Walking in Trust

    Walking in Trust

    A sun-lit summer day captured
    in colors and brush strokes
    we now know so well.

    The solitary figure
    walking down a road
    carrying paint box and canvas.

    Yet there is an emptiness
    a wanting to be accepted
    for all you have to give.

    The long shadow beneath you
    like a deeper darkness
    warning of things to come.

    And now your painting,
    as with your passing,
    is wrapped in mystery.

    Like a star in the night sky
    that fades with the light of day
    lost to time.

— Dan Hardison


Calliope
Winter Edition 2024

    Vincent van Gogh
    The Painter on the Road to Tarascon
    oil on canvas, 1888
    (Kulturhistorisches Museum Magdeburg, Germany)

The only self-portrait that shows Vincent van Gogh’s entire body instead of only his head and torso, it was painted during his stay in Arles, France, about two years before his death. The painting was purchased by the Kaiser Friedrich Museum in Magdeburg, Germany in 1919 and a color photograph of the painting taken in the 1930s. During World War II, the painting was taken out of the museum’s storage and moved to a nearby salt mine to protect it. But the mine burst into flames when American troops entered on April 12, 1945. The cause of the fire was never known.

The Painter on the Road to Tarascon is believed to have been lost during the fire, but there are those who believe the painting may have been looted before the fire and still exists somewhere. The painting is one of only six Van Gogh paintings thought to have been lost or destroyed. The fate of the painting may remain a mystery, but we are fortunate to have the color photograph.

Directions

The best time is late afternoon
when the sun strobes through
the columns of trees as you are hiking up,
and when you find an agreeable rock
to sit on, you will be able to see
the light pouring down into the woods
and breaking into the shapes and tones
of things and you will hear nothing
but a sprig of birdsong or the leafy
falling of a cone or nut through the trees,
and if this is your day you might even
spot a hare or feel the wing-beats of geese
driving overhead toward some destination.

But it is hard to speak of these things
how the voices of light enter the body
and begin to recite their stories
how the earth holds us painfully against
its breast made of humus and brambles
how we who will soon be gone regard
the entities that continue to return
greener than ever, spring water flowing
through a meadow and the shadows of clouds
passing over the hills and the ground
where we stand in the tremble of thought
taking the vast outside into ourselves.

— Billy Collins
From his book "The Art of Drowning"

Photo by Dan Hardison
Bald River Falls, Eastern Tennessee

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September

The heat of the day still lingers in the field.
Leaves disclose their secrets
in answer to whispers from the bay.

My daughter bends like a sapling in waning sun,
selecting dandelions: one for her,
and another one

for her brother who crouches on the uneven sidewalk,
Bear tight under an arm, thumb in mouth
to keep the world in balance.

Amber light filters through spreading elms
lining the avenue of this small town.
I breathe in the evening, close my eyes

long enough to etch the moment for safe-keeping,
before it fades, an old photograph, fleeting,
a child's breath freeing seeds.

— Ronda Broatch
From her chapbook "Some Other Eden"

Photo by Dan Hardison
Cookeville, Tennessee

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Rough Country

Give me a landscape made of obstacles,
of steep hills and jutting glacial rock,
where the low-running streams are quick to flood
the grassy fields and bottomlands.

A place

no engineers can master–where the roads
must twist like tendrils up the mountainside
on narrow cliffs where boulders block the way.
Where tall black trunks of lightning-scalded pine
push through the tangled woods to make a roost
for hawks and swarming crows.

And sharp inclines

where twisting through the thorn-thick underbrush,
scratched and exhausted, one turns suddenly
to find an unexpected waterfall,
not half a mile from the nearest road,
a spot so hard to reach that no one comes–
a hiding place, a shrine for dragonflies
and nesting jays, a sign that there is still
one piece of property that won't be owned.

— Dana Gioia
From his book “The Gods of Winter.”

Photo by Dan Hardison
Western North Carolina

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The Layers

I have walked through many lives,
some of them my own,
and I am not who I was,
though some principle of being
abides, from which I struggle not to stray.
When I look behind,
as I am compelled to look
before I can gather strength
to proceed on my journey,
I see the milestones dwindling
toward the horizon
and the slow fires trailing
from the abandoned camp-sites,
over which scavenger angels
wheel on heavy wings.
Oh, I have made myself a tribe
out of my true affections,
and my tribe is scattered!
How shall the heart be reconciled
to its feast of losses?
In a rising wind
the manic dust of my friends,
those who fell along the way,
bitterly stings my face.
yet I turn, I turn,
exulting somewhat,
with my will intact to go
wherever I need to go,
and every stone on the road
precious to me.
In my darkest night,
when the moon was covered
and I roamed through wreckage,
a nimbus-clouded voice
directed me:
"Live in the layers,
not on the litter."
Though I lack the art
to decipher it,
no doubt the next chapter
in my book of transformations
is already written,
I am not done with my changes.

— Stanley Kunitz
From his book "The Wild Braid: A Poet Reflects on a Century in the Garden"

Photo by Dan Hardison
Airlie Gardens
Wilmington, North Carolina

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How Perfectly

How perfectly

and neatly

opens the pink rose

this bright morning,

the sun warm

on my shoulders,

its heat

on the opening petals.

Possibly

it is the smallest,

the least important event

at this moment

in the whole world.

Yet I stand there,

utterly happy.

— Mary Oliver
From "Provincetown Arts", volume 24, 2009/10

Photo by Dan Hardison
Wilmington, North Carolina

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Waters of the River

My being
is as the waters of a river;
passing through time and change
and creations of God
and man
that line my way.
Ever changing, ever moving,
pursuing paths
not always of my choosing . . .
traveling at a pace
not always of my heart's desire,
toward some obscure horizon;
some uncertain destiny.

Like the river,
I am moved by powers
I cannot command;
sometimes to linger
in desolate and ugly places
'til I become
a part of what they are . . .
and their look
is on my face . . .
Then suddenly to be swept
past things of beauty,
things of worth,
too fast to grasp . . .
too fast to comprehend.

My life
is as the waters of a river
and I cannot change my course.
Perhaps, there was a time,
somewhere in the beginning,
but not now.
So I will take the path I must
toward whatever seas await me.

— Jim Metcalf
From his book “In Some Quiet Place.”

Photo by Dan Hardison
Tellico Plains, Tennessee

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Lines (Sometimes from the far-away)

Sometimes, from the far-away,

Wing a little thought to me;

In the night or in the day,

It will give a rest to me.

I have praise of many here,

And the world gives me renown;

Let it go – give me one tear,

'Twill be a jewel in my crown.

What care I for earthly fame?

How I shrink from all its glare!

I would rather that my name

Would be shrined in some one's prayer.

Many hearts are all too much,

Or too little in their praise;

I would rather feel the touch

Of one prayer that thrills all days.

— Abram J. Ryan

Photo by Dan Hardison
Montgomery, Alabama

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The After A While

There's a beautiful river, the After A While,
With travelers drifting away;
It flows through the country of Putting Things Off,
Till it broadens out into the bay.

Far down at the mouth of this slow-winding stream
Is the city of Never, I hear,
And those who would drift on the eddying tide
Must tie at its tumbledown pier.

So if you wouldn't go to the city I've named,
Don't ask me the "why" or the "how";
Just portage today, to the stream o'er the hill,
That turbulent river, the "Now"!

— Stillman J. Elwell
From his book "Windows of Thought"

Photo by Dan Hardison
Brunswick Town, North Carolina

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Weather Note

The snow has gone,
But the naked tree
Has yet no bird
For us to see:

Against the sky
The tree stands tall,
Wanting a bird,
Shapely and small,

To break the lean
Black bough austere, –
And break the frozen
Silence, here,

With a spring note,
Startling as thunder,
On ears awaiting
That first wonder.

— David Morton
From his book "Angle of Earth and Sky," 1941.

Photo by Dan Hardison
Wilmington, North Carolina

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Supplication

I am so tired and weary,
So tired of the endless fight,
So weary of waiting the dawn
And finding endless night.
That I ask but rest and quiet –
Rest for days that are gone,
And quiet for the little space
That I must journey on.

— Joseph S. Cotter, Jr.

Photo by Dan Hardison
Wilmington, North Carolina

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The Star's Song

God sings to man through all my rays
        That wreathe the brow of night,
And walks with me thro' all my ways –
        The everlasting light.


— Abram J. Ryan

Digitally Enhanced Photo
by Dan Hardison

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Graveyard

Nothing has moved in this town.
Nothing at all. Only the soundless dark
And the wonder of night that came like the wind
Unseen have wandered down these final streets.
Only the silent have come upon this mark.

There is no town so quiet on any earth,
Nor any house so dark upon the mind.
Only the night is here, and the dead
Under the hard blind eyes of hill and tree.
Here lives sleep. Here the dead are free.

— James Still
From his book "From the Mountain, From the Valley: New and Collected Poems".

Photo by Dan Hardison
St. John's Episcopal Church - Maury County Tennessee

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Enraptured

There's a glory in the heavens
That no artist's brush reveals,
And no poet's pen expresses
All the wonderment he feels;
The majestic snow-clad mountain
And the prairie's rolling span
Put to shame the noblest effort
Of the puny mind of man!

In the bridge that spans the chasm
And the spire against the sky,
With the utmost skill and patience,
Man has sought to please the eye,
But when nature clothes the woodland
In the scarlet robes of fall,
Yonder maple on the hillside
Is more beautiful than all!
If I fail to see the beauty
In a lovely work of art,
Or the work of some Old Master
Somehow fails to touch my heart,
Should I miss the golden glory
Of the path some hero trod,
Please forgive me, I'm enraptured
By the Wondrous Works of God!

— Stillman J. Elwell
From his book "Windows of Thought"

Photo by Dan Hardison
Asheville, North Carolina

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The Round

Light splashed this morning
on the shell-pink anemones
swaying on their tall stems;
down blue-spiked veronica
light flowed in rivulets
over the humps of the honeybees;
this morning I saw light kiss
the silk of the roses
in their second flowering,
my late bloomers
flushed with their brandy.
A curious gladness shook me.

So I have shut the doors of my house,
so I have trudged downstairs to my cell,
so I am sitting in semi-dark
hunched over my desk
with nothing for a view
to tempt me
but a bloated compost heap,
steamy old stinkpile,
under my window;
and I pick my notebook up
and I start to read aloud
the still-wet words I scribbled
on the blotted page:
"Light splashed . . ."

I can scarcely wait till tomorrow
when a new life begins for me,
as it does each day;
as it does each day.

— Stanley Kunitz
From his book "The Wild Braid: A Poet Reflects on a Century in the Garden"

Photo by Dan Hardison
New Hanover County Arboretum
Wilmington, North Carolina

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Lost

Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.

— David Wagoner
From his book "Traveling Light: Collected and New Poems"

Photo by Dan Hardison
Red Clay State Park, East Tennessee

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The Lily

Night after night

darkness

enters the face

of the lily

which, lightly,

closes its five walls

around itself,

and its purse

of honey,

and its fragrance,

and is content

to stand there

in the garden,

not quite sleeping,

and, maybe,

saying in lily language

some small words

we can't hear

even when there is no wind

anywhere,

its lips

are so secret,

its tongue

is so hidden –

or, maybe,

it says nothing at all

but just stands there

with the patience

of vegetables

and saints

until the whole earth has turned around

and the silver moon

becomes the golden sun –

as the lily absolutely knew it would,

which is itself, isn't it,

the perfect prayer?

— Mary Oliver
From her book "Why I Wake Early"

Photo by Dan Hardison
Columbia, Tennessee

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Windows

The windows of the place wherein I dwell

I will make beautiful. No garish light
Shall enter crudely; but with colors bright,

And warm and throbbing I will weave a spell,
In rainbow harmony the theme to tell

Of sage and simple saint and noble knight,
Beggar and king who fought the gallant fight.

These shall transfigure even my poor cell.

But when the shadows of the night begin,

And sifted sunlight falls no more on me,

May I have learned to light my lamp within;

So that the passing world may look and see

Still the same radiance, though with paler hue,
Of the sweet lives that help men to live true.

— Abbie Farwell Brown
From the anthology "High Tide: Songs of Joy and Vision from the Present-Day Poets of America and Great Britain", 1916.

Photo by Dan Hardison
New Hanover Arboretum - Wilmington, NC

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Rain Music

On the dusty earth-drum
Beats the falling rain;
Now a whispered murmur,
Now a louder strain.
Slender, silvery drumsticks,
On an ancient drum,
Beat the mellow music
Bidding life to come.
Chords of earth awakened,
Notes of greening spring,
Rise and fall triumphant
Over every thing.
Slender, silvery drumsticks
Beat the long tattoo –
God, the Great Musician,
Calling life anew.

— Joseph S. Cotter, Jr.

Photo by Dan Hardison
Red Clay State Park, East Tennessee

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Just Once

Just once in the year do the geese fly south,
And once does the first snow fall,
Just once do the buds burst forth in spring,
And once does the corn grow tall!

Just once in the day does the purple East
Light up with the glow of dawn,
And once do the deepening shadows fall,
At dusk, when the sun is gone.

Then how can a person be tired of Life
Or bored in a world like ours?
Where once is the season of crimson leaves
And once is the time of flowers.

For so it is planned in the life of man,
His story is quickly told,
Just once he's a child at his mother's knee,
And once he is gray and old.

Then give me the wisdom, good Lord, to know
The miracles shown to me,
That I may watch any passing day –
Yet never again may see!

— Stillman J. Elwell
(From his book "Windows of Thought")

Photo by Dan Hardison
Off the Coast of Provincetown, Massachusetts

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