Last May I spent a verdant spring morning snapping pics at our local plowing match, then stowed the photos away for the fall edition of God and Nature Magazine, where they recently appeared with this, my latest poem.

As you read, you’ll need to bend your mind a bit. Imagine not only the autumnal equinox’s slant light and winter’s advancing darkness, but also gloom that can descend anytime. You know, those dismal seasons of mind or heart or body.

Then picture an ethereal plow made of that same slant light and drawn by great beasts of God-reigned time. Feel the plow carve a furrow in your heart, a gash where suffering sows pain’s black seeds. Remember how, each time this happens, you long to escape the loss. The hurt.

But how, if you’ll only walk the holy furrow, warmer days return— and you find that, instead of sprouting those grim seeds, winter has composted your pain. Transformed it.

“The darkness is passing away and the true Light is already shining … ” —1 John 2:8

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Fall Furrows

By Cheryl Grey Bostrom

​Aw, God.
Your equinox, here again—
that sharp plow, come to cleave
the soil of seasons,
to slice September with waning days.

Gee! Haw!
At your voice,
time’s Percherons and mules,
Shires and Clydes,
all traces taut,
heave your slant-light blade,
curling summer (now tired and dry)
into furrows,
seedbeds of December’s dark composting.

Must I winter here? Again?
I feel them still, Lord,
those cuts from other dimmings,
other winters of heart.
Save me, Father.
Fly me south, will you?

Or,
remind me how to
walk the furrows.
Crease me with wisdom
I can follow in the bleak, until
your canted beam returns
to fold the earth to spring.

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From the International Plowing Match, Lynden, Washington, Spring 2021. Note how one animal walks the plow’s last furrow in order to keep the team’s course straight.

Award-winning author Cheryl Grey Bostrom is a Pacific Northwest native, naturalist, and avid photographer. A former teacher and columnist, she lives with her husband and two irrepressible Gordon setters in rural Washington State. Her novel SUGAR BIRDS was released August 3, 2021. 

God & Nature magazine is a publication of the American Scientific Affiliation, an international network of Christians in science.

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And now a few shots from earlier this week:

Tree: In 6 days.

Us: “We will all be changed—in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye . . . “

—1 Corinthians 15:52-53

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Tendonitis?

“And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.”

—Romans 8:23

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When you finally get it.

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Good morning, sleepyhead.

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Thanks for stopping by, friends. So glad you’re here.

Watching Nature, Seeing Life: Through His Creation, God Speaks.

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A gift idea for you: SUGAR BIRDS!