One year ago today, I returned from a journey to Tennessee, where I’d undertaken a mission of the heart. Thus, it was a fittingly painful, terrifying, and redemptive venture, and to commence it, and then to complete it, took more courage than I knew I owned. Perhaps borrowed is a better word than owned, for without the example, encouragement, prayers, and (in a sense) presence of friends, I doubt I could have fulfilled my purpose. But it is enough to say that the journey’s goal was a high and worthy one, not for the faint of heart. And that my heart, in the end, did not fail.

But of that I will say no more now. My purpose here is simpler. For the way of my road took me through the Shenandoah Valley in high summer, which is really just another way of saying that it took me through beauty beyond measure. See the blue of the Blue Ridge, the deep, inky green of summer-high corn stalks, the pillars of cumulus.

It is a futile enterprise, this attempting to capture the glory of a long-stretching summer evening on an iPhone. It has been attempted anyway.

There is a quality to the light in this photo below which reminds me of a poem by May Sarton. It is called, “We Sat Smoking at a Table…”

We sat smoking at a table by the river
And then suddenly in the silence someone said,
“Look at the sunlight on the apple tree there shiver:
I shall remember that long after I am dead.”
Together we all turned to see how the tree shook,
How it sparkled and seemed spun out of green and gold,
And we thought that hour, that light and our long mutual look
Might warm us each someday when we were cold.

And I thought of your face that sweeps over me like light,
Like the sun on the apple making a lovely show,
So one seeing it marveled the other night,
Turned to me saying, “What is it in your heart? You glow.” —
Not guessing that on my face he saw the singular
Reflection of your grace like fire on snow —
And loved you there.

May Sarton