Nature as Church
The Seeds of a Great Choir
(to MaryAnn and Bessie)
don’tcha just love
how a row of seed cones
on a branch is a church choir,
ever’ sunday mornin’
gettin’ ready to give each voice
a way to rejoice?
lined up hip to hip
in the church of the hackmatack
here in this tiny borough,
borough of larch, don’tcha know?
sure, sure,
the church is just a branch church
not near so big as the mother conifer
up the way.
still and all it has
a growin’ choir
—new members ever’ year!
and that’s not nothin’ here,
not by a long shot i tell you what.
look how the sunlight dances
right through the chancel today
lightin’ up them singers,
not ever’ one mind you,
but ever’one’s ‘n angel
just the same.
they warm up, throats
kinda raspy at first
kinda dry, but even
they scales let you know
hands down
you wanna be payin’ mind.
they bump each other gentle-kind
as they tug they robes
pat they hair in place
help someone with a bobby pin.
then they sing they hymns
for the service
swayin’ together
in the breezy mornin’,
breezy mornin’ carryin’
they voices proud’s can be
and seeds too, seeds too.
the notes they sing, honey,
they be seeds that drop and grow
drop and grow. while
preacher offers up the homily,
two them singers
lean t’each other
whisper whisper
maybe gossip
maybe braggin’ on they kids
big ol’ smiles on they faces
as they stand in they places
shinin’ bright
and don’tcha know
at coffee hour
gladys asks
can she join the choir?
i love my church!
=====
3 x 3″; watercolor on paper
card #15 in a series of color swatches
2025
=====
Notes on poem and art:
• “The Seeds” has two points of origin—(1) a prompt from the Coursera poetry class I took in June: You Are So Conceited: When A Metaphor Isn’t Tough Enough—When there’s a big gap between the object of the metaphor and its figure, you need to convince your reader of the validity of your metaphor. You need a conceit. A conceit is like an extended metaphor, but it argues for the metaphor itself. “The Seeds” is my foray into extended metaphor arguing for itself. (2) A photo posted by MaryAnn Shupe at her blog gave me the particular metaphor I wanted to play with: a row of little seed cones growing on a hackmatack branch flipped a switch in my imagination!
• The challenge with Early was the four o’clocks themselves: the blossoms close during the day, not opening until late afternoon, typically around 4 p.m. or so—ours even later—and remaining open only until morning. I picked two blossoms early early one morning and hoped they’d stay open long enough for me to paint my swatches and photograph them. They did!
=====
6 responses to “Nature as Church”
I teared up the second I read Bessie’s and my name. Nature is my church these days…and Bessie’s toddler pinecones were the choir….singing…whispering…and bragging to me that May day.
Thank you for this beautiful poem. Your metaphor was convincing and compelling.
The rain has stopped and I think it’s time to go back to church. I’m going to visit Bessie this morning on my walk. I love my church.
And oh my…the four o’clocks are singing too!
MaryAnn, so sweet to read your responses to my poem dedicated to you and Bessie—thank you! I’m not sure why or how the metaphor popped into my mind but I’m so glad it did. It was such a gift to step into that church as I wrote. This particular poem was the one I chose to revise as the final assignment of the poetry class I took in June. I was pretty pleased with my first iteration but the assignment required submitting both the original and a revision, and I ended up having such a nourishing engaging experience revising.
And, as you point out, the four o’clocks are singing too!
Liked by 1 person
Lola! If anyone could play with this writing prompt as a painting prompt, it’d be YOU—can’t wait!
Wow, feeling gratitude and joy to know that I am one of your favorite poets. Really, wow.
And the vibrant swatches, I agree—KAPOW! Stumbling into documenting our garden with color swatches has been SUCH a gift this summer, gotta say.
Read the poem at least 3 times now! Really resonates, nature as a Church, and I think of Church in it’s widest meaning. You are a master and as Lola said, my favorite poet! Also loved the tonality of the poem. Had the feeling as if I was listening to Gospel!
Yes , I also wonder if painting could be a platform, something to think about.
As usual your swatches are just grand. magenta, bright red and yellow green. Going to give that on a try!
Carol, thank you for your thoughtful responses here! And, yikes, so grateful for my poetry’s resonating with you
. I especially welcome your appreciation of the tonality of “The Seeds of a Great Choir”—the more I write, the more my ‘voice’ stretches beyond my ‘own’ usual voice. The deeper I got into writing this poem, the livelier another voice became. Yes, listening to Gospel!Your ability to name colors impresses me—most of the time I couldn’t name any of the colors I use. I usually mediate much of my life experience through language/words, but when it comes to color I seem to stay mostly in visual mode; huh.
Dotty, you rock! You are such a gift. Your talents always inspire, enlighten, gleam, and bring pure bliss to my day. This poem was long, and still I did not want it to end. I wanted to stay with your words. Stay in your world. Stay in your heavenly church.
Thank you for sharing the link to the beautiful pine cones.
I had to look up the flowers. I love morning glories, but I had not heard of these before. The colors are so gorgeous. The blooms, and your swatches. WOW! And all the colors that they come in. Gorgeous!
Sheila, thank you dear friend! I’m honored by your saying “This poem was long, and still I did not want it to end.” Thank you.
We have four o’clocks in many locations in Dave’s many gardens, and they are totally gorgeous in all their many colors. I so enjoyed the challenge and absorption of aiming to capture them in paint. Thanks for your kudos for my swatches!
No comments:
Post a Comment