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

goodbye december

 goodbye 2017 

*

hello 

memories

strung from the branches 

of time hello to the little things 

we hang on to only to let go of again 

and again

xo

xo

with abundant blessings we each be held in love for a new year

xo

with the brightness

of a wild sky

in the search 

for peace, strong health,

happiness, and love 

may we all remember 

sand is but crushed stone

from hardness and with time

comes the yielding of softer things

xo