Landscape at Auvers in the Rain
My hands are bloody from digging.
I lift them, hold them open in the wind,
so they can branch like a tree.
Reaching, these hands would pull you out of the sky
as if you had shattered there,
dashed yourself to pieces in some wild impatience.
What is this I feel falling now,
falling on this parched earth,
softly,
like a spring rain?
From The Book of Hours II, 34
There comes a point when a person just has to rest from this kind of digging, with so much self mutilation. Does God resist this kind of effort, scattering himself out of 'impatience', knowing as he does that he gets released in the effortless rain? The tree stands and receives it.
ReplyDeleteFrom yesterday's post . . . Mine is the intrinsic slowness of the tree that embraces its growth and its blooming. Yes, I have a bit of its admirable patience. I had to train myself in it from the moment I understood the secret slowness that engenders and distills any work of art.
Wonderful commentary, Ruth.
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