NW in mid-April, dark gray days with rain one day, snow the next. Sometimes wind and thunderstorms. Dumping of hail yesterday; it lingers still. I watch for nature’s population. Mary Oliver had a unique perspective on nature as can be seen in her poem, On Winter’s Margin.
I had another post underway for today, but our weather patterns in Oregon have been rather strange. Maybe they are mystifying where you live as well. One day last week we enjoyed a sunny day with a temperature of 75. Then our weather predictors began talking snow from the height of the mountains down to the valley floor where we live. My first paragraph above describes this week, so far. These conditions drew me to Oliver’s poem.
Now sit back and enjoy Mary Oliver’s poem. As always, Oliver fills her stanzas with an understanding of shadow and light both in nature and in human nature.
Sherrey
Featured Image Attribution: Photo by Valentin Hintikka on Unsplash
ON WINTER'S MARGIN by Mary Oliver
On winter’s margin, see the small birds now
With half-forged memories come flocking home
To gardens famous for their charity.
The green globe’s broken; vines like tangled veins
Hang at the entrance to the silent wood.
With half a loaf, I am the prince of crumbs;
By snow’s down, the birds amassed will sing
Like children for their sire to walk abroad!
But what I love, is the gray stubborn hawk
Who floats alone beyond the frozen vines;
And what I dream of are the patient deer
Who stand on legs like reeds and drink that wind; -
They are what saves the world: who choose to grow
Thin to a starting point beyond this squalor.
~~ From Famous Poets & Poems
The Well Rising
The well rising without sound,
the spring on a hillside,
the plowshare brimming through deep ground
everywhere in the field—
The sharp swallows in their swerve
flaring and hesitating
hunting for the final curve
coming closer and closer—
The swallow heart from wingbeat to wingbeat
counseling decision, decision:
thunderous examples. I place my feet
with care in such a world.
with care in such a world.
For a biography of William E. Stafford, please visit Poetry Foundation.
“The Well Rising” copyright 1960, 1998 the Estate of William Stafford. Reprinted from The Way It Is with the permission of Graywolf Press.
Source: The Darkness Round Us Is Deep (HarperPerennial, 1993)
Just when you think the seasons have begun to change, you’re pulled up short by the weather forecast. You see we thought winter might not hit our area too hard this year. Temperatures were unusually warm for several days. Flowers are blooming early. Birds are singing and nest building. Sounds like spring, doesn’t it?
In fact, our white hellebores have been blooming for almost two months now. They are hardy plants and don’t seem to fear the weather. Continue reading
Recent weather reports from the nor’easters blasting the eastern coastline as well as the storms to the north of us in Washington state brought back memories. As I watched the news, I was taken back to the year 1951.
To a child’s delight, snow began to fall on January 28, 1951, as did a lot of ice in the form of freezing rain (to no adult’s delight). Winds blew taking down power poles. Roads were blocked by fallen trees. How little I knew about the wildness and harm of it all. Continue reading
Licensing with Creative Commons
Life in the Slow Lane by Sherrey Meyer is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0
