V E R S E and I M A G E

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We joined our voices to sing this tiny hymn by Randall Pratt to conclude this morning’s worship. Sing it once and the song is no more than a breath or two. Sing it through a second time, repeat, again. The simple refrain begins to open the singers, unexpected possibilities emerge, and an idea arises in these hearts gathered here – perhaps God desires to be found. Mystery of mysteries, revealed in simplicity. Together we repeat this tiny hymn ten times and it swells to become huge within us.

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God is stillness.

God is moving, moving, ever moving.

God is one beautiful truth discovered.

God is anxiety that so much yet remains unknown.

God cleaves together.

God cleaves apart.

God is always the same.

God is always changing.

There is nothing that is not God.

There is nowhere that is not God.

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Yesterday I walked a short trail not much frequented. In a few weeks I will guide a naturalist hike along this section and yesterday I wanted to make sure I knew everything. “Same and Different,” I’m thinking to title the gathering. So many autumn flowers are the same yellow; so many different forms and lives. And although I expected I would already be familiar with everything I would see as I walked yesterday, the universe, like God of course, is always new. No coincidence there. After squishing through a damp patch, knocked out by the riot of cardinal flower and the seethe and potential of unfurling ironweed, I was suddenly halted by something different.

Yellow. Its four petals arranged at right angles were soft, curled, but when I smoothed them I found little banners on short pedicels, like the cardboard fans we hand out in Southern churches on summer Sundays. At the center of each was a powder puff cluster of pistil/stamens. One notices such details when leaning in close to make friends, but even from down the trail some meters removed this odd little plant still whispered its distinctiveness. Different and the same. Surely I’ve seen you before! How many minutes shall I pause and contemplate?

Then of course being me I looked it up. The joy is in the encounter but also in discovering all the connections. Seedbox or Rattlebox this delicate bloom is called by human beings, with an almost comical genus name, Ludwigia. But this is how I know you now – humble cousin of primrose prepared to stand up to the flash of iron and authority of cardinals.

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Return to this Sunday morning. We’ve closed the service with song and hugged goodbye. As the others drive away from church, I walk down to the little pond at the back of the property. I’ve seen some yellow flowers there. Even before I reach them, clustering at water’s edge, I know they are the same and different. More like a shrub than a nature trail herb, leaves narrow little arrows, but here are four soft petals that want to curl under, here is the powder puff center. Ludwigia, every day you rise up to greet me and remind me there will always be more to discover. You certainly favor damp and muck. You certainly have yellow down pat. But before I delve into your taxonomy and dig up answers I’ve yet to even question, let me simply stand here a moment and appreciate. Stillness ever moving. The unchangeable that is always new. A certain melody that is still playing in my head belongs to you, too, little flower. Within, around, in all creation . . . found.

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Ludwigia alternifolia   —  Seedbox

Ludwigia decurrens  —   Wingleaf Primrose-Willow

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Who hears the humming

of rocks at great height,

the long steady drone

of granite holding together,

the strumming of obsidian

to itself? I go among

the stones stooping

and pecking like a

sparrow, imagining

the glacier’s final push

resounding still. In

a freezing mountain

stream, my hand opens

scratched and raw and

flutters strangely,

more like an animal

or wild blossom in wind

than any part of me. Great

fields of stone

stretching away under

a slate sky, their single

flower the flower

of my right hand.

Last night

the fire died into itself

black stick by stick

and the dark came out

of my eyes flooding

everything. I

slept alone and dreamed

of you in an old house

back home among

your country people,

among the dead, not

any living one besides

yourself. I woke

scared by the gasping

of a wild one, scared

by my own breath, and

slowly calmed

remembering your weight

beside me all these

years, and here and

there an eye of stone

gleamed with the warm light

of an absent star.

Today

in this high clear room

of the world, I squat

to the life of rocks

jewelled in the stream

or whispering

like shards. What fears

are still held locked

in the veins till the last

fire, and who will calm

us then under a gold sky

that will be all of earth?

Two miles below on the burning

summer plains, you go

about your life one

more day. I give you

almond blossoms

for your hair, your hair

that will be white, I give

the world my worn-out breath

on an old tune, I give

it all I have

and take it back again.

from New and Selected Poems by Philip Levine. Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. © 1991

online at The Academy of American Poets

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Please explore my new page – FLORA – which meanders from spring into summer on the Elkin & Allegheny Nature Trail (a segment of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail).