the deepening ground

To close the year, let me share with you one gift my daughter shared with me this Christmas as a charge for the new year. Along with a copy of Wendell Berry’s This Day: Collected and New Sabbath Poems, Ethney gave me a beautiful sonnet inspiring us to nurture our imaginations and feed the fires of wonder, to “dream and see beyond mortal things.” I’m sure that both Tolkien and Lewis would applaud her defense of fairies and echo her grim description of life devoid of wonder. For me it’s a reminder to slow down and savor the extraordinary in the ordinary and lift my eyes up in hope rather than be weighed down in the darkness of these days. As we turn the calendar and make new year’s resolutions, may we all resolve to live more fully in the Light, to “Let fairies fly, winds whisper, streams sparkle, [and] birds sing!”

For Fairies by Ethney R. I. Anastasi

Ill wind blows where fairies fall to never fly again;
Each drooping head of flowers falls to earth in shame.
And beating rains that bite and bruise the hearts of men
To desert dreams and wonder - all that is pretend.
When streams cease to sparkle and birds silence their songs,
It sickens the mind and corrupts the heart with wrong.
A once whispering wind now doth roar, writhe, and tear;
Skies go black with sickness and darken with despair.
They say a disease hath come to our fairy lands,
A disease that doth spread and plague all of this land.
Out! Out wonder, fairies, and imagination!
And leave these mortal men and and all creation!
        But for those who dream and see beyond mortal things,
        Let fairies fly, winds whisper, streams sparkle, birds sing!