Convent Tuesday, February 5, 2013

It's an uncertain day here at the convent; neither cold nor warm, not quite rainy, nor is it snowing. There's no anticipation in the air, no expectation at all. Just a nagging sense of disquiet, as if I've forgotten to take my vitamins.

I went outside in search of a small blue thing, something to remind me of the soft, still voice that I was having trouble hearing above the quiet of winter.

Almost immediately, a tree whispered to me. I stood under it and listened for a bit.


















I discovered some directionally-challenged moss growing on the southwest side of a brick.












I passed a wheelbarrow having a smoke behind one of the outbuildings. It tipped its hat as I went by.

I sat for a bit with an order of crocuses napping among the trees, their wimple clad heads gently nodding.

I think it was their snoring that finally drove me back inside.

Whose are the little beds," I asked, "Which in the valleys lie?" Some shook their heads, and others smiled, And no one made reply. "Perhaps they did not hear," I said; "I will inquire again. Whose are the beds, the tiny beds So thick upon the plain?" "'T is daisy in the shortest; A little farther on, Nearest the door to wake the first, Little leontodon. "'T is iris, sir, and aster, Anemone and bell, Batschia in the blanket red, And chubby daffodil." Meanwhile at many cradles Her busy foot she plied, Humming the quaintest lullaby That ever rocked a child. "Hush! Epigea wakens! -- The crocus stirs her lids, Rhodora's cheek is crimson, -- She's dreaming of the woods." Then, turning from them, reverent, "Their bed-time 't is," she said; "The bumble-bees will wake them When April woods are red."                                            Emily Dickinson