Everything is a Sign
Of all the offerings, a thousand possible signs, the Spirit Messengers chose poop. A pile of it, excrement of vague animal origins, arranged in a circle too perfect for random, dead center on my front step. And I, lover of beauty, faithful to poetry and all that sings cannot make sense of the leavings; what […]
WALKING HER HOME
Adrift. That’s the word that floated into my teary vision as I sat in my car outside the facility my mother has resided in for the past seven years. These after-visit pauses have become part of my ritual in the past few months. There is always someplace else I need to be, fitting in my […]
Look up! The world is out there.
Reckoning Inside, just shy of sunrise, all over the land people awakened, reached for their small screens, hungry for the tiny words and pictures, memes and videos designed to amuse, entrance, distract from stress and angst of bad news streaming 24/7. The people found ways to laugh, or groan, and see themselves in the scowls […]
Little Altars Everywhere
My home is host to little altars everywhere honoring lives lived, seasons arriving and leaving, the hundred sparks of grace and wonder, sorrow and understanding that pock and foliate hours and years squeezed into the dance of this body, my particular, grand, unbearably blessed and gratefully transient human experience. On good days I go bowing […]
Dragonflies
As I write this, my dear friend Marina lies dying in a lovely room inside the oldest house in an historic and pretty New Hampshire town. A wonderful woman who worked with her in the local general store has taken her into her home. Hospice has set her up well with a hospital bed that […]
Time, Place, Classroom
WHEN The world gets so noisy. Too many voices straining, pushing past their natural limits to be heard. Our small ears can’t discern provenance or factuality. Reactions quicken, turning knee-jerk, protective. WHERE There is the place where trees thicken into extended families, root systems entwined beneath the earth. Look for the leafy canopy that forms […]
When all this is over…
WHEN THIS IS OVER Bring bread, chewy and warm, wrapped in that red checkered tablecloth that always sings picnic, which is short for happy family, easy friendships, peace and plenty in our town state country planet. We never went on one, a picnic, not once in all our together years even though we had that […]
The Wisdom of Clouds
“ You are the sky. Everything else is just the weather.” Pema Chodron CIRRUS You are wisp, feet rarely touching dirt. Your gaze cannot be met. They call it lazy eye, but we know better. How could anyone expect you to hone a vision when you straddle a few different dimensions most of the time? […]
Prospecting for Grace
Praise The faithful sun, generously stirring energies of Earth and atmosphere, coaxing every green thing towards the rising song of spring. Parents walking with their children outside, smiling and laughing, nodding at neighbors out washing their cars. Quieted streets yielding their usual ruthless noise to melodious birdsong, squirrels rustling in the brush, the wind whistling […]
Communicable
PROPAGATION I’ve taken to humming in the produce section while caressing the plums, sneaking sniffs of the cilantro, eyeing the lemons, audacious in their yellowry. It’s a low, soothing thing, the thrum of air over vocal chords, nearly a buzz, and I am almost a bumblebee, hovering over color, circling the end caps as I […]