A writing exercise recently posted in my online writing group was named the Adjective Project. Actually, it should have been called The Missing Adjective Project because the goal was to write a descriptive poem or story using few nor no adjectives. It happened to coincide with another morning at which my kitchen window revealed a bountiful display of moonflowers. Here is the missing adjectives poem. I might have done without the rest of the words, since a picture can be worth a thousand of them…
I greet morning as I see moonflowers blooming at dawn.
Our first cool spell is blowing in here, and we will pull out our sweaters and go outside to enjoy crisp, cool mornings this week. To be sure, we are beginning to see a few leaves loose their green and turn yellow. Our crepe myrtles and Bradford pears will give us some fall colors in their foliage. But this time of year I miss the piney woods of Northeast Texas where I grew up. Seasonal change was more pronounced there, and I loved watching for the woods to glow with Sweet Gum and the scarlet leaves of Sumac. However, I believe in enjoying what I have, and this single leaf brought me joy. Masses of even New England’s wonders and color palette are beautiful, but they are there and then. I am here and now, and so is my leaf and its lovely shadow.
This blurry photo is one of those that I am tempted to discard because it is less than I set out to accomplish, then allow it to draw me back for a “think about it” moment. I captured the image standing at my kitchen sink, which produced mostly a silhouette of the busy little bird, wings frantically buzzing while snatching tiny tastes from the feeder. I watch for him, but I seldom glimpse his full glory even though I am inches away because he is on the move.
A hummingbird garden is not a still garden. The arrival of hummingbirds at our feeders brings the scene alive with dashes of color as they whir and whirl about, darting in for a sip of nectar, wheeling out to sit momentarily on a twig, then barreling back full speed to catch another drop or two.
It is in those moments of perching stillness that I find these tiny creatures giving me a deep life lesson. In all their quickness and industry, it is only as I catch the still seconds that I can see their feathers, really absorb the rich brilliance of their unique coloring. If there were no stops and stilling, however brief, how could they continue their pace, how would energy continue for gathering of nourishment?
“The hummingbird goes a step beyond – they are perpetual motion. I remember when I first saw a hummingbird still. It was startling. As it can be for us – it can be startling for us to be still. Yet we must.” ~ David Arms
The above words quote an artist who uses birds, and hummingbirds in particular often in his work, which calls me to come home, and be still.
My kitchen window frames an ever-changing work of art. The Morning Glory and Moon Flower Vines grow and twine, spreading their heart-shaped leaves for morning sun to cast light through. The pea vine tendrils hurry to fill the gaps. Then there are the blooms! White tissue paper blooms at night for the Moon Flowers. Rich purple trumpets herald morning for the Glories, and the brightest cerulean blue buds are offered by the pea vine. If that weren’t enough show and variation, light changes the colors as the sun moves across the sky all day long. I know it is just a window frame, but the gifts of the Creator it contains are never the same twice, and always make me breath a “Thank You” as I reach to pour my coffee early in the day, and at every kitchen sink task all day long.
For many years now, I have believed that when I find a feather, it is a reminder to me that little things are important, and that I am kept in the shadow of God’s wing. I have found feathers in the most unusual and unexpected places, when I wasn’t really looking. When my mother was dying, I went out to the car to drive back to sit with her. When I got to the edge of the lawn, I had to step over the median. When I looked down, I found a large black and green duck feather sticking straight up out of the grass. A wisp of a feather floated by and stuck on my windshield on another occasion when I sorely needed the reminder.
I had a little feather that was a wonder to me for years. I don’t remember where I found it or exactly when, although I kept it in a little birthday reminder book that was given to me in 1987, the year we moved to Indonesia. I put it there in the beginning because on that page there is a drawing of that same feather, right down to the size (tiny) and colors and markings (black and white). I was amazed at that. Usually the process is different…you find the object, then obtain or make its resemblance.
The other special thing about that feather was that it lived between the pages of the birthday calendar book where my oldest son’s name is written, January 13, his birthday. And that it was still there, through 2 moves in Jakarta, an international shipping, and the busy household shuffling of my kitchen desk every day. Feathers usually don’t stay. They drift in and blow away. But this little feather stayed between the pages and always caused me to smile when I came upon it. It reminded me of joy in small things, of hope … of lines of poetry and scripture, and that gifts can come when you open your hand and heart, and sometimes, the door. I gave the feather to my son on his birthday last year, telling him I hoped it would serve as a reminder of the same things for him. (This story was posted in the blog last September.)
I still find feathers. And they are still reminders for me of joy and faith…and that I am under the shadow of His wing. A favorite author, Leigh McElroy, likes finding feathers too. She reminds me that God may wink or whisper in the way He reminds me of His presence, and that He delights in delighting me with the littlest of things. The opening scene in a movie loved by many tells a story of a feather found and kept.
On our back porch is a basket of stones. On each, a word is printed with white paint that has worn over time. I use these as prayer reminders, but the children love handling the smooth stones. Sometimes they are warm, sometimes cool, but always good to the touch. This week I noticed my 5-year-old granddaughter, Maddie, moving the stones around, then going out to pick flowers to bring inside. As I started to open the back door, I found one smooth black stone lying at the doorsill. This was the one with Forgiveness dimly written across its surface. I looked back at Maddie, who called “I put that there for you. It is special.” And I thought how right she was, what a needed reminder, what a precious gift. A gift rom a 5-year-old little girl who thought it was pretty, from loved ones to whom I may have failed to encourage and bless, from my heavenly Father, who offers it so freely and loves me unconditionally. Forgiveness is indeed a gift. Now that I consider it, so are the words written on all the other stones.
Light for my darkness
Courage for my fear Hope for my despair Peace for my turmoil Joy for my sorrow. Strength for my weakness. Wisdom for my confusion. Forgiveness for my sins.
Love for my hates
Thy Self for my self.
Taken from At The Opening of the Day
By Howard Thurman
When I am writing, I roll words around in my mind like I am tasting something. Reading a word, speaking a word,hearing a word, or writing a word may be as breathtaking as holding a lovely piece of glass to the light. As a mother, I delighted in a baby’s first word. The first word a child reads for himself brings a sense of accomplishment for him and encouragement from others. Of course, we find meaning as we begin to string words together in thoughts and sentences, and the words used in the craft of story telling are amazing tools, but a single word when considered alone can be a source of amazement.
My husband, Joe, and I had the same English teacher in high school. Mr. Everett loved the word murmur . A musical friend’s favorite word is alleluia. I love the words dappled and candlelight. Author and world traveler Francis Mayes says that two of her favorite words are linked together: “departure” and “time”. Poet Molly Peacock says she first fell in love with the word joy because it had a circle inside!
I think I fell in love with poetry because I love tasting the words and looking at them through the light.
I think Gerard Manley Hopkins may have felt that way, too.
Pied Beauty
Glory be to God for dappled things—
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trades, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spáre, strange;
Whatever is fickle, frecklèd (who knows how?)
With swíft, slów; sweet, sóur; adázzle, dím;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is pást change:
“Happiness? The color of it must be spring green, impossible to describe until I see a just-hatched lizard sunning on a stone. That color, the glowing green lizard skin, repeats in every new leaf… The regenerative power of nature explodes in every weed, stalk, branch. Working in the mild sun, I feel the green fuse of my body, too. Surges of energy, kaleidoscopic sunlight through the leaves, the soft breeze that makes me want to say the word “zephyr”—this mindless simplicity can be called happiness.”
—Frances Mayes
What color is my happiness? I could easily say Frances Mayes has said it all, that yes, the color of my happiness is spring green seen in the glowing leaf and lizard, weed and branch. That green does fuel my energy, and I have always loved the dappled sunlight as I stand under swaying branches with leaves transformed into countless shades of green. Indeed, this “mindless simplicity can be called happiness”.
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However, on this Monday, I am soaked in the exhilaration that comes from Eastering. The Alleluias of Sunday morning and joy of my granddaughters as they experienced awe and wonder in all the Easter colors filled my happy cup to the brim. Several years ago, after experiencing a season of sharply declining vision due to a corneal disease, I received cornea transplants, the gift of 2 donor families. Two weeks following the first surgery, as I sat out by our pond, I suddenly realized I could see the cobalt blue of an iris. I was shot through with happiness and gratitude that I could see that flower clearly.
This day, a different way of seeing for me means receiving the gift of seeing through the eyes of my granddaughters as they marveled at golden Day Lilies, orange fish swishing in the pond, and royal purples of the Zinnias and Salvia. The colors of happiness are the same as those of gratitude, I think. Alleluia!
Included in my writings for Lent, these words are taken from two hymns written for the same hymn tune, Morning Has Broken and Child in a Manger. The original melody was noted by Alexander Fraser from a wandering Scottish Highland minstrel. Mary McDonald (1789 – 1872) wrote the words of the nativity hymn. Later, Eleanor Farjeon wrote words for the same tune which were originally printed in 1931 but not copyrighted until 1957 under its correct title, A Morning Song for the First Day of Spring.
Until today, I had never considered the two sets of words together and when I did as I listened to the haunting tune, I felt a connection between the thoughts of the two women. My heart filled as I considered the continuity and the depth of holding God’s work of creation, nativity, death, and resurrection in my own thoughts. First Eden, then Bethlehem, then on to Jerusalem.
Stones and Feathers 