Places 14: Kaleidoscope

Kaleidoscope

Once I sought and found quiet in a one room cabin on a Southern Indiana farm. It was built from unfinished freshly milled wood and set inside a partly fenced-off glade of tall unmown grass between woods, pasture, a cow corridor and grainfields. The inside was undecorated and sparsely furnished. It was intentionally off the grid — one tiny closet held a composting toilet, another held a broom, dustpan, sleeping bag, extra water bottles, candles, kerosene and a lamp.

It was my prayer cabin. The first piece of furniture brought through the door was a simple altar made from a wooden beam on saw-horse like legs. It was a surprise, built by a dear friend with Native American roots in the earth and spiritual roots in the Heavenlies.

The weathered beam he used for the altar was old—a remnant of the virgin forests that once covered the land. Before the farm’s first barn had fully fallen down, been burned and buried, he’d rescued and saved portions of the center beam—one piece became our altar, another his.. To me, it was symbolic of his own earthly and heavenly heritage.

One afternoon, while sitting in the cabin watching sunlight move across the walls and floor, I wrote the first draft of Kaleidoscope. It’s a long slow, wandering poem—about my thoughts that restful afternoon in a sun-filled cabin.

I  — Me

long slanting rays of sun beam in
across raw boards and floor
as earth-turns round—so slow—
the sliding light warms up,
until it almost glows;
entranced, I gradually sink in
to its kaleidoscopic flow—

soothed by the smells
of fresh cut pine,
with no-where else to go,
mesmerized, I watch—
take time for measures—
human minds can’t know
wait— till faith reveals
what the Spirit lights to show

Inside this square
of inside air,
twenty-four by twenty-four,
fresh-planed, all smooth and bright—
with windows set in every wall
to bring in moving light—
I think of life
of Christ in me
and me in Him
and warmth and light,
and everlasting life within
the human frames of time,
that bound the not-so-always-quiet
flesh formed box of mine.

The cabin smell is new,
breath comfort softens duty’s lines—
with each kaleidoscopic turn-around  of time.
I soak in far off groves of trees
and wander beneath olive leaves
with Jesus in Gethsemane,
and recall wood once felled for me,
wood pierced by nails
and stained by blood
given-love that sets me free.

Time turns in restful harmonies
of wondering how my Lord might see
this cabin
and the things surrounding me

II — Things

I see these store-bought boards—
once trees, now bereft of roots and leaves,
stripped of birds and bugs and bees,
hammered together to hold
our wood burning stove,
(from Norway)
a worn and weather-splintered rocker
(rescued from a resale store),
a wooden altar and me—

plus—two split logs,
neatly piled, filed away,
ready to fire on colder days;
their bark—skins shed and shred to kindling,
a dusty mound of dry grayed chips
placed on paper, on the floor
near the little woodstove door

looking around, I also see
one shabby red, white and blue
made in USA for you
Diamond brand,
strike anywhere, box of matches—

one stainless drinking cup—
a Chinese import that slipped through
to sit beside four thin paperbacks
writ for thirsting souls
by medieval saints with living spirits—

and the dead—
upon the wide-board fresh-wood floor
now lie
eight flies, close to the door,
five Japanese beetles,
a family of four moths,
all taupe with tiny dots on quiet wings,
two black spiders—shriveled—
and one barely definable box-elder bug

counted for my written record—
(before I rise to sweep the floor)
exact realism their reward—
these twenty tiny bodies
in the sunshine of a simple unswept wooden floor,
sacrificed inside unnatural space—
by a human’s cabin
intruding in their natural place

the gives and takes twixt man and land
kaleidoscope through time
as daily suns pass over
this wooden box of mine

the stove-wood waits a colder day to burn,
the altar’s wood turns toward a higher fire—
its natural history shyly hides

III — The Altar

this tiny strip of wood— one by four by two or three
once grew inside a giant tree
once sheltered on the bosom of an un-milked land,
fathered by old forests—
stretching almost endlessly
from eastern shores to long prairies.

This altar, cut from natural family,
Surrendered, only when
resolutely, men, with horses, teamed all day
to strip these Appalachian foothills,
and seize these land-locked trees,
to haul our heart-land forests far away
to form tall masts, set up for sails raised to catch
a distant Indian Ocean wind or the South Pacific breeze.

this tiny strip of wood—
this cabin altar,
where I kneel to pray,
this bit of one by four by two or three
was not exported far away

It stayed in Indiana
as a big barn’s center beam
for a century and a half and more
it covered cows and horses;
it kept rain off the needed hay,
this relic from the olden days—
before first-nation’s loss,
before first settlers came,
before our needy fore-bearers
could imagine counting-costs
for stainless-steel drinking cups,
prayer cabins built on settled lands
and black cast-iron stoves

IV — Our Good Friend —the  Builder

such a simple wooden altar—
the wood was saved by a preaching man,
Cherokee, on his mother’s side,
and wild once—when young—
he saved that old beam;
knowingly, he saw the wood was sound
he heard the wind-songs in its grain
before blind strife for human gain
had stained this soil

he cut and sawed the altar
and fixed it up on legs
hand carved the words

JEHOVAH ELOHIM

a wood redeemed
from our ancient, tumbled-down
burned-up, now buried, barn

V — Me again

And me?
Ah—faith’s complexity—

I’m looking round this wood-bound room,
restin’ in my wooden rocker
with a wooden pencil (in my hand)
writing words (some wooden)
on paper made from trees
watchin’ the light—
now’s-micro-charged kaleido-skype
sliding through the windows of my soul—

as sun slides warmth around these walls
heatin’ up the air of fresh cut wood
like myrrh, it smells so sweet,
like death’s divine divorce decree
so sweetly fells the very selves
of those who choose belief,
crucifies the flesh to heal, restore,
transform, bring change
until our wood is wholly gone
and only God and love remains—

—before we meet that day—
deemed always —far, far, far away—
Lord help us hold to You
Help us cling in thought and faith
to words of life forever true—
You doomed every wooden altar
every wooden thing to fall
before the coming all in all

And, Lord, I’m hoping—slowly
for [country] folks don’t hurry here
for a fire in my spirit
and sunlight on my frame
for sweet perfumes from burning wood
and fresh new wind-songs in my grain.

The moral:
God’s Spirit will remain.
Fire only burns the wood.
All He saves and writes and builds
Turns good.

 

© Ginny Emery; first version, May 2006; this version January 2021