{update and seasonal errata}

Sowing Clover

by Wendell Berry (in Selected Poems of Wendell Berry)

February 2, 1968
In the dark of the moon, in flying
snow, in the dead of winter,
war spreading, families dying, the
world in danger,

I walk the rocky hillside, sowing
clover.

No one ever seems to have to sow the crocuses, and yet, they blessedly appear. Sweet relief from the browns and the blahs and the endless gray. To seek sanity from the world, to put a little something down to grab hold of the earth and anchor us – how hopeful to plant a little something. Seeds of peace, of faith. Or, simple things, like sweetpeas and lupin or clover…

~ from Henry David Thoreau’s Faith in a Seed:

Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed. Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders.

I got CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES from Ashley in Paris! *happy dance*

My mysterious novel was finished yesterday! *happier dance*

I WOKE UP AT 3 A.M. AND FIGURED OUT WHAT WAS WRONG WITH MY MIDDLE GRADE NOVEL WHICH HAS BEEN REJECTED NINE TIMES!!! *happiest dance*

And from a great distance, sunrise glows…

There is a suggestion of daffodils; tall green shoots chinning up from the damp compacted soil. Light, at the end of a tunnel; reward, at the end of a winter of work. If this is how we kick off, March might turn out to be a pretty decent month. It might not be landing in a particularly lamblike fashion in your neck of the woods, but it is welcome indeed to roar. There are cobwebs which need to be shaken from my head.

“You must do something to make the world more beautiful.” ~ Barbara Cooney reminds us in MISS RUMPHIUS. Tell your seeds like prayer beads, and go forth and grow.