Indigo and its Implications

Here's my newest version of Indigo Summer—links to both old ones at the end.

Summer suburban scene, Glenellen Drive
Soft morning sounds, lilac following night's gentle rain
colors whisper like this new July day
slowly slips into a calmly quiet world
Breakfast on the deck
over the camel-dry
parched ground under the deck
surrounded by lightly rainladen trees' leaves
longing for cloudbursts

Tame tacos make our lunch at the restaurant on
Main Street, with cerulean celadon blazing
dazzling brights glancing off windows of the
house at the end of the street at the
rim of the park
in vividly urban attitudinal edge
under clear skies and hot sun

Then later, another humid night, filled with yearning
music, restless talk

And while night begins fading, dawn's birdsongs and emerging day's sunglow

Scene at the beach
hot sand, sparkling sand
wet sand and breaking waves
Followed by another desperate, white and hopeless silent night
longing for tomorrow's dawn
still waiting in hope for hope


Wednesday morning, July 11, 2001 Original version

Monday, October 03, 2005 October 2005 version

The Desert, the Cross and Easter

Screen capture: Desert Sonoran Easter, ground zero
Pascal daybreak: Lepus sits tamed at Orion hunter's feet
evoking the kairos past when
Noah's God hung his weapon bow
high in the sky, surrendering disarmed
Divine capitulation to creation
for earth to claim covenant
Desert dawn's eastered hues quietly course throughout creation
equal desert's constant colors
Friday's cross seemed desolate
but from mortality's tree
on Sunday's morn bursts forth the Tree of Life:
earth all-living breathes again!

© Leah Chang

Check out this related blog from Good Friday, 2005.

Indigo Summer: Oct 2005 version

Suburban scene, Glenellen Drive
Soft morning sounds, dusky rose following a
nightlong rain
summer subtle colors soft as this new July day
slowly slipping into a world calm indigo quiet
Breakfast on the deck
over the earth dry tan under the deck
parched ground beneath the heavily rainladen trees' leaves
remembering long-ago cloudbursts

Lunch at the restaurant at the mall at the end of
Main Street, cerulean celadon blazing
Dazzling brights in the windows of the
house at the end of the street at the
rim of the park
dazzling yellow- and vivid cranberry-trimmed
in urban attitudinal edge
Seen: clear skies and hot sun

And felt: humid nights, desperate, yearning
music, restless talk

Heard among us: today's dawn's birdsongs, emerging day's sunglow

Scene at the beach
hot sand, sparkling sand
wet sand and breaking waves
This silent night desperate, white and hopeless
longing for tomorrow's dawn
still waiting in hope for hope


original: Wednesday morning, July 11, 2001
October 2005 version: Monday, October 03, 2005

Prairie Waters by Night

Carl Sandburg, 1878–1967, Cornhuskers, 1918

For this collection of 103 poems, Sandburg won the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry of 1919.

3. Prairie Waters by Night

Chatter of birds two by two raises a night song joining a litany of running water—sheer waters showing the russet of old stones remembering many rains.

And the long willows drowse on the shoulders of the running water, and sleep from much music; joined songs of day-end, feathery throats and stony waters, in a choir chanting new psalms.

It is too much for the long willows when low laughter of a red moon comes down; and the willows drowse and sleep on the shoulders of the running water.

dawnwashed blues

On Desert Spirit's Fire, my theology blog, in morning watch, I wrote:

Patterned after ancient practice but now in remembrance and anticipation of Easter dawn, there's a Christian tradition of Morning Watch. The fourth and last segment of the night watch, the morning watch of antiquity and of the New Testament epoch (that's us!) is from 3-6 AM; during this final watch of the night, darkness gently eases into the quiet early light of Easter dawn and God's Glory softly splashes over all creation.

Here's a poem I wrote about that hour of...

dawnwashed blues

during each night's final watch,
darkness gently eases into
quiet early light of daybreak's dawn
God's Glory softly splashes
over drowsing creation

yesterday's final light of day
followed by a slender slice of moonglow
held no starshimmer
during middle night's intensely indigo blues
today's hushed daybreak
whispered itself over creation’s
night's end watch anticipating dawn's first light
the sunup-washed sky shined with light-washed sheen
dawnwashed new morning blues made
fresh-sprung break of pale day blues

©Leah Chang

4 July 2004

Sunday, July 04, 2004...Independence Day!!!!!

"Summer afternoon, summer afternoon; to me hose have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language." —Henry James to Edith Wharton—

Main Street

Main Street for Sun Tree River

Main Street experiences?! I love this topic and the Main Street/Church Street sign that was on the United Church of Christ homepage a while ago was wonderful! First, I'll confess I've never read Lewis' Main Street, so I'll run with some images and impressions. BTW, many years ago I spent an interesting citified summer on West Main Street.

That particular urban locale aside, for me the name "Main Street" kindles a generic picture and a general metaphor. My picture is from New England or somewhere in the American Midwest; it's a single central street lined with shops: hardware store, drugstore with soda fountain, flower shop, curio shop, bookstore, coffee/sandwich shop and maybe a down-home-cookin' restaurant. Ages ago a poem I wrote included the phrase, "The Colonial's a restaurant on Main Street" [Hudson, Ohio]. This Main Street sports one or two branch banks, the town offices and – at one end of the commercial strip – the absolutely requisite iconic white-steepled church building, most likely Congregational or UCC, possibly Presbyterian or Lutheran, but you'd better believe it's big "P" Protestant!

My Main Street picture has featureless people, but my Main Street metaphor is primarily a lifestyle that includes a describable type of person. Here's a start: this Main Street Person [MSP] wants to belong: to be homogenous yet stereotypically distinctive and noticeable; trendy and up-to-date about ideas, politics and general styles of everything like attire and apparel, vehicles, home furnishings, recreation pursuits and vacation venues without being on the cutting edge of much of anything; spiritual, but without real commitment to institutional religion or to the radical way of Jesus ... this MSP is anything but counter-cultural and not remotely willing to disengage from whatever society's mainstream conventions have become for the moment, the particular moment that's (very) close at hand. Do you remember Charles Schulz's Lucy as psychiatrist with her, "The Doctor is in ... The Doctor is Real in?" Well this MSP is real, real "in!"

Last summer we talked online about "evangelism in the vernacular," in a twist on Luther's insisting on "worship in the vernacular" as a mark of the true church. Peculiar people as we're supposed to be, we also need to be appear enough like everyone else that they can identify with us and therefore with the reasons we're in Christ (aside from God's calling and election of us, but that's a different subject for another day).

Recently I've been reading again Walter Brueggemann's Biblical Perspectives in Evangelism (I originally read it a couple years before the UCC E-Forum became so active, and I wanted to see how my perspective had been changing). In that book he talks a lot about living "gospeled" lives, which include keeping covenant, keeping the Sabbath and keeping the tithe. During Lent 2004 I participated in a live(!) discussion of Lauren Winner's new book, mudhouse sabbath. And some time ago I read Marva Dawn's book, Keeping the Sabbath Wholly: Ceasing, Resting, Embracing, Feasting (Eerdmans, September 1989). So I'll conclude by saying one of the distinctions and contrasts between the MSP and what my lifestyle as a Christian needs to be involved the way I keep Sabbath! And I'm planning to continue this topic some other time.

©Leah Chang