Reverence

-
by Julie Cadwallader-Staub

The air vibrated
with the sound of cicadas
on those hot Missouri nights after sundown
when the grown-ups gathered on the wide back lawn,
sank into their slung-back canvas chairs
tall glasses of iced tea beading in the heat

and we sisters chased fireflies
reaching for them in the dark
admiring their compact black bodies
their orange stripes and seeking antennas
as they crawled to our fingertips
and clicked open into the night air.

In all the days and years that have followed,
I don't know that I've ever experienced
that same utter certainty of the goodness of life
that was as palpable
as the sound of the cicadas on those nights:

my sisters running around with me in the dark,
the murmur of the grown-ups' voices,
the way reverence mixes with amazement
to see such a small body
emit so much light.


On another note, leaving for a visit with our CollegeGrrrrl and will be gone for a few days. Hope everyone enjoys their weekends and Happy Fathers' Day to all the BabyDaddies out there:>)

Comments

  1. UnknownJune 19, 2009 at 4:49 AM

    Boy that brought back the memories of this southern girl on a summer night. Have a great visit with CollegeGrrrl!

    ReplyDelete
  2. RudeeJune 19, 2009 at 7:07 AM

    That was lovely. Thank you.

    Enjoy your weekend!

    ReplyDelete
  3. The BugJune 19, 2009 at 7:15 AM

    We saw fireflies in our new yard - another unexpected benefit of leaving apartment living... Have a great weekend - hope you're headed somewhere cooler than here!

    ReplyDelete
  4. JCJune 19, 2009 at 7:21 AM

    Gorgeous Photo !!!

    ReplyDelete
  5. PyzahnJune 19, 2009 at 7:50 AM

    I love the clamor of cicadas. Enjoy your time with CollegeGrrrrl.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Rosaria WilliamsJune 19, 2009 at 7:57 PM

    Lovely summer night, sights and sounds and secrets of children.

    ReplyDelete
  7. KathleenJune 19, 2009 at 10:09 PM

    Yes. I remember that. Fondly.
    Ala Annie Lamott: "Traveling mercies . . "

    ReplyDelete
  8. OwenJune 20, 2009 at 4:27 PM

    "the utter certainty of the goodness of life"...

    Should we be so fortunate as to retain that feeling in these strange and troubled times...

    Thank you Distracted for the radiant poems you manage to find for our pleasure out here, it is always with a sense of imminent joy that I click on Tidings in the sidebar. Have a fun trip !

    ReplyDelete
  9. UnknownJune 20, 2009 at 5:02 PM

    Have a fabulous weekend!
    Smiles!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Deanna Bland Hiott PhD, MSN, RNJune 22, 2009 at 2:39 PM

    Awww, love it..."the goodness of life"...perfect! Have a wonderful visit... :)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Hey, thanks for your thoughts and your time:>)

Popular posts from this blog

10 Things I Love That Start With the Letter E

-
Image
Game imported from Sweet Annie at Blissful Bohemian . Name ten things you love that begin with a specific letter. In my case, the letter E. So here goes: 1. Well, first of all there's elephants . Who doesn't love those cute little faces?? And what's not to love? Elephants are actually a lot like humans. They laugh and cry. They grieve over their dead. They play games with each other and have fantastic memories so they can even remember the rules and not go to bed mad. 2. Then there's Engelbert Humperdinck, who I don't actually love and his singing's just on this side of okay, but I do love his name. 3. I luuuuuuv eggs , deviled. Nothing fancy, just classic. Best Basic Deviled Eggs 6 eggs, hard cooked and peeled 1/4 cup mayonnaise 1 teaspoon yellow mustard 3/4 teaspoon white wine vinegar pinch of salt (optional) fresh ground black pepper (optional) smoked paprika (optional) Cut eggs in half. Arrange egg whites cut side up on a serving plate and put the yolks ...
Read more

The Poet Goes to Indiana by Mary Oliver

-
Image
I'll tell you a half-dozen things that happened to me in Indiana when I went that far west to teach. You tell me if it was worth it. I lived in the country with my dog— part of the bargain of coming. And there was a pond with fish from, I think, China. I felt them sometimes against my feet. Also, they crept out of the pond, along its edges, to eat the grass. I'm not lying. And I saw coyotes, two of them, at dawn, running over the seemingly unenclosed fields. And once a deer, but a buck, thick-necked, leaped into the road just-oh, I mean just, in front of my car— and we both made it home safe. And once the blacksmith came to care for the four horses, or the three horses that belonged to the owner of the house, and I bargained with him, if I could catch the fourth, he, too, would have hooves trimmed for the Indiana winter, and apples did it, and a rope over the neck did it, so I won something wonderful; and there was, one morning, an owl flying, oh pale angel, into the hay loft o...
Read more

A Year with EB White

-
Image
"You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I liked you. After all, what's a life, anyway? We're born, we live a little while, we die. A spider's life can't help being something of a mess, with all this trapping and eating flies. By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone's life can stand a little of that."----- from Charlotte's Web I am a soul always drawn and fascinated by the idea of " A Year of...". A Year of Rumi. A Year of Calvin and Hobbes. A year cooking with Julia Child. A project that provides guidance for the year and a ruler we can measure inward growth in the course of our circle around the sun. One year, after an early marriage and an unsurprising--except to me--early divorce, I came across a book by Sue Hubbell titled A Country Year. I didn't plan for it to take a year to read, but it did. I only read it at night before I went t...
Read more