Seasonings

Library of Congress Card Number: 92-80295

ISBN: 0-9625774-5-6

Dedicated to

all those who are attuned

to the changing of the seasons

Contents

Communication................................................................... 1

Ode to Time......................................................................... 2

Hiddenbrooke at The Foot of Mount Beacon...................... 3

Hollowness........................................................................... 4

For Valentine’s Day............................................................. 5

Loneliness............................................................................ 6

Hawk Thoughts.................................................................... 8

The Fir Tree......................................................................... 9

Take A Springtime Road...................................................... 9

Wall Song........................................................................... 10

The Resurrection Robin...................................................... 11

Renewal.............................................................................. 11

Spring of The Cosmos........................................................ 12

Why There Are Black Holes in The Sky............................. 12

Ode To God....................................................................... 13

The Dancer........................................................................ 13

Indian Hymn...................................................................... 14

Trinity................................................................................ 14

As The Earth Approaches Omega..................................... 15

My Dandelion Bouquet...................................................... 15

A New Generation............................................................. 16

God’s Music....................................................................... 17

Open Your Eyes and See Rebirth....................................... 17

Becoming........................................................................... 18

Knowledge Increases Mercy.............................................. 18

The Stations of The Cross......................................................

Station III - Falling............................................................ 19

Station V - Simon of Cyrene.............................................. 20

Station VI - Veronica......................................................... 21

Station VIII - Weeping Women........................................ 22

Station X - Stripping.......................................................... 23

Station XII - Dying............................................................. 23

Station XII - The Sacrifice ................................................ 24

Holy Spirit on Good Friday............................................... 25

Asylum in Spring................................................................ 26

Comment on The Sacredness of Life................................. 27

The Celebration Tree......................................................... 27

Cover The Earth With Love.............................................. 27

He Was Man....................................................................... 28

As We Edge Further Into May........................................... 28

Let Me Sing........................................................................ 29

To Atlas Holding Up The Earth......................................... 29

How Each Tree Shouts “Glory To God”.......................... 30

On The Shore of The Great Sea......................................... 30

Energy................................................................................ 31

Bird Watching.................................................................... 31

My Home............................................................................ 32

No Place To Hide............................................................... 34

Memories........................................................................... 34

On Harps............................................................................ 35

A Piece of God’s Handiwork............................................. 35

The Hummingbird.............................................................. 36

My Rockettes...................................................................... 37

The Pot God Made............................................................ 38

Joe’s Day........................................................................... 39

The Bouquet....................................................................... 39

Hand Blown Glass............................................................. 40

God, The Tree, and I.......................................................... 40

In A Rainbow..................................................................... 41

The Flute Song................................................................... 41

Woman............................................................................... 42

A Statement Open for Discussion...................................... 42

Come, Sing With Me.......................................................... 43

Think of What Is Most Beautiful........................................ 43

How Spiders Trapped The Sun.......................................... 44

On The Overgrown Grave of John Desmond.................... 45

Each Has Her Own Gold................................................... 46

Chesapeake Bay Pier......................................................... 47

Why Am I?......................................................................... 48

Be Merry!........................................................................... 49

The Cardinal...................................................................... 49

Our World.......................................................................... 50

The Cycle........................................................................... 50

Cedar Hill.......................................................................... 51

Our Freedom To Be........................................................... 51

Shouting............................................................................. 52

God Audible....................................................................... 52

Wasted Glory..................................................................... 53

Wiser.................................................................................. 53

The Good Returns To God................................................. 54

Why Flowers Grow............................................................ 54

Transformation of Energy................................................. 55

Mocking Thoughts............................................................. 55

God Watches...................................................................... 56

Autumn.............................................................................. 57

Monarch Butterflies........................................................... 57

The Butterfly...................................................................... 58

French Alps........................................................................ 59

On Change......................................................................... 59

Funeral Bells—Cagnes Sur Mer........................................ 60

The Penalty........................................................................ 61

In The Forest..................................................................... 62

Obedient,............................................................................ 62

They Died That I Might Live.............................................. 63

Old Barns........................................................................... 64

Evening.............................................................................. 65

Indian Summer................................................................... 65

Looking Towards Harvest................................................. 66

Sensing Forces................................................................... 66

Fall Waltz........................................................................... 67

Leaves, Pebbles, and People............................................. 68

Who Hears The Owl?......................................................... 69

Swans................................................................................. 70

The Month of Remembering.............................................. 71

October.............................................................................. 72

Elegy To The Locust Tree.................................................. 73

Thank You For Earth and Time......................................... 74

Hudson Cliffs..................................................................... 74

Saint Therese..................................................................... 75

You Can’t Keep Saints From Marching............................ 76

The Name of God.............................................................. 76

Advent................................................................................ 77

The “O” Antiphons............................................................ 77

His Name .......................................................................... 78

Christmas at Women’s Correctional Facility .................. 79

Taking Down The Christmas Tree..................................... 80

Over The River................................................................... 81

The Failure........................................................................ 82

The Clothes We Wear on our Soul .................................... 84

Eternity.............................................................................. 85

Seasonings

Cora E. Cypser (1992)

KIM PATHWAYS

ISBN: 0-9625774-5-6

Communication

Our lives touch for a moment

with this poetry!

Imagine—

for a bit of spinning earth

my spirit reaches out

and lays a claim on yours

with a layer of inky print

upon a page.

What can words do

frail, structured letters

marching in a line

drawn from an eager soul?

I wish

that in each poem

I have written

there were words

that could give peace

and healthiness

and understanding

as some with skill

sketch out a flower

or craft a scene.

Would that I

could write love.

I wish

that as our spirits touch

you would receive

great gifts

that only God can give

that make the human

a true child of God.

Ode to Time

You are strong.

I have felt your knotted arm

even when I thought

you were only a small boy

flexing his muscles.

Now I roll with the punches.

You are lovely.

Every time you turn

gracefully by me

you reveal some new beauty

so that I forget

you take as well as give.

You are my friend

holder of my mortgage on life

who has loaned me days

that may be transformed to service

which in turn may be traded for love.

Should I fear you

as I feel your loving fingers

running through my hag-gray hair?

The Season of Winter

Hiddenbrooke at The Foot of Mount Beacon

The forest is not silent.

God is not silent.

I heard a mountainside make music

through a film of frozen crystal

a unity of trees singing together.

You must go alone

to the edge of the woods and listen

for the sound of treetops praying

(though they stand

like motionless dead sticks).

There you will hear

like you were on the edge of eternity

a universal voice rising

from the multitude of winter trees.

The forest is not silent

and God is not silent.

There is a holy spirit buzzing

like bees drunk on locust trees in June

that rises from parched throats

which appear January frozen in our age

a universal voice that rises

from this community

of seemingly dead trees.

Hollowness

There is a gray-white hollow in the day

and God is filling it with snow

dear God, doing what is needed

filling the empty

cheering the bleak.

My heart reaches out to the day

and it, too, feels its hollowness

stretching out to meet

the gray-white emptiness.

Dear God, fill the empty!

God, cheer the bleak.

Who Sees The Half-moon?

The half-moon comes up at noon

but who sees it?

The brightness of the sun

confuses our eyes.

So in our country

the visibility of detente policies

almost makes oblivion

of peace negotiations.

So in our church

the formidableness of the hierarchy

blinds us to the equalizing love

that is necessary

among all human beings.

For Valentine’s Day

Think it not strange, oh, Beloved

that we should be in love with God

(for God is all lovely)

my soul and your soul

in love

with the Soul that made the universe!

What kind of love is this

where one loves so much

that one is made over

into that which one loves?

I become like you.

You become like me.

We become like God.

Let us love God, then, greatly

as we gladly run to rendezvous.

Then if we keep the course

and reach the glorious goal

we shall find we are like God.

Lord, help us to keep our course.

Help us to reach that goal.

Help us to be like you.

Loneliness

I am loneliness.

I come to you

after the last sunbeam

on winter days.

I haunt you

through the shadows of your life.

I trail you along the roads

that are dark and wind beaten.

I am the devil of loneliness.

I come to torment you

on rainy nights and bleak days.

I am all the things you look back on

with longing.

I am all the things

you would like to have happen now

that won’t happen.

I am a God you cannot believe in.

I am a lover who does not love.

I am work too hard to be done alone

that must be done

alone.

I am the devil of loneliness.

I come to you

in the great city

and I walk the streets with you

while you go up and down

up and down

searching for a friendly face

searching for a familiar heart.

I stalk beside you laughing

and casting futile and fragile memories

into your mind.

I chuckle wildly to myself

while you walk up and down

up and down

knowing you will never find

that which you seek.

I am loneliness.

I am the woman no man loves.

I am a broken violin.

I am a soldier wounded in battle.

I am a wild wind-swept song.

I haunt you

through the shadows of your life.

Hawk Thoughts

I reach out to the black hawk

sailing over the lake

and I feel that I can almost hold him

in my hand, that his being

is a part of my being.

But, no, I cannot confine him.

He is made to be free

in his place of melting ice

and cold February wind.

Does God feel like that about us—

spirits made of God’s Spirit?

God does not confine us.

God lets us fly free.

The Season of Spring

The Fir Tree

Like to a fir tree greening in the spring

I am as one

turning a fresher and more radiant look

to the warmer sun.

I stand with a new spirit, so it seems

straighter in my place

waking, and shaking off cold winter’s dreams

seeking my master’s face.

So what have I to do with storms

or winds that race

or with unnourishing sod?

I shall stand straighter

firmer, taller in my place

feeling the love of God.

Take A Springtime Road

A springtime road is a road that shines

in the morning sun.

A springtime road is a road to take

as the day’s begun

but one must go with a springtime heart

and morning eyes

to tread a path suffused

with a gold sunrise.

Wall Song

Under the sun filled sky

a gray stone wall

ran up a green hill

in an aimless way

with rustling ivy

twisting on it all.

It was a perfect spot—

a perfect day.

There I sat

and my panting old dog lay.

We pantheists breathed deep

the mossy smell

that old walls have

and kept our eyes

upon a lazy snake

who’d thought to dwell

by this warm wall

under the sparkling skies

so he’d not slither near us

and surprise.

Each springtime journey

has its space

of guarded resting on a wall.

We must be cognizant

of snakes and possibilities

of fall.

The Resurrection Robin

Yesterday it was cold and windy

and bleak and dreary.

Suddenly this morning I heard

the robin’s cheery-cheery-cheery.

I watched him high in my oak tree

and thought how wonderful it was that he

should know inside his little head

that it was about time he said

a song of bird joy in my yard.

From years of springs I knew that now

the brown grass would turn green

and the forsythia would start to preen

herself, and I knew, too

that someday God would make things new

and that then we would certainly arise

to be with God in Paradise.

Spring comes to you

and comes to me

and likewise comes to us, eternity.

We cannot stop the robin from singing.

Renewal

God will create all things anew.

Lord, let me be near you then

to see you take the crooked

we have made, and to watch you

make it straight.

What a great day!

When all the good we pray

overcomes the bad we do

and your love turns us all to miracles!

Spring of The Cosmos

This is the day of the red bud maple.

The dust devils climb up spiral stairways

before laughing away in the wind.

The clouds say soft, hazy things

about an April shower tomorrow.

God speaks in the heart

that winter is never forever

though the worlds and the stars

freeze into oblivion.

Why There Are Black Holes in The Sky

I am the light, and you may call me Ray.

God made me on the first creative day.

My quivering photons all around you prance.

Hold fast onto my hand. See how I dance!

Through entities of liquid, gas, and space

in a mad pell-mell careless-seeming race

I rush to nowhere and return to fly

back to the infinite reaches of the sky.

I bend, my friend, when passing by the sun

bowing polite to his attractive mass

and if there were a star, a big dense one

that even my fast flight could not get past

then to its massive bosom I would fall

ignobly fast, and not be here at all.

Where would you be, without me?

Ode To God

They said we should write odes in praise

of those we love, or things we love

or lands we love, or ideas we love.

I said that I would praise the heavens

for they are wide

but you are wider than the heavens.

I said that I would praise time

for it is the leveler of all I see around

but you are timeless.

I said that I would praise spring

but when I considered its beauty

I thought of who made spring.

I said that I would praise love

but love as I knew it decayed, vanished

leaving only you standing there.

So I will sing to you, loving God

because you have tumbled the time-bound stars

across the spring-night heavens.

The Dancer

Spring

has turned the willow tree

into a Chinese dancer

whose golden sleeves

cover her lithe brown arms.

Indian Hymn

Our eager earth again sees springtime sweet.

The music of a thousand rivulets rings

for the Great Spirit will make things complete.

Whispers have come to fields of early wheat.

There are soft buzzing bugs and rustling wings.

Our eager earth again sees springtime sweet.

The brave bent with despair, near to defeat

has new hope stirring now, a heart that sings

for the Great Spirit will make things complete.

Leaves bud on boughs, laughing through frozen sleet.

Bulbs thrust up stalks through mulchy coverings.

Our eager earth again sees springtime sweet.

Some golden time our Indian souls will meet

in Happy Hunting Grounds as forest kings

for the Great Spirit will make things complete.

The end of winter brings on running feet

the joyful promise to renew all things.

Our eager earth again sees springtime sweet

for the Great Spirit will make things complete.

Trinity

I Am the gardener

and the garden

and the tool

the gardener

uses.

As The Earth Approaches Omega

Things are so busy

bursting and blooming

thrusting and thrashing

bustle of blackbirds

tumult of tulips.

The earth seems an apex

of alert aliveness

amorphous with growth

ferine with fertility.

Are we near the great sound

of the triumphant trumpet

where man makes the choice

of God or explosion?

My Dandelion Bouquet

God, I shall pluck the days

as children gather dandelions

wildly, riotously

and offer them to you

with the same gay abandon

with the same assurance

that the common weed is lovely

as these children offer dandelions to me.

Will you accept these garish flowers, my days?

They may close up and look quite hideous

like this deceitful gold bouquet

but like the children

it is all I have to offer.

A New Generation

I come here among the fir trees to escape them

the green shoots, the wild new spring shoots

growing loudly

prodding up the earth ear-splittingly.

Faith is a dancer and claps her hands.

She does not know

the moon comes full each month.

She has never seen it before.

She says, “What is life?”

Hope is a drummer.

He splatters the sky with splinters.

He has led rats and mice

over the hill laughingly.

Hope says, “What is death?”

Charity strums the guitar.

She sings, “What is evil?”

The moon breathes back echoes.

I run away from their bombilation.

My ears cannot stand the fracas

the wild noise of spring green.

It’s quiet here among the fir trees

who are too polite

to put forth queries I can’t answer.

God’s Music

The Mighty Hand pulled dust strands from a star

and made for us a world with all its rhythms

placing on it a syncopation full

of slithering bellies, shimmering fins

galloping hooves, and even agile minds

to romp across the swelling symphony.

“Music is good, but it needs song,” God mused.

Therewith, the Mighty Voice sent forth the Word.

Oh, all ears listen! Learn the Word God sent!

Oh, all lips sing; put God’s Word to God’s music!

Open Your Eyes and See Rebirth

Look at the maples pendulous with bud

pregnant and red against a sapphire sky

the willows waving golden wands like rays

drawn from a sun in some child’s picture

the haze leaning blue gray on the Catskills

gentle hills where we can climb

to rest under the stars

the silver beige of blades blown in the field

and over and surrounding all, the wind

the warm spring wind, the Holy Spirit wind

changing earth, making earth warm

giving earth a new heart.

Bless the whole world, Lord

because as all the trees are taught

to bud in spring

so all persons are taught

to desire you.

Becoming