When the Birds Go North Again

I am sorting through some very old files of poetry and kept stuff.  It is slow work because I keep stopping to read this or think about that.  But today is the first day of Lent, an appropriate season for reflection.  I feel winter in my bones this morning. It has been a heart winter as well.  When I picked up the page with this piece of poetry, I felt as if the woman who wrote it (who died the year I was born) was speaking to me.  I know that God was.

"Oh, every year hath its winter,
And every year hath its rain--
But a day is always coming
When the birds go north again.

"When new leaves swell in the forest,
And grass springs green on the plain,
And alders' veins turn crimson--
And the birds go north again.

"Oh, every heart hath its sorrow,
And every heart hath its pain--
But a day is always coming
When the birds go north again.

" 'Tis the sweetest thing to remember,
If courage be on the wane,
when the cold, dark days are over--
Why, the birds go north again."

      ~Ella Higginson, a poet from the Northwest

A year ago when I began this blog, I wanted to learn, but actually knew nothing about the "how".  I am still learning, and now have two blogs!  At one time I thought I would merge the two into one.  Gradually I began to see they really were different kinds of containers, so I have maintained them both.  In these blog posts, I have collected family stories, my grandmothering pleasures, and other memoir and nesting style writing.  My other blog began in a more contemplative style, and features some of both my husband's and my photography, particularly in our garden.  But the words I post there today could go in either blog.  If you are curious, you can see this at http://www.stonesandfeathers.wordpress.com/

By the Book

"It is a good rule...to keep the clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds, and this can be done only by reading old books."   ~ C.S. Lewis

If you asked me how I spent my summers when I was growing up, I would not tell you "at the beach" or any typical vacation. The only times I remember our family going out of town for a week were a few summers when we went to stay near a clinic that offered hot mineral baths which my father took to ease his arthritis pain.  Those days we spent in a tiny motel with a kitchenette where we prepared our meals, certainly not remarkable by today's standards of getaways.

My main source of adventure and recreation for those hot Texas summer months was a small, plain stone building in a park near the center of our small town.  This was the Jacksonville Public Library.  I was allowed to go often to check out books.  I remember dark wood floors and the stacks of books lined up waiting for me to slide them from their shelves to pick my maximum allowed volumes to take home.  Today, my home is full of books, but I still go to the library, often taking my granddaughter along.  When I open a brand new book, I love the smell and the feel of the fresh pages.  But there is story in holding and reading a book others have held and read.  The Lewis quote reminds me beyond that, the new and the old are more than  age of the paper and binding.  I try to balance my reading by including long loved classics as well as the newly written must reads.