Monday, November 10, 2025

Getting through it

 It was 72 degrees Sunday afternoon as we covered plants in the garden and put insulation around the drip irrigation lines.

It’s supposed to be 34 this morning and 26 tomorrow.

I filled the bird feeders, thinking of Kim Stafford’s poem about a sparrow, giving itself instructions, worried about the eggs.

 

Use your body to be the tent over tender pebbles,

lopsided moons. Then wait, warm, alert, still

through wind and rain, hawk-shadow, owl night.

 

Stafford says that when we humans are enduring hawk-shadow and owl night, we ought to learn from the sparrow. Use instinct, thought and wisdom, the poet says. Get through it.

Before bedtime, I put logs and kindling in the fireplace, ready for morning.

• Source: Kim Stafford, Singer Come from Afar; Pasadena, Calif.: Red Hen Press, 2021, p. 18.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Getting through it

 It was 72 degrees Sunday afternoon as we covered plants in the garden and put insulation around the drip irrigation lines. It’s supposed to...