I may have already shared the above photo, yet I think the sentiment is of utmost importance as we move through the busy holiday season and into a new year. 

While driving with my mother a few days ago we were talking about how it is we have no idea what is going on inside the houses we were passing. Never mind the fact those people had houses! They might be people who are hungry, angry, scared, or alone. They might be pregnant and tired or abused and scared. They might well be inside creating art or music, cooking fabulous treats for loved ones. The thing is we don't know. 

We don't know what others need. 

I'm hoping we''ll think to ask, listen, do something tiny to keep the ripples of hope going. It truly takes less energy to be positive than to be negative. And it carries so much more joy! To this I toast, make a wish, and ask you to do the same. 

xo

The mornings have turned cooler ~ the grasses and flowers are putting themselves to rest. So, above ~ a photo ~ a reminder of what was and what will happen yet again. But next we move on to frost on the pumpkins (if we had any). The dog sleeps in! I wake early and sit in the envelope of darkness ~ I wait and watch slow slivers of morning arrive. The reflections on the windows erase images of me and open to what is possible in the beyond. My hands come away cold when I press them to the glass ~ Nothing stays the same. Here's to what is next ~ may it hold us each and all in love. xo

some places feel like home ~ though they may be thousands of miles away ~ they are a color ~ a moment ~ a feeling of space and place and timelessness ~ and the heart soars ~ and you feel the poke of a feather ~ with arms stretched ~ you run and jump ~ trust you will be held by wind and faith ~ what else can there be?

xo

Above our queen bed for twenty-two years;

a strand of pearls, a gift for an anniversary,

not that unlike rubies or diamonds yet

their fusion was both flat and brilliant.

To know they were true I held them against

my teeth like a blessed long ago stone rosary.

When readying to move from Vermont to California

I swaddled the pearls in a yesterday’s Times Argus.

I worried about the smudges I’d surely find later.

My own blackened hands told the same truth,

and thirty-two hundred miles is a long way to go.

Years later I still wonder which slightly damaged

liquor box I put the strand in. The same dark dream

haunts like a vampire, gnaws at the base of my throat.

The very place I wish her pearls now hung.

xo

When the sky meets water or the earth a flatness fills the space. 

When one thinks of flatness it's might be the flip of the hand or a pancake, 

it's a horizon bigger than us. It's where dawn meets. Or dusk. 

The time between times. The place between place. 

All my life I have wondered what happens when we let go. 

When we move on. 

What if we really aren't that important. 

What if we are that tiny speck seen from the airplane 

that carries us place to place. 

We might be a river or a canyon. 

We might be a crack in a cloud that shows nothing but sky. 

We might be the crack. Or the cloud. Or the sky. 

I want to be everything and all.

xo

july 2018

summer is here in all her glory

hallelujah

we know it will be quick

the fourth, the fifth

heat, thunder, boats, fireworks, parades

beauty and moonlight

your flag on the marble arch

my own - an earth flag

caught on the fence

my faith once strong

xo

In the recent packing up and letting go we no longer have many things of comfort. What we have is a w(hole) lot of unknowns. We have dreams and memories. We have the full reality of sea to shining sea. The sun setting in a different place~but it's the same place. We have light filtering through trees and ivy growing to find stars in the trees. We have a cooler north side. And flowers blooming in the south, the west side. We have stories and tangled sheets. xo

If I could fly where would I go?

Would I follow the terns, the gulls to the beach?

Would I run 'long the shore like a tiny sandpiper 

hoping to get wet~but only up to my ankles or knees?
I could circle the town dump looking for broken treasures?

I could stay in my own flowered backyard, 

splash about in one of many luxurious baths.

I was born with wings strong enough to go far.

Every so often they need to be tested and used.

Spring is unfolding and so are my new feathers.

In this mid-flight I am grateful for it all. 

xo