Saturday Haiku: When Crows Come Calling

  

The crows came calling;

     gathering in the oak tree,

     teaching their children.

                               ~ CK

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Picture: "Decree at Sunset"

Print by Angie Rea

For Those Who Travel this Life in the Company of Animals

Daisy
 2000? - Oct. 4, 2013

Last week we had to say good-bye to Daisy as we made that last trip to the veterinarian. Daisy found us and adopted us a little over 12 years ago, so she must have been 13 or 14 years old. Her most notable trait was that she thought every person she met was the greatest thing in the world, and she was exuberant in declaring that belief.

Her veterinarian was Dr. William Weber at Eastwood Animal Clinic. He was steadfast in his care for Daisy while she lived, and continued in his care at the end of her life. Before I left his office, he gave me a card. "Don't read this now, wait a couple of hours," he said, "but this is the best thing I've ever read about what we experience with our pets."

When I read the card, I agreed that it was the best thing I had ever read. The quote is by Suzanne Clothier from her book, Bones would Rain from the Sky: Deepening Our Relationships with Dogs:

"There is a cycle of love and death that shapes the lives of those who choose to travel in the company of animals. It is a cycle unlike any other.

To those who have never lived through its turnings and walked its rocky path, our willingness to give our hearts with full knowledge that they will be broken seems incomprehensible.

Only we know how small a price we pay for what we receive; our grief, no matter how powerful it may be, is an insufficient measure of the joy we have been given." 

                                               

Monday Music: Lay Down Your Weary Tune

Bob Dylan Meets Thomas Aquinas (and The Byrds were the first to sing about it!)

Bob Dylan wrote "Lay Down Your Weary Tune" in 1963 and recorded it for his album The Times They Are a-Changin' but decided not to include it. Thus, The Byrds were the first to release a recording of the song which appeared on their second album, Turn! Turn! Turn! When Dylan heard The Byrds' cover of his song, he told Roger McGuinn, "Up until I heard this I thought you were just another imitator...but this has got real feeling to it." (1)

The words from the chorus, Lay down the song you strum / And rest yourself 'neath the strength of strings / No voice can hope to hum, reminds me of St. Thomas Aquinas, who’s Summa Theologica was his attempt to put in writing all that could be said about theology. He continued to write prolifically, then toward the end of his life he had a mystical experience.  “I can write no more,” he told his secretary, “for all that I have written seems like straw in comparison to what I have seen.” (2) Aquinas had experienced that which no pen could dare write, and "no voice can hope to hum."

Lay Down Your Weary Tune

By Bob Dylan

Lay down your weary tune, lay down
Lay down the song you strum
And rest yourself ’neath the strength of strings
No voice can hope to hum

Struck by the sounds before the sun
I knew the night had gone
The morning breeze like a bugle blew
Against the drums of dawn

Lay down your weary tune, lay down
Lay down the song you strum
And rest yourself ’neath the strength of strings
No voice can hope to hum

The ocean wild like an organ played
The seaweed’s wove its strands
The crashin’ waves like cymbals clashed
Against the rocks and sands

Lay down your weary tune, lay down
Lay down the song you strum
And rest yourself ’neath the strength of strings
No voice can hope to hum

I stood unwound beneath the skies
And clouds unbound by laws
The cryin’ rain like a trumpet sang
And asked for no applause

Lay down your weary tune, lay down
Lay down the song you strum
And rest yourself ’neath the strength of strings
No voice can hope to hum

The last of leaves fell from the trees
And clung to a new love’s breast
The branches bare like a banjo played
To the winds that listened best

I gazed down in the river’s mirror
And watched its winding strum
The water smooth ran like a hymn
And like a harp did hum

Lay down your weary tune, lay down
Lay down the song you strum
And rest yourself ’neath the strength of strings
No voice can hope to hum

Copyright © 1964, 1965 by Warner Bros. Inc.; renewed 1992, 1993 by Special Rider Music

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1.  See Wikipedia article, Lay Down Your Weary Tune
2. See Christian History Institute article, "I Can Write No More"

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