Our college reunion is coming up this weekend

 

Here is half of the group photo of our class in our second year.  Can you find me?

It will be my 52nd. COVID closed us down for 1970 and 71, so all three of our classes are celebrating our 50th this year.  It makes sense, since all three of our classes lived and studied together on that campus all those years ago.

Here's a poem I wrote about this tree, and many other pink trees on campus:

The Pink Trees of Emmitsburg

 

 

It is the first of all mornings.

The curtain rises,

the mountains bow,

extend pointy fingers

to a huddle of pink trees,

tulle ballerinas

in a world of black tights.

The audience,

hitherto numb and slumped,

gasps.

 

The outlandish pink trees

shake their stiff crinolines

and the whole theater stirs.

The audience feels

loved like brides

in a world of divorces.

 

Too  frilly,

too old-fashioned,

the critics huffed.

The management closed the show,

closed the whole theater.

 

Only the caretaker

sees the pink trees dance.

They still dance,

so out of hand,

so outlandishly beautiful,

to the wind’s applause.

 

 

 

My friend Susan, who died in 2002 of breast cancer

I don't want to count the number of classmates who have died.

I just think about all of us back then, not knowing what our future lives would be like.

As the Simon and Garfunkel song says, it was

Time it was
And what a time it was, it was
A time of innocence
A time of confidences

Long ago it must be
I have a photograph
Preserve your memories
They're all that's left you

Still too cold for Spring

 In the twenties and blustery all day....

On another subject, I love this art by night:

Nocturnal Landscape     by Josef Stoitzner

and this:

The Hare Ran through the Starlit Fields   by Debra Sheehy

and this:

Evening in the Garden    by  Jakub Schikenad

What would Wordsworth think?

 

Everhart Park, the park down the street of my childhood, in late winter.

The end of March, and snow squalls and temperatures in the 20's.

Not to mention the terrible situation of Russia bombing the Ukraine.

Wordsworth wrote this poem more than 200 years ago, and the question remains.

Lines Written in Early Spring

By William Wordsworth

I heard a thousand blended notes,
While in a grove I sate reclined,
In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
Bring sad thoughts to the mind.

To her fair works did Nature link
The human soul that through me ran;
And much it grieved my heart to think
What man has made of man.

Through primrose tufts, in that green bower,
The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;
And ’tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes.

The birds around me hopped and played,
Their thoughts I cannot measure:—
But the least motion which they made
It seemed a thrill of pleasure.

The budding twigs spread out their fan,
To catch the breezy air;
And I must think, do all I can,
That there was pleasure there.

If this belief from heaven be sent,
If such be Nature’s holy plan,
Have I not reason to lament
What man has made of man?

 

 

art by Akira Kusaka

The Enkindled Spring

 

artist: Lucy Grossmith

Here's a lovely poem by D.H. Lawrence:

The Enkindled Spring 

By D.H. Lawrence  

This spring as it comes bursts up in bonfires green, 
Wild puffing of emerald trees, and flame-filled bushes, 
Thorn-blossom lifting in wreaths of smoke between 
Where the wood fumes up and the watery, flickering rushes. 

I am amazed at this spring, this conflagration 
Of green fires lit on the soil of the earth, this blaze 
Of growing, and sparks that puff in wild gyration, 
Faces of people streaming across my gaze. 

And I, what fountain of fire am I among 
This leaping combustion of spring? My spirit is tossed 
About like a shadow buffeted in the throng 
Of flames, a shadow that's gone astray, and is lost.

Jennifer Taylor, Auroral Spring

It's a sunny but blustery Sunday here... the Fourth Sunday of Lent.

 

Kindness far and familiar

 

Annunciation  by Henry Tanner

March 25 -  Vow Day for the Daughters of Charity

I am remembering the first day I made these vows.  This is the song we sang at Mass:

You have written Your song

by Tom Conry

You have written Your song in the deep of my heart

I carry it gently, as a woman with child, as a woman with child.

We look to tomorrow

as the night watch waits for the sun.

You have walked with me firmly to the edge of my dream.

I bow to it hopeful, knowing we may come true.

Knowing we may come true.

We look for each other

as a blind man stumbles for home.

As a woman with child,,

knowing we may come true,

Only stories to walk on,

No rock to depend on, we see ourselves new.

You have fashioned a people from ashes and earth,

Defenseless and hopeful, as a song newly sung,

as a song newly sung,

There is promise about You

as a seed now pressed to the soil.

You have withered our wisdom and melted our hearts

Your kindness is legend spoke from father to child,

spoke from father to child.

We celebrate You

as a poor man honors his bread.

Kindness far and familiar

as near as the wind;

Word that's never been spoken without being felt;

Servant bound by forgiveness

that no chain can hold;

Star that blazes beyond us and dims in our hand;

Cry of nations and people and nobody knows;

Man who's broken a mountain and death must give up

signpost pointed among us

Is nowhere at all;

We remember a people, 

a pillar of fire.

Erin Hansen    Cascade of Tulips

I've got no plans at all for moving on

 

Here I am in September of 1970, walking about on Yeats'  "Lake Isle of Innisfree" in Sligo, Ireland.

I probably heard this Tom Paxton song about 1972.  Since then I've loved it.  It meant a great deal to me when, in 1978, I joined the Daughters of Charity. Now, all these years later, I look back on my life and especially my life with Jesus, and it means even more:

"One Time And One Time Only"

I spent my hungry young years running wild
There was so much for me to do
And I spent cities like a handful of change
But I never quit looking for you

One time and one time only
Been such a long time lonely
One time for all time it will be
Been waiting such a long time
Each time has been the wrong time
Until you came to me

I looked for you in every face I saw
And could not find you any where
Then finally one day I quit trying at all
And looked up to see you standing there

One time and one time only
Been such a long time lonely
One time for all time it will be
Been waiting such a long time
Each time has been the wrong time
Until you came to me

I don't mind telling you what's on my mind
It's no big secret any more
I have no plans at all for moving on
That's one thing that I was never looking for

One time and one time only
Been such a long time lonely
One time for all time it will be
Been waiting such a long time
Each time has been the wrong time
Until you came to me

On March 24, it is the custom for all Daughters of Charity around the world to make a day of retreat, in preparation for making our vows again on March 25, the feast of the Annunciation.

Here's a photo of me on the day I made those vows for the first time, in 1984:

What is all this juice and all this joy?

 

artist: Anne Marie Dahlstrom

Spring

By Gerard Manley Hopkins

Nothing is so beautiful as Spring –         

   When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;         

   Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush         

Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring         

The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;

   The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush         

   The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush         

With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.         

 

What is all this juice and all this joy?         

   A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning

In Eden garden. – Have, get, before it cloy,         

   Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,         

Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,         
   Most, O maid’s child, thy choice and worthy the winning.      

 

 

artist:  Meralyah Alwood

Here I am at my desk in my bedroom, working on my Zoom class with my Modernity students.

Tomorrow all the Daughters of Charity are in retreat, praying and preparing for March 25, the feast of the Annunciation, when we make our vows again.

With the recent health problems which will not go away, but which are in tenuous check right now,

I worry that though I will make it to March 25, I might not make it until the end of the month and our college reunion, or to Easter on April 17, or to see the full flowering of my garden this summer.

But all I can do is try to hold the illness in abeyance by resting and avoiding any food or drink that might inflame my radiated bladder.   So it goes.

The timid hares throw daylight fears away

 

artist: Petit Barre

I delight in this poem by John Clare:

Hares at Play     by John Clare

 

The birds are gone to bed, the cows are still,

And sheep lie panting on each old mole-hill;

And underneath the willow's gray-green bough,

Like toil a-resting, lies the fallow plough.

The timid hares throw daylight fears away

On the lane's road to dust and dance and play,

Then dabble in the grain by naught deterred

To lick the dew-fall from the barley's beard;

Then out they sturt again and round the hill

Like happy thoughts dance, squat, and loiter still,

Till milking maidens in the early morn

Jingle their yokes and sturt them in the corn;

Through well-known beaten paths each nimbling hare

Sturts quick as fear, and seeks its hidden lair.

artist : Valerie Briggs

 

Happy Spring Equinox!

from John Forti, the Heirloom Gardener:

Happy Spring Equinox! Solstices and equinoxes mark the four movements in a celestial score. The older I get, the more I aspire to tap into the symphonic song of nature. To harmonize with the flow of seasons, the cycles in our landscapes, and the larger universe.

Spring or vernal equinox signals the beginning of spring in the northern hemisphere, marking the passage of the Sun across the celestial equator, as it travels from south to north. At the equinox (from the Latin aequus, “equal,” and nox, “night” - generally on the 20th or 21st of March), Earth’s northern and southern hemispheres are receiving the Sun’s rays equally, and night and day are nearly equal in length. In fact, the spring equinox ushers in a long-awaited gardening season. For me, it means pruning orchard trees and roses, building wattle from the spoils, and listening to spring peepers sing out from vernal pools in the night. It’s watching rhubarb and spring bulbs push up through the leaf litter (don’t jump the gun and remove this vital protection too early!). Using the first cool, sunny days to work up a sweat, repairing walls and filling garden beds with the compost that winter turned to soil. Planting the heartiest of cold-weather crops—mache, arugula, spinach, borage, calendula, kale, collards, cabbage, parsnip, turnip, radish—to ensure a delicious spring follows. Making teas and salads from the first perennials and self-sowing greens. Using the growing hours of sun and heat to follow the season and plant more tender annuals when they will succeed. This equinox also means vestiges of the ancient rites of spring, rebirth, and renewal celebrating the goddess Eostre, Passover, and Easter—holidays traditions that make good use of the abundance of early spring herbs, eggs, and dairy.

Living in tune with the seasons helps bring variety and flow to life. It helps me to observe and celebrate the subtle changes around me, and join in celebrations observed since ancient times. Most importantly, as a gardener, this Equinox reminds me that every Spring offers an opportunity to start anew.

Happy Vernal Equinox friends! The Heirloom Gardener - John Forti

 

 artist: Amanda Clarke

Spring

by Charles Duke of Orleans

 

The year has changed his mantle cold

Of wind, of rain, of bitter air;

And he goes clad in cloth of gold,

Of laughing suns and season fair;

No bird or beast of wood or wold

But doth with cry or song declare

The year lays down his mantle cold.

All founts, all rivers, seaward rolled,

The pleasant summer livery wear,

With silver studs on broidered vair;

The world puts off its raiment old,

The year lays down his mantle cold.

 

 

artist: Luci Grossmith

 

how much was mine to keep

 

This quote doesn't seem to me as much about Slaughterhouse Five as it probably was about Vonnegut himself, and his life.

It feels very much , for me, about my life.

It's a lull time for me; before the real bursting forth of Spring in the garden, though each morning I see a little more green pushing out of the mulch.

Our Mallards are back, too. Two couples so far, two nests under the azaleas. Sister Patricia insists in erecting ugly orange cones on the sidewalk near each nest, though previous experience says that the ducks don't mind out walking by.  I ignore the cones.

No schoolwork to do this weekend; I've been teaching this course for many years and just tweak the lectures and Powerpoints.

In six days my sisters and I will make our vows again.

In two weeks we will have our all-class college alumnae reunion after a hiatus of two years due to COVID, which has loosened its grip on the vaccinated.  So the classes of 1970, 71, and 72 will celebrate their fifty years.  I look at the old photos from my class ( 1970) and look at myself and my classmates today, and I can't believe the time.  

In four weeks, it will be Easter.

In the meantime, on the world stage, Russia continues to bomb Ukraine. The Ukrainians continue to suffer, and the rest of the world continues to pray and worry.

Maybe a nuclear war will come between now and Easter.

Meanwhile, the rabbits are cavorting under the full moon.

Artist:  Maggie Vanderwahl

Here's a March poem by Tessa Rainsford:

Wind in pines

wind on water

wind in rushes

wind on feather

 

Sun in leaves

sun on loch

sun in reeds

sun on duck

 

Rain in trees

rain on river

rain in moss

rain on eider

 

All one morning

all together

in an hour

March weather

 

Tessa Ransford

art by Lucy Grossmith

Piercing the sod

 

Good old Christina Rossetti.  Here's a heart-lifting poem from her:

Spring

By Christina Rossetti

Frost-locked all the winter, 

Seeds, and roots, and stones of fruits, 

What shall make their sap ascend 

That they may put forth shoots? 

Tips of tender green, 

Leaf, or blade, or sheath; 

Telling of the hidden life 

That breaks forth underneath, 

Life nursed in its grave by Death. 

 

Blows the thaw-wind pleasantly, 

Drips the soaking rain, 

By fits looks down the waking sun: 

Young grass springs on the plain; 

Young leaves clothe early hedgerow trees; 

Seeds, and roots, and stones of fruits, 

Swollen with sap put forth their shoots; 

Curled-headed ferns sprout in the lane; 

Birds sing and pair again.

 

There is no time like Spring, 

When life’s alive in everything, 

Before new nestlings sing, 

Before cleft swallows speed their journey back 

Along the trackless track – 

God guides their wing, 

He spreads their table that they nothing lack, – 

Before the daisy grows a common flower 

Before the sun has power 

To scorch the world up in his noontide hour. 

 

There is no time like Spring, 

Like Spring that passes by; 

There is no life like Spring-life born to die, 

Piercing the sod, 

Clothing the uncouth clod, 

Hatched in the nest, 

Fledged on the windy bough, 

Strong on the wing: 

There is no time like Spring that passes by, 

Now newly born, and now 

Hastening to die.

 

 

 art by Teresa Tanner

Snow in March

 

The view from my window this morning.

Not the first time.  I remember, back in 1994, that we had about 15 inches of snow on March 15 in Baltimore. It melted quickly, but still snarled things up quite a bit.

I am better.  Getting better each day. However, I have come to realize that this affliction I have,

Late Radiation Cystitis,  may eventually destroy the tissue of the bladder.  Watching what I eat/drink may help to avoid this for a good while.  I did think to myself, "Is this what will eventually kill me?"

No use in worrying about it. My general numbness of emotion helps. My friends tell me I am so strong and brave, but I can be so phlegmatic because generally I am numb.

So it goes, as it says in Slaughterhouse Five,  which I just finished with my students.

Meanwhile, in the larger world,  Russia has invaded and attacked Ukraine, and the people are suffering terribly.  I don't know how this will end.  I keep thinking about how Germany invaded Poland in 1939.

I've been sick

 

art by Jo Grundy

I am happy to see the arrival of March, though I had a bad week of it.  Radiation is the gift that keeps on giving,  and  the aggressive radiation of 2009 which killed the cancer also resulted in ongoing damage.  This time, it was my radiated bladder.

as I said in my email to friends:

Bleeding from the bladder--- started Monday night, Feb.21, all through the week until I landed in the ER at Gettysburg Hospital last Saturday, Feb 26.  Was admitted and stayed in the hospital until Tuesday, March 1.

Horrible experience with FoleyCatheter the size of a garden hose flushing out my bladder. Antibiotics.

 

Diagnosis:   Radiation Cystitis.  I’m home but wiped out.  The bleeding has stopped though, thank God.

 

But I lost a lot of blood ( not enough for  a transfusion, though) so it will take a while for me to get back my strength. 

 

Fortunately, this has all happened on  Spring Break week! I don’t have class until March 10; should be much better by then.

 

Pray that I am well by our SJC Reunion   March 31 weekend.

Everhart Park in late winter/early spring.... the beloved park of my childhood, in West Chester