along the road

what is it
about berries
in fall?

the bittersweet sight
of the bittersweet

the hawthorne's
welcome home


"Everything is restless until it comes home."  ~John Bate


*Recently I have been re-reading the story of the prodigal son. I am reminded again that we have a Father who watches and waits for us; who runs out to meet us and welcomes us home.

if only

wouldn't we like to
solve
everything

make a small bird
always
safe

let a nothing girl
know
she is not nothing

turn back
the rushing
waters

we too, weep,
looking out on our own
jerusalems


Thinking today of all the people in and around Houston. "If only...."

"As He approached Jerusalem and saw the city, He wept over it."  ~Luke 19:41

interrupting the routine

i left the laundry behind 

and the pickleball

games

traded them 

for dew on leaves

dragonfly wings

and the garden’s other 

offerings

i drank eagerly

of her cup

juice of zinnias

dripping down 

my chin  

"Another glorious day, the air as delicious to the lungs as nectar to the tongue."

                                          ~John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra

"Oh, taste and see...."  ~Psalm 34:8

the leaves of yesterday

the curve of them

catches my 

eye

their lines

and 

shadows

their

calm and quiet

passing

"Sometimes the smallest things take up the most room in your heart. "

                                                   ~Winnie the Pooh

pain and pastel (a two part poem)

like a river birch in the rain

she bows low

pain dripping

from her branches

the soil below 

soaked in sorrow

*This morning i ask myself, “is there anything i can do, (anything at all) to ease the sorrow of my friend.” Words are hollow this day. Maybe a bit of color can lift her head, if even for a moment. Shall i send her a watercolor? Then…..

the questioner 

asked

can you

paint her a 

reason

can your pastel

flowers

give promise

to her pain?

*And my answer is no. 

But 

yes, i can send color and kindness. Yes, i can let her know she is “seen”. 

rusted

the loss of him
left sorrow
rusted

lamentation
lasting
a life time




















“You will lose someone you can’t live without, and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly – that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp.”  ~Anne Lamott

"Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime, and falling in at night...."  ~Edna St. Vincent Millay

like my neighbor's fence

time 

  flows 

        on

through 

and beyond 

the horizon

“And so for a time it looked as if all the adventures were coming to an end; but that was not to be.”

~The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, C.S. Lewis