morning decision

each morning
i am given
a key

and a choice
is also left with me

"be it yes
or no

to mystery?"



"Choose well. Your choice is brief, and yet endless."
                                    ~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

quickening (or, last night's text)

"quick, quick"
the text read
"look at the sunset"

so "quick" up the stairs
and "quick" onto the deck
twas a wonder i didn't wreck
into a wall!

when i arrived
the mighty ball
covered by cloud
lent a subtle effect
hard to forget

i learned from that text
though "slow" fits
my flow
"quick, quick"
i sometimes need to be
and i oft need others
to quicken me!

for a moment
is only a moment

for only
a moment



".....just maybe it is these small silent moments which are the true story-making events of our lives."
                                          ~Douglas Coupland

*A big thank you to my friend, JA, for quickening me to such a beautiful moment.

their presence
in the dead brush
is like the glistening of stars
in the blackest of night
bringing their light
to the plight of the world


"What a strange thing!
to be alive
beneath cherry blossoms."  ~Kobayashi Issa, Poems

And what a privileged thing to be alive to the sight of pear blossoms in early spring.

into eternity on a cold winter morning

as geese in the middle of winter

so hope rises above

a harsh

barren

land

"The wings of hope carry us, soaring high above the driving winds of life. " ~Ana Jacob

Easter will be here soon so this morning i re-read the account of two of Christ's followers walking down a road discussing all that had happened......the capture of the one they called "Master" and "friend", the mockery of a trial, the heinous execution, the burial, and the report of a stolen body. They were in the first stages of grief....shock, unbelief, horror. Then from seemingly no where, "Another" joined them. And since then:

death, though dark it be,

                hath not the victory......

on the subject of handles

i've been having lots of
dreams again
lately

i'm running around in most of them

racing against some unseen
clock
(time ticking away)

unable to get a handle
on whatever
needs getting a handle on

imagine that!

so i tell myself this morning,
be the handle
instead of trying to grab hold
of it


"It was one thing to make a mistake.  It was another thing to keep making it."
                 ~Jodi Piccoult, Handle With Care

Dear Lord,
  Thank you for putting up with my frantic efforts to control the world.  How very silly of me to even try. Today i'll practice being the handle in YOUR hands.  Amen

wondering in the muddy lot

how is it
that weather and wear
can bear
such

baffling beauty


Dear Lord,
  Thank you for letting me see those antique trucks last thursday morning.  They reminded me that you waste nothing. So, I'm asking today if you would take my rust spots, wrinkles and worn out ways and turn them too, into something beautiful. Amen

the trees of winter

friends to me
in a thousand ways

mighty and meek
is their loveliness




"I part the out thrusting branches
and come in beneath
the blessed and the blessing trees."
                   ~Wendell Berry (From the poem Woods)