March 31

Photo credit here.

Lost socks (in the wash)

Heavy legs (ran 3 miles anyway)

Parking atop the garage (undercover, missing the downpour upon my arrival)

Figuring numbers 

Scrambling for details

Everything taking more time (seemingly)

Walking a tight wire with deadly serious consequences

Hoping for the best, but worried for the worst

I come to the end of this day glad it is over

Attempting to find the silver linings, and many appear

If I look,

But sometimes looking is difficult

And seeing is harder still.

Bedtime

 Image found here.

He held a candle to his lips

Then breathed in, pushed out

and blip it went - the darkness

consuming him.

Tree Talking II

The tree stood sloped upward at the edge of the yard. It grew long with the setting sun, reaching toward the house, granting respite from another sweltering day - or may it was rain - it's hard to remember.

The tree had stood guard over rows of corn and squash, the squeals of children hanging from swing sets, the death defying tricks on a trampoline with no pads or webbing to insure safety.

It watched the man in overalls with his donkey plowing the fields and later the same man with a tractor. It heard the cluck of chickens feeding on grain, laying eggs. It gasped each time the crack of a breaking neck reverberated on the wind.

The tree took in the smoke of a hundred fires: the ones for singeing the soft down off a chicken, the ones clearing to ash a stack of debris, and the small ones in the cigarettes the boys smoked discretely behind the barn - high on their maturity and sophistication. 

When the house burned it watched the embers glow upward on drafts, then scatter on the ground. It felt sprays caught on the wind from the fire hoses and was grateful for how the night cooled.

These moments imprinted on its rings - the internalization of all the decades of activity: famine and harvest, glee and wailing, birth and death. An observer, but also a container of the passage of time, lasting longer than any of its human counterparts. An old soul, whispering its secrets in the language of leaves blowing in the wind. 

Stand near it in stillness, and calm your soul.

- Writer's Workshop, July 2024

The Gateway

 

Photo credit Paul Reiffer

The day is gray - when water folds into skyline like its lapping heaven

Yet the face of the sky is flat, motionless, settled - still

As if the wet lick does not tickle its nose or catch just enough of its mouth to make it retract back in disgust. A pall placed upon it by hands unseen, it is dispassionate.

Yet there is a gateway - the legs reflected in the ocean's mouth, the top disappearing from its view.

Is it a chin rest of the gods? 

A step so the god may reach to grope for the sun? 

Maybe it's for the god's cigarette - that nasty habit it's trying to break? 

Or a hairpin to keep unruly tresses obedient? 

But there it is - hard and motionless; embodying in flesh what the vapor sky expresses - out of place

Like a piece of trash on the wilderness path - unthinkingly, carelessly tossed aside.

- Writer's Workshop, 2019

Journeys

Photo credit here.

I have nothing to write – no journeys within or without, no journeys from the page or from thin air. I am jumbled in my mind – like a slinky that has gone all wrong – unable to slink, unable to have one smooth curve folding in on itself line after line.

Instead, it is the cloud of dust surrounding Pigpen – ethereal and light – but chaotic and swirling – one thought, plan, decision, worry cascading around another – clouding my vision – clouding the paths I’d like to take…

 

Ethereal and light – no, not really – the specs are carbon shards and tiny anvils - each with enough weight and slice to leave me bruised and bloodied – at least in my mind – likely my soul…

 

Just writing these words helps the dust settle, the kink in the slink pop mysteriously back into place. Breathing – deeply in, deeply out – creates a calm in the chaos – a pin, prick of smooth in the midst of all the waves.

 

What journeys would I like to take? With my feet, my mind, my eyes, my ears? What worlds await within if only I give them an opening – a stillness – in which to be born?

 

And so, maybe the first journey is the journey to quietness – a labyrinth walk, a shavasana, a moment of breath – or maybe the first journey is recognition a journey needs to be made at all.

- Writer's Workshop, 2019

A Night's Welcome

 

Do I welcome the night

as wholly as the day?

 

Tonight, I did

By accident

Working on the plans

of daytime

It slowly passed away

Dipping into the earth

bit by lighted bit

until the horizon

hummed blue

It’s oxygen waning.

Then a breeze

danced around my ears

Followed by the quiet

of cars no longer driven

Grasshoppers trying out

their legs’ vibration

on waves of twilight…

 

So maybe, I did not

welcome the night

Though it certainly welcomed me

Encouraging my own 

long exhale

as my waking body

embraces the dreamy night

and slips into its own

Oblivion

- March 25, 2025

A New Song

                                     

A human from the beginning. Photo credit here.

In watching Aspens leaves blown by the wind, skyward green and earthbound white twisting wildly, I hear (and see!) the trees singing for joy – enlivened by the Spirit filling this ancient world.

 

Then an Appalachian spring covers the forest floor in dazzling flowery jewels, dismissing the drab mud of winter, the brown crush of leaves – exultant in the caresses of the Sun – 

 

Or maybe the creeping light of day alerts cardinals, blue birds, house finches and Carolina wrens to the latest gossip and the air fills with tales and triumphs I cannot understand – but still my heart stirs.

 

Of course, the ocean, they say, holds the power of God – the mystery of depth incessantly rushing into conscious thought and then away – the creatures within too marvelous for the light of day.

 

I look at this body, each year changing, and consider the beginning: two microscopic cells – nothing more, nothing less – uniting, dividing (but holding together), differentiating, migrating and forming 

 

All the parts of me: the moving parts, the breathing parts

The sight, sound, taste, touch, and smell parts

The thinking and feeling

Reflecting and dreaming

Creating

 

A body like mine held God,

Knitted him together in darkness,

To be birthed in all of us

This Christmas Day – so

Sing to the Lord a new song.

-Written for an Advent Devotional, 12/24/23 with Psalm 96 as the inspiration

Many Ways

Image origin here.

 

She asked God all the time,

“What am I to do with my life?”

 

She worried at each path’s opening,

went down multiple roads, but always wondered

if another way would be better,

Or easier,

Or less exhausting,

Or more thrilling.

Turning to go yet another way,

She asked again, “What am I to do with my life?”

 

Then she stood still,

sat in the center of the path,

and tried to listen.

 

Looking around at bursts of flowers,

creeping weeds and grass,

moss clinging ferociously to the ground,

she finally heard God’s reply,

 

“There are many ways to be in the world.

Pick one.”

- March 23, 2025

A Sonnet

 

Diagram found here.

My palms never empty

My heart never full

I sell my wares about me;

my buyers are my rule

They tell me when I'm wanted

inform me when I'm through

And by their words I'm haunted

in all I say and do. . .

Then I look inside myself

and probe and try to find

that special box on that little shelf

which speaks one word, "MINE." 

And if I find that little box upon that special case,

I'll drop my wares and finally look my buyers in the face.

 

- written years ago, thankfully I found the box. If you are wondering, it's a Shakespearean sonnet.  

Envenomations

Photo credits here.

She watched as her mother took his hand again. 

She had begun counting the days between her taking his hand as he cooed,"There is no one else but you, Baby. I never mean to hurt you. . .it's just my drinkin', but I promise I'll do better. Jerry is picking me up tonight for that AA meetin' at the church. . ." and the "G-d this house is a mess, I work so G-d hard and for what? This lousy excuse of a home? What kind of helpmate are you, you lazy cow?" 

Down to 1 week.

Then the uptick in yelling eventually ended in him cursing her mom, "You are the reason I drink, you know that? I slave at work all day long and just want to come home and relax, but then, all you do is complain: 'we need groceries,' 'I thought you'd be home earlier,' 'why isn't the rent paid?' Woman, I do my part. Why in the hell do you not do yours," and inevitably he hit her.

At first her mom tried to get out of the war zone, but he just chased her - further enraged by her impudence; seeing her flight as a sign of opposition. She eventually just sat there crying, trying to appease him, "Honey, I'm so sorry. I know you work so hard. I know your job is stressful. I'll be better, I promise," and then another blow usually to her chest. She yelped, unable to breathe and sometimes passed out.

This level took another week.

Her step-father would leave her mother splayed on the ground. Jess then moved from her hiding space between the couch and the wall and ran to her mom.

Jess learned from a TV doctor show how to be sure people were still alive. She would find a mirror and place it under her mother's nose. When the mirror fogged, Jess released her breath. 

She had only called 911 once - the first time her mom lost consciousness, but her mother made her swear she would never do it again. "I could lose you, Jessie," she chided the child, "Child Protective Services would take you from me in a second, and we don't want that, right?"

Jess shook her head.

"I'll be fine, Jessie. Tom is just going through a rough patch - as soon as his work is less stressful, we'll be snugger than 3 peas in a pod. Just wait and see." 

This was 5 years ago. Nothing had changed.

She begged her mother to leave him - especially after her mother regained consciousness and alcohol had finally blacked out Tom.

She'd look at Jess and shake her head, "You just don't understand, my sweet girl. I can't leave. We can't leave." 

- March 20, 2025. An article I read said 90% of the envenomations in my area are from copperhead and cottonmouth snake bites. I would beg to differ. 

Infinite Neverness

Photo can be found here

Memory betrays

the present

and the past

as I try

to piece

the many layers

of our life together

To make edges fit

To find some pattern

To bring about a whole

from meager scraps

Yet you are not here

A force of mind

and memory

who let the flowers die

for lack of water,

who ached for a life

which forever lay just beyond

reach

And now you lay

beyond my reach

our togetherness

an infinite neverness,

threadbare fabric

blowing in the wind

- Title/Inspiration from an article in JAMA, March 2025