Can You Imagine?

For example, what the trees do

not only in lightning storms

or the watery dark of a summer night

or under the white nets of winter

but now, and now, and now -- whenever

we're not looking.  Surely you can't imagine

they just stand there looking the way they look

when we're looking; surely you can't imagine

they don't dance, from the root up, wishing

to travel a little, not cramped so much as wanting

a better view, or more sun, or just as avidly

more shade -- surely you can't imagine they just

stand there loving every

minute of it, the birds or the emptiness, the dark rings

of the years slowly and without a sound

thickening, and nothing different unless the wind,

and then only in its own mood, comes

to visit, surely you can't imagine

patience, and happiness, like that.

-- Mary Oliver, "Can You Imagine" from Long Life

(photos taken by Carolyn's brother)

Comments

[Flannista]

It was hard to find a poem to do justice to these beautiful photos taken by Carolyn's brother during a rare snowstorm in Mississippi.

Is it something I would never have imagined. That why I chose this poem by Mary Oliver. Even though the poem is about the patience and happiness of trees -- which in their stillness can weather anything -- so too these turtle doves perched patiently in their branches . . . still so long the falling snow settles in around them.

So what ARE trees doing when we're not looking? What about the turtle doves?

How long can YOU be still? What does it teach you?

[half-a-sista]

Great photos. Notice how the doves are all nicely spaced with little walls of snow between them. It's like they would always sit like that no matter what the weather was like, but on this day it snowed in-between the doves sitting in their usual positions. The trees and doves are busy "be-ing".

I can't be still long because, even though my body may be motionless, my mind is racing almost all the time. But when I am still, I feel connected to everything. It comes in moments and then disappears in the head noise. Reappears and stays for a few more moments. Sometimes the connectedness lasts for minutes. That's how I know I'm a part of something greater than myself. Someday I hope to live in that being-ness . . . before I die and join it.

Off to the last day of printmaking class and then to have my hair cut. See ya' later.

[Chrysosistah]

Hard to imagine such snow in Mississippi! Nice contemplative piece of work Sistas...

I'll have to come back this evening when I can contemplate it - right now attempting to host a garage sale, and enjoying the sunshine (it's been right nippy here for quite a while)...

[Flannista]

The sun is shining here, too, Chryso and should be in the 50's today! I hooked up my washer hoses which is always an early sign of spring.

I've been dashing around the house cleaning, wishing I was a turtle dove, who could simply sit on a tree branch all day and take in the beauty.

[PEACEsista]

What is the difference between a turtle dove and a mourning dove? They look very similar to me. The photos explains a lot to me. The mourning doves have returned to Wyoming early this year and sat through a snowstorm yesterday, as if deciding down south, "What the heck, if we're going to sit in the snow, we may as well fly north!"

Beautiful photo and poem and thanks for the link to the Mary Oliver book. I'd not seen it yet.

[Flannista]

I don't know the difference, PEACE, but I bet Chryso knows.

About an hour ago, Jerseysista sent me this photograph taken of her backyard during the blizzard three weeks ago, with the message:
"Apparently, mourning doves everywhere are patient":

http://www.sassistas.com/sassistas_our_dish_on_the/2010/06/Mournign%20Dove.jpg

[Jerseysista]

Yesterday, I did not have much time to comment on Sassistas! second anniversary. (Reading my last comment yesterday, I can say it is evidence of my rushing.)I had some additional thoughts this morning. Rather than going back to yesterday's post I thought I would share them here:

There have been things I have created and then looked on in amazement. These things have not necessarily been profound or things that, objectively viewed, would be thought “good” or “exceptional” but they have been things that, when I looked upon them, I thought, “Wow! Where did that come from? How did I do that?” They have been things like watercolor paintings, jewelry, or a year book publication in high school. They have been things like a paper I wrote in college for a philosophy course. They have been things like a paella dinner. They were all things that emerged or coalesced in some way. They were things whose finished state I could not have predicted and, in their finished state, seemed beyond what I thought was in me.

We all can point to things that are like this in each of lives but it is a rare thing to see an emergent creation such as the two-years’ work that is Sassistas! This blog is incredible to behold not just for its content or for it participants but for its creative emergence that could neither have been predicted nor understood from its parts alone.

Flann and Matiss, you should look on this sphere and community as a sacred creation.

[babysis]

The photos and poem work nicely together. Glad I was able to take a quick glance. Both will stick with me as I progress through the rest of today.

[Flannista]

First of all, Jersey, I'm counting this comment as one for yesterday's post which means $500 for IDignity!

Second, I had to sit with your comment for a bit. I had to be still in order to understand a message God (or some mystery beyond our understanding . . . surely the trees and mourning doves know) was communicating. You were able to articulate what I was not able to articulate yesterday.

This may sound weird, but several times yesterday, I wondered why I felt so much like a proud mother -- you know, someone who gave birth to a child and then watches in amazement as the child grows into something she would never have predicted or imagined. Taking it a step further, I've wondered if birthing and nurturing Sassistas! with Matissta has assisted me in seeing God's Kingdom NOT as a place, thing, institution or membership, but more like an attitude, a way of seeing, a turn of imagination. I'll ponder this some more, but I, too, was so grateful yesterday for how sacred Sassistas! is to me and others.

I think it's because it's beyond all our imagining.

Thank you for your very cogent and generous comment.

[Flannista]

I've been spending more time than usual looking at my backyard birds and trees today, babysis -- certainly because of these striking photos. Thanks for checking in, and I hope your day continues to progress peacefully.

[Matissta]

The photos are indeed beautiful and peaceful. I love the patterns created by the branches and the birds in the full image.

For the past 10 days or so, I've noticed the birds are much more vocal in the mornings with their songs. I don't know if more have returned from their winter vacations, or if they are as happy as we are to see the ground again.

[Jerseysista]

I've noticed more bird chatter, too, over the last week or so. They do seem happy. Today I noticed a house finch back for the first time since Fall.

[Carolyn]

Thank you for using the pictures that my brother, Tim, took. I am so pleased that he is the type of person who notices such beautiful things. I'm proud to claim him as kin.

The poem has got to be one of my favorites. But I think that I say that everytime Flann posts one of these gems.

[Flannista]

Here to read your sass, Carolyn. Glad you took in the post and grateful for your brother Tim's sensitive eye.

Glad you like the poem, but one can rarely go wrong with Mary Oliver. Love you.

[Chrysosistah]

Hey, PEACE! Just saw your question, I can't explain it better than Wiki:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mourning_Dove

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtle_Dove

Definitely those birds are mourning doves, but somehow the "turtle dove" name just sounded happier to me, and more fitting... ;-)

[Flannista]

Still can't tell the difference all that much, Chryso, but thanks for posting the Wiki links.

I'm going with mourning doves.