Just get out here!

The best news, a new poem and a dare

Dear friend,

It’s not too good to be true. The red-winged blackbirds sing me awake and a sliver of eastern light reaches the honey yellow of my bedroom wall. The ditches are merry streams, strewn with beer cans winking in the sun. A trinity of crocuses appears as the best Tuesday surprise, and I follow my daughter to the south side of the house, barefoot to the miracle. Flowers bloom where there were no flowers last year.

It is a grace that resurrection still comes as a surprise, and as my feet tingle in the frost-tipped grass I pray that I will always be like her—like a ten year old who bursts through the door, red cheeked with a shout: There’s a flower! She leads the way, twinkling and grinning, never mind your pyjamas or bedhair, just get out here! She devotes nearly an hour of her one precious day to sit beside this revelation of colour, taking notes and drawing a whimsical copy of the blooms in her nature journal. With news as good as this, how could she not kneel? How could she not track down every man, woman, child and cat with her joyful evangelium?

The Gardener is afoot, my friends. Oh let us be like children of the world made new.

Yours along the river,

Lindsey

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A Poem: Red-winged

one note is all it takes 
       to tip the tenor of tilting March 
            to some bright morning

a fire-flash from glossy black, 
       the massing swell of migration, sun-burst 
              and spilt into the valley at last

one beat of blackbird wing 
       breaks the hold of bitter cold 
              and drip of sap sudden 
                     sounds in all the empty buckets

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A Practice: Eyes of a child

I dare you to step into your spring world, barefoot if you can, and look around with the eyes of a ten-year-old.

1. Pause: What catches your eye first? What makes you curious? What calls you to come and play?

2. Put yourself in the posture of a child: run, kneel, roll or skip toward the object of your affection.

3. Practice the childlike art of abandoned attention. Sit. Stare. Don’t leave yet.

4. Put words to the wonder: now tell a friend, as if you were passing a secret note or twirling the kitchen phone cord in your hands. (Seriously. Try it! You can put your note in the comments here, because I’d love to read it, too.)

One step farther afield…

Is it possible you have resurrection news to share? A story to tell? An encounter with the Gardener? Would you whisper or shout it to someone else this week?

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News!

• I will be at the Festival of Faith and Writing in Grand Rapids later this week! It’s my very first writing conference ever. I’m excited to be attending with the wonderful Leslie Leyland Fields, and should you be in the area, you can find me at her table in the exhibition hall, where we will have something beautifully healing and hope-filled to share. (And now to brush the red island mud off my boots and decide which books I will bring to read for the 3 airplane rides there…)

• A new poetry (ad)venture! I’ve had this idea simmering for awhile, and with April being National Poetry Month, I jumped in with both feet and started a separate home for Poetry in the Field here on Substack. It’s all things poetry, no pressure. Come enjoy, explore and engage with me! (For now I’m linking my YouTube videos, but I’m looking into the Substack video option.)

• Most recent Poetry in the Field video: The Marigold by George Wither. An Eastertide poem for your enjoyment.

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