“The Wild Rose” – by Wendell Berry
Sometimes, hidden from me in daily custom and in ritual
I live by you unaware, as if by the beating of my heart.
Suddenly you flare again in my sight
A wild rose at the edge of the thicket where yesterday there was only shade
And I am blessed and choose again,
That which I chose before.
For a couple hours of driving, I marvelled at the progress of this cloud formation, then finally stopped near Sunburst, Montana, to snap a photo. As I crouched, the rain-freshened scent from the blooming alfalfa stirred childhood memories. A small field between our house and the road sometimes blossomed bright and high with purple alfalfa. After it was mowed, it became home to pick-up softball games with our family or my brothers and their friends. Despite being at the you’re-too-little stage, I landed a pretty important job: Speedy Gonzales. My mum was a solid hitter, but asthma kept her from running. So my job was to be fleet of feet. Nice work if you can get it, I always thought.
"Clouds on clouds, in volumes driven,
Curtain round the vault of heaven."
~Thomas Love Peacock, English novelist, poet, and official of the East India Company (1785-1866)
"I realized I couldn't be a journalist because I like to take a side, to have an opinion and a point a view; I liked to step across the imaginary boundary of the objective view that the journalist is supposed to have and be involved."
- Annie Leibovitz, Photographer
Ruminating on today’s photo for a quote idea, I vaguely recollected that something somewhere including “distant hills.”
Enter Google to the rescue.
Six results down I read, “The distant hills call to me. Their rolling waves seduce my heart.” and thought, “Aha! That’s it - perfect!”.
So, I clicked the link - and busted out laughing as I continued to read:
“...Oh, how I want to graze in their lush valleys.
Oh, how I want to run down their green slopes.
Alas, I cannot.
Damn the electric fence! Damn the electric fence!
Oh, how we long to run with a wilder herd.
Alas, we cannot.”
If you’ve lived in farm or ranch country, I’m betting you laughed, too.
A little deeper digging revealed the true source of that Far Side-esque quote: none other than that wry genius, Gary Larson. Check out his cartoon here and the pieces will all come together.
On a serious note, the "...rolling waves seduce my heart..." is pretty close to what I feel as we drive toward these velvety undulating hills south of Missoula, Montana.
“I thought I had forgotten,
But it all came back again
To-night with the first spring thunder
In a rush of rain…
Thunder gripping the earth
And lightning scrawled on the sky…”
From “Spring Rain” by Sara Teasdale (1884-1933)
Read more about this author, the entire poem, and more of her poetry
here.
