In honor and remembrance of our dear HUU members Don Krech and Jo Anne St. Clair who died in the past two weeks. They will ever be in our hearts.

                        Natural Cycle

The lively energy of Duck Run draws me
to follow the track past the farmyard, the Dutch barn
and the fields of corn that stretch beyond
the wide meadow sloping down
towards the creek.

The spirit of this lovely place stirs through me.
The emerald valley is like a Greek god’s open palm
offering mortals precious jewels.
The Appalachian mountains rear round the west.
The backs of the Blue Ridge hunch round the east.
Close up, Massanutten Peak peers
over the pastures. From the gazebo, I gaze down
to the little bridge across the pond below.
Red-winged blackbirds wheel over cattails,
blue-black dragon-flies dart and dive.

At noon, I stroll round the pond and over the bridge.
I pass under two native cedars shading
reeds and marsh ferns where toads grunt,
turtles blop and ducks float on shimmer.
In the warmth, steaming vapors
rise from the luminous waters.

At dusk I lift up my eyes. Above the western hills
clouds blossom with pink and gray. The turning
sky embroiders its blue with golden threads.

Duck Run is where bodies of the dead
lie beneath the grasses. Slabs of local slate
laid flat mark their graves, names and dates incised.

Because the cemetery is natural, the living
who choose to celebrate their final rest here
know their legacy will sustain this land
held in sacred trust for ever.

The soil holds the histories of those buried here.
No monuments, coffins or metal caskets, no fine robes
of polyester or nylon. No embalmings pretend
hearts still pump in flesh and bones.

Instead, the rich earth breathes out a symphony
of praise. Whenever Duck Run
calls to me, I’ll hear its energy in flutes piping
in the dew at dawn and violins singing
through the trees at dusk.

Note: Duck Run is a certified natural cemetery in Penn Laird, VA, near Harrisonburg. Several members and friends of our congregation have opted for this sacred place for their final resting place.

Linda Ankrah-Dove ©
November 2022

When young I travelled far abroad
around a globe not yet explored.
The Milky Way still pearled the sky
while bird-song piped the dawn and soared.

Now, years on, I seek to sanctify the tiny jewel of land I occupy.
In the years I’m graced here to stay this gift I seek to beautify.

I plant a blossom-tossed display,
tend my garden’s gems in May.
Young trees laced about the house for shade wave off heat and stormy spray.

My home is but a borrowed glint of jade. But will our human dollars soon degrade or save the brighter gem, our Planet,
a jewel we so heartlessly let fade?

Should we all hope forego, forget?
Or can we avert the dire threat
to all green life and loveliness,
grow bigger hearts with will and sweat?

Can we restore to shining liveliness Persephone, the banished goddess in hell’s jail, compelled to sacrifice her light through carelessnesss?

Will we myopic mortals only pay the price
when fires and floods from Hell spark our remorse? Will we then save Earth from dark demise,
restore the lovely Goddess to our paradise?

Linda Ankrah-Dove©.
From Borrowed Glint of Jade. Blackstone Press, 2019, p.67.
(Available from the author)

by Tom Endress

This summer I realized a dream that had been growing for about a decade.  This was to return to Germany and visit with Werner Dettmar, the author of a book on the 1943 firebombing of Kassel.  When I lived in Germany for two years in the late 1950s I became acquainted with many survivors of the horrendous WWII firebombings of Kassel, Hamburg, and Dresden.  But because I was connected with the Church of the Brethren European headquarters in Kassel I became intimately familiar with what the citizens of that historic city had suffered through.  Consequently, these firebombing survivors I learned to know have been close to my heart through the years.

It is unfortunate that many Americans simply dismiss the citizen casualties of these bombings as “collateral damage”.  “People get caught in the crossfire during war and die,” is a common rational I hear.  But as Werner Dettmar carefully demonstrates in his book Die Zerstörung Kassels im Oktober 1943: Eine Dokumentation (The Destruction of Kassel in October 1943: A Documentation) the bombing of Kassel was a carefully planned operation by the British.  They not only sought to destroy the armament factories in Kassel but also to kill as many of the citizens of Kassel as possible.  Sir Arthur Harris, the RAF’s Air Marshall developed the philosophy, supported by Prime Minister Churchill, that if you killed the civilians and workers surrounding the armament factories and military installations by carpet bombing large areas, the surviving German citizens would rise up against their government and insist on an end to the war.   

[Read more…]

I remember well the Fourths when I was 10 to 12 years old in Pittsburgh, where I spent the summers with my father, my grandmother, and my father’s sisters. My father and I would arise early and after breakfast walk probably half a mile to Grandview avenue, that fabulous street that runs along the top of Mt. Washington and looks down on the panorama of downtown Pittsburgh, the Monongahela river below, the Allegheny river beyond the downtown, and the beginning of the Ohio river off to the left. We would take the Mt. Washington incline down to Carson street and catch a street car to Forbes field, home park of the Pittsburgh Pirates baseball team. We would watch the morning game of the holiday doubleheader

It was such a great pleasure for me to be going someplace with my father. The first time we went, he taught me how to keep track of the game on a little card, recording the hits, walks, etc. for each inning. It seems the Pirates always played Cincinnati and they always lost, even though these were glory days when the Pirates won two National League pennants. The big stars were Paul Waner and his younger brother, Lloyd, known as “big poison” and “little poison.” My father always took those losses in his wonderful relaxed, resigned way. It was only a game.

After the game we went home to a special, delicious dinner that my grandmother had fixed. And I was happy. JJG

 

Annie’ s Run…that is what I call this little creek that runs next to my house and where this odd mix of a terrier played among the dragon flies and imaginary playmates at the water’s edge. I had this wonderful friend for almost 20 years. In the winter of 1999, while vacationing in a warmer climate to escape the mountain cold, I received a call from my house mate telling me that Annie had wandered off a few days earlier and that she and the neighbors had been unable to locate her. She probably had walked along the forest path that lead into the National Forest and being almost blind and deaf, she had lost her way. Annie was never found and for weeks, I had reoccurring dreams where she would be coming toward me but would disappear into a dense fog. Then one night, I dreamed of her. However, this time she was in a park somewhere in Brooklyn, NY (I have never even been to Brooklyn) playing in a green grassy area with a small boy. They ran, tumbled and ran some more. Annie was so happy ! And,I was at peace. I am blessed that I did not have to wait long for her to return to bring again so much love. [Read more…]