Tuesday's Intention

What to do?  What to do with the free hours of this day? Find ferns? Fringey, wild art sprung straight from earth? Leafy filigree  - categorize, admire? Or instead, befriend a moth? Let bees carry off secrets, released? Maybe play with words? Pliable, abundant, but never enough. Draw? Paint? Create...create. Bow to spirit? Sweep broad strokes - awe across my horizon? Forget the brush. Soak hands in color. Life, so tender. Smooth this. Pat that. Grace in fingerprints, left behind.

just a whisper

in the morning hush
the seed cracks ever slightly
sprouting hope today

Picking Up the Pieces

Some things are just so pretty. Aren't they?I bought this teacup for 20 cents at a thrift store about a year ago. Often, I had my morning coffee from it before work, admiring the size, the form, the violets, the way the light came through it, the way it fit perfectly in my hand, and how the gold rim inside, helped me feel a little important.

A month or so ago, it was precisely this admiration for this cup that prompted me to take its photo, perched, ever so perfectly on my tiny green table. Me being clumsy and all things impermanent, I thought, I might like to have a picture of it when it was gone. Maybe, I told myself, so as not to feel silly taking a picture of a cup, that I would some day learn to paint with watercolor and this might be my first subject.

Of course the cup broke; a casualty the other day, of the heavy tray from the grandbaby's highchair slipping off the counter and taking the cup with it. True to its image, it kept its dignity and didn't make a scene or even cry out when it broke. I was surprised to find it on the floor under the tray, in pretty pieces.

I saved the fragments of violets, where the cup one day, if I ever get the time, might find new life on a mosaic table top, or even as a pendent when I get better at my jewelry making. In fact it will give me more incentive to return to the creative things I love. When something is lost, something is found - I used to parrot this a lot once upon a time.  But the older I get, the more I get to live it, through monumental matters and in miniscule lessons, like the shattering of a perfect violet cup.

Tuesday's Grace

I sit with two cats
and sip pale coffee
from a Honu mug
savoring the wishes
that came
with the gift

Squirrels leap
from rooftop
to branch and
cheer about
their perfect
landing

Good books
and a red bowl of
rubber duckies
are at my feet

So much, it
is all so much
I lift my face
toward the
morning sun
and breathe

Careful Now

 

"Careful now," the woman told the small hands holding the lilac sprig. "You don’t want to crush it."

But the girl wanted to bury her face in its soft coolness, breathe in its delight. She wanted to squeeze it, hug it tight, twirl it by its stem. She wanted to wear it in her hair, and sleep with it on her pillow, dancing with its fragrance in her dreams. 

But the lilac sat in a crystal vase on the dining room table until it was tinged with brown. It  grew limp and didn't smell pretty anymore. It drooped over the side of the vase. Soon, it was tossed in the trash, slime on its soggy stem. The little girl stood over the lilac."Flower," she whispered. She poked at it and drew  back from the smell. Turning, she walked away, knowing that she would have loved it all up.

With These Hands

 

For 55 years these hands have cherished what they touched, cradled what they held. The work they have done, the tender care they have given, the gifts they have received has been guided by love. They created when they were not resting or working or nurturing. They have readily shared, and celebrated the gifts of the earth. Rarely have they acted in haste or anger, and with each passing day, they linger longer over the smooth surface of abundance that unfolds every day. I have tried, in their every movement, to uphold the dignity of their design. 

Like anything else, the longer and more often we do something, the better we get at it - one of the many good things about growing older. I love my age spots, I love my knobby joints and the veiny rewards of hands well used. When my grandbaby fell asleep in my lap today, they were expertly ready to hold her with absolute reverence.  

7:00 AM Grace

I wear the cool morning air across my shoulders, squint into the brilliance of the day. I hear birds celebrate in trees as millions of green bits of beauty ruffle this way, flipping that way, shush, shush, shush, in playful breeze. I get to see it, I get to hear it! I get to hold a tiny hand, touch my daughter's hair, smell the dark earth, taste this orange, write these words, breathe another breath...

Snow Angel

                                                    


With the snow falling this weekend, I was reminded of a snow fall last year when we had an unexpected visitor. We had parted the curtains to see how deep the snow was. There he was, this weary, thin one, taking a break from what angels do, just resting on a chilly night, basking in the moon light on our deck chair. He didn't light long. When next we looked, he had taken flight with others never seen.  

Thanks for Nothing

Old friends can't understand why I don't scream, tell you to act like a man; Wonder why I never threw your clothes out on the lawn or called you vial names that surely you deserved. But I don't have the strength to scream at you as this drones on and on. I never had the heart for it in the first place.

I think a lot about all of the things we built, you and I. And all the things you took away; home and trust and of course, my naivety, which lingered too long anyway. But I will tell you this, if I could hate you, I would surely hate you for taking the sparkle from the young one's eyes. 

I think about our seaside days and how you took those too, stuffed them in your pockets while scanning for anything else that was left.  I wish you could see the old ones' faces, and the worry that you've etched. You left dying dogs and dead trees, leaning - debt the only thing still growing. And my sleep? You took that too. Left me to sit in that old purple chair, ready to spring to defense, against demons in the dark.


Is this security lost? Well, what else could it be?

But if I've learned one thing, it is this: I was always at risk. So are you. And she is too. And so is every other breathing being. Security is not a steadfast friend. So go and flash your crooked grin. Laugh your obscenities. Tell anyone who will listen how you left me holding this empty space, where nothing is as it was, will never be the same again - this space where  nothing  is  for  certain.

But if you knew, if you only knew how that nothing space has carried me, then you would want that back too. Oh how my sighs fill that space with grace exhaled. How I line the walls with thistle down, color it with violet, scent it with honeysuckle, wild.  Vines, accepting - reach out all around, laughter grows in yellow patches, roots of faith run deep. Thank you for the gash of betrayal. How else would I have learned to make this balm? Thank you for the greed that schooled us in the art of doing without. Thank you, for heartbreak, glorious, that freed my own song, silent for so long. Thank you, thank you for that space given, that space where nothing is for certain but where every thing is revered.

A Day Well Spent

So it was a perfect day, so warm for February, sunny and almost early Spring-like. I had great plans for this day off, but there was the apartment to clean, the pile of books and dvds to take back to the library and the tax materials to gather up and take to the accountant. I had made a date to sit a bit on my perfect bench on my perfectly temporary balcony looking up at the perfectly friendly trees.  But the apartment was dirtier than I had thought, the tax papers were more fussy than I had anticipated, and I stayed too long at the library, again.  Coming home, there was dinner to make and some goodies for my dads birthday to bake, so the sun pretty much came and went and my bench stayed empty and the trees, who had waited for me, were stood up.  I was feeling guilty for squandering the day. Eventually, just a few minutes before day darkened, I finally got to treat myself to a bit of one of my library pickings. 

I had picked up a book of Alice Walker poems (Absolute Trust in the Goodness of the Earth) because her words always make me feel  raw, alive and a little less apologetic. I read a few poems about lost loves and the attacks of 911 and then came to this, which I thought was pretty low key when it comes to Alice Walker's words, and yet, it was just what I needed at that moment. 

           

"Grace gives me a day too beautiful, I had thought, to stay indoors, and yet, washing my dishes, straightening my shelves, finally throwing out the wilted onions, shrunken garlic cloves. I discover, I am happy to be inside, looking out. This, I think is wealth. Just this choosing of how a beautiful day is spent. "                                             Alice Walker                            

The poem was a graceful pause at the end of busy day.  A day that closed with satisfaction. A clean apartment, taxes done, and recognition of the blessed freedom of having stayed at the library for as long as I wanted and picking out the book of my choosing.