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Spring in 12 days, part 2
Looking up, from the same spot as the previous post, photos taken same span of 12 days in April. (Forgive the wobbliness, it’s harder to keep a standard orientation when one is looking at the sky)
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Spring in 12 days.
My first animated GIF. Not too bad, huh? The photos were taken on April 5, April 10, and April 17, at around 6:30pm.
Also, if you scroll down to one of my earlier posts, you’ll see a shot from almost this exact spot from the winter of this year, for comparison.
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A spring walk in Raleigh.
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Of course it hurts when buds burst.
– Karin Boye 1935; Translated by Jenny Nunn; found via http://www.activekidsclub.com/kari-s-blog/kari-s-blog/spring-poem.html
Otherwise why would spring hesitate?
Why would all our fervent longing
be bound in the frozen bitter haze?
The bud was the casing all winter.
What is this new thing, which consumes and bursts?
Of course it hurts when buds burst,
pain for that which grows
and for that which envelops.
Of course it is hard when drops fall.
Trembling with fear they hang heavy,
clinging on the branch, swell and slide -?
the weight pulls them down, how they cling.
Hard to be uncertain, afraid and divided,
hard to feel the deep pulling and calling,
yet sit there and just quiver —
hard to want to stay
and to want to fall.
Then, at the point of agony and beyond all help,
the tree’s buds burst as if in jubilation,
then, when fear no longer exists,
the branch’s drops tumble in a shimmer,
forgetting that they were afraid of the new,
forgetting that they were fearful of the journey —
feeling for a second their greatest security,
resting in the trust
that creates the world. -
Some days I have so many thoughts in my head there’s not even enough breathing room to line them up and peg them down on a page. So I’ve been silent here a while, but mostly because I have too much to say, not too little. Lately, quotes have been simpler because the chords they strike seem to need no elaboration. Maybe that’s all a blog is: just dots added to a blank page, slowly connecting to one another, revealing the coarse outline of a person.
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I wonder what it would be like to see God dance. I always imagine myself his daughter with cotton-socked feet looking so small on top of his black, wing-tipped Stacey Adams. What? You don’t think God would wear Stacey Adams? I imagine that he’s got this smile that’s more like a place to be than a thing to see. I imagine his rhythm and style are impeccable. I know he’s perfect, but he never scoffs at my imperfection. He’s a master who never turns down the chance to cut a rug with a novice like me. I think he carries music with him. I think it radiates from his chest, loud and booming as if he carried a boom box on his shoulder. He inhales and exhales melody. It comes naturally to him. He’s got a song he wants to teach me to dance to. He wants me to follow his lead. I’m thinking I’ll be learning to do simply that for the rest of my life
– Amena Brown in Breaking Old Rhythms -
I used to think love was like a chick flick or a really cool episode of Desperate Housewives. I used to think love was all dressed up, shiny, sequined, pressed. I realize now that love wears no make-up. Love is beautiful, but love is also plain and simple, unpretentious, determined, fiercely, meekly, humbly strong. Love has working hands, scarred, bruised, veined. Love is unafraid to get its hands dirty.
– Amena Brown, in Breaking Old Rhythms -
Where he was, something real was. And half a grain of reality, like the smallest portion of some other scarce natural productions, will flavor an enormous quantity of diluent.
– Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens -
We wake, if ever we wake at all, to mystery.
– Annie Dillard -
One of the few things in life that cannot possibly do harm in the end is the honest pursuit of truth.
– Peter Kreeft and Ronald K. Tacelli
