A Litany of Next Things

I am forcibly willing myself to sit in this hard wooden library chair.

Right now, as I finger this keyboard, the sky above my roof has been cooled to a deep cerulean and is being occasionally scrubbed to gleaming by wave after wave of cloud stuff. Every tree is heavy with leaves and shadow but, hidden deep within each, is the glory of birdsong, trilling like so much music.

This day is one I will not soon forget. It is just too beautiful to let slip into the ether, as if it was nothing remarkable that the sun broke free of the horizon and unleashed this beauty on all whose eyes fluttered open this morning.

This day is the sort from which dreams are spun.

So to purposely sit here, in this chair, on this day means I am trying, with all of my might, to finger the threads of thought that have been fraying frantically in my head for months. These last weeks and days have often felt unmanageable, heavy with grief and bewilderment and seeming idleness. I have done my best to muddle through, pulling on joy when I couldn't handle the dark anymore and praying that sleep walking was better than standing still.

But the honest truth is that I have often felt as if I was screaming, mouth wide open, throat scraping raw, screaming. Silent and piercing, all at once. The core of me, the one that must write to figure out what she is thinking, has felt imprisoned by grief.

If, a year ago, you had tossed out the question of how I might one day deal with the pain of losing my mother I would have, most assuredly, said: writing.

So, when confronting the reality and heartbreak of my mother's actual death, I've hardly penned a word in response? Well, it has been disconcerting, at best.

And the longer the break, the more days that pass and words fail to appear?
The more I
have felt
as if I
am
disappearing.

I have felt like a glass jar full of silt shaken and left alone, shaken and left alone, shaken and left alone
again
and
again
and
again.

That is why today's clarion beauty has felt like such a gift. The morning's lighter air and gentle rippling set a precedent and the waters upon which chaos floated have started to settle. A separation has begun and I am beginning to distinguish sand and rock and crystal. What used to be only a muddied swirling now contains flecks of gold dust.

This might just be where the words have been hiding.

All of today has been like one slow remembering. I realize that grief has kept me from noticing like I used to notice. When you are trying to simply put one foot in front of the other, you don't often bother to spend time studying vapor trails or listen to the way grass stretches as each drop of dew slowly evaporates. You just seem to focus on the next thing.

But today gifted me with a litany of next things and I have discovered that the gnarl of frayed and woolly thoughts languishing in my head have begun to spin. Along their edges there seems to be a thread forming. The beautiful and terrible things of this world are working together to draw out the fibers in my mess and the twisting and whirling of the last few months don't feel quite so in vain.

I think that, tomorrow, I will follow the beauty.

Again.

Saving Daylight

I caught sight of it as I passed the window yesterday
down the driveway thick with mud and gathered puddles
Three birds in silhouette
the afternoon sun flooding them from behind
taking a bath

My lips curled skyward
and I stood motionless
for five whole minutes
Because
the audacity

The day before that
you pretended to be Huck playing in the bulrushes
and you brought me handfuls of cat tail fluff
my palms opened to the offering
and you glowed

The dark earth, moist with thaw
has begun its heaving heavenward
pushed from below
until, split open like the body
it becomes broken

Then, today
I turned that last corner out of the woods
and came up on the lake
glimmering with a thousand
salvos of light

And I'm clutching all of it
with an unbecoming fierceness
hell bent on gathering glory
as if it wasn't raining
right round

Foretaste

"In the right light, at the right time, everything is extraordinary."  ~Aaron Rose

The daylight has shifted, quietly
and now it gently wanes.
Days are still warm and locusts still drone
but the world is tilting
and we adjust our steps
despite ourselves.

I watch as the sunlight
crackles through the emerald leaves
and the swaying shaking boughs
are clapping
right out
and I know it
down deep

That this dripping delicious daylight
is but a
foretaste...

You can find the rest of my poem over at SheLoves Magazine today. 

Would love to have you join me there.

Dust of heaven

In the still

of the afternoon

when the sun

yawns

long

If you

tilt

your head

just so

You will find

the dust

of

heaven

right

round

Quiet

Unscripted.  Unedited.  Real.

Writing for five minutes.

A sort of writing flash mob.

I lay down in the field, crunchy with decay and prickly with spent blooms. Such is the bed I choose, sometimes. Down low, nestled among the swaying skeletons of summer, my only view is skyward. The blue expanse is dotted with a billowy white that absorbs my piercing gaze and, if I stay still long enough, I can almost feel the tilt of the globe.  I am captured by the quiet.

I am resting in the eye of the storm and nothing can penetrate this hallowed space. It might be true that a storm rages at the edges and the thunder claps and flashing lights compete to frame this space outright but I choose to remain in this circle of quiet. It is only here that I will be able to hear the murmurs riding atop the gentle breezes. It is here where I can be still and know.

Glisten

"Pale hoar-frost glittered in shady slips..."

-Anne Glenny Wilson

God of wonder

whose love reaches around

corners

-dark-

to find me

Nestle in me

a

courageous faith

that lets loose

the icy heart

and

glistens

gold

at

sunrise

Roots

Unscripted.  Unedited.  Real.

Writing for five minutes.

A sort of writing flash mob.

I remember when I first saw this tree. It's massive trunk in stark contrast to its feathery leaves. How I was humbled just standing next to it, painfully and gracefully aware of my smallness. And how amazingly beautiful it was. 

It was October and its usual verdant leaves were caught in transition between emerald and amber. To stand at its trunk and gaze up into its flowing, wide-spread branches was to be at once, humbled and sheltered.

But what grabbed me the most about this magnificent tree was its roots. They were dark and gnarled and expansive and they wove themselves in and out of each other, in route to the water just near.

And the whole monstrous behemoth of a tree leaned.........

It gracefully and beautifully leaned into its life source.

It was as if it inherently knew it could sway and bend, reach and extend, grow and rest

because of its roots, flug deep and far and wide.

I want to be that tree, planted by the stream, who bears fruit at the right time and whose leaves do not dry up.

And so, if I am ever cut down, I will be like the stump of Jesse and branches will sprout from my mouth and I will live.

Write enough...

It's true.

As the writing has become habit, so too, have my eyes opened... 

wider 

deeper 

longer.

I walk in the woods and the trees part above me, 

dappling the ground with gold and amber.

The crisping air carries the shouts of children further 

and 

makes the call of the goose lonelier.

I touch the earth and I know its pulsing, 

I feel its journey 

through 

each 

and 

every

sun-drenched day.

To write is to become soused in the glory of the daily 

and 

sometimes 

you can scarcely catch your breath.

It is exhilarating. 

It is terrifying.

It is rich.

World without end.

Amen.

I have joined the likes of many other bloggers who have one goal in mind:

to sweeten the world with poetry words.

Once a month, for six months, you can expect to find new

photo poetry quotes in this space, courtesy of 

http://wordcandy.me/

I will also be sharing poetry quotes with others via email, Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest.

Wide open

O World, I cannot hold thee close enough!

     Thy winds, thy wide great skies!

     Thy mists that roll and rise!

Thy woods, this autumn day, that ache and sag

And all but cry with color! That gaunt crag

To crush! To lift the lean of that black bluff!

World, World, I cannot get thee close enough!  

Long have I known a glory in it all,

     But never knew I this:

     Here such a passion is

As stretcheth me apart. Lord, I do fear

Thou'st made the world too beautiful this year.

My soul is all but out of me, --let fall

No burning leaf; prithee, let no bird call.

-Edna St. Vincent Millay

I have felt this, keenly. 

I just spoke of it here and it seems to be fringing the edges of my heart these days...this swelling and bursting. Longing and aching.

And, yes, it begins with the splitting wide of my heart to make room for all of the glory ringed round. It stops me short when I chase the boys under the canopy of heaven and the sun leaks through the limbs and showers yellow all about us. The boys, they flit and fly. They try to catch even a single leaf to put in their pocket where it will burn amber. And I watch and I know. Later this week, we will find their ashes when we go to wash and crumbled gold dust will sift to the floor. The grit beneath my feet will chafe and I will look up and know. We tried to hold it close enough. 

Yes, I know this feeling. This burning. This desire. This looking all around and seeing beauty, heavy and dripping.

But soon, these trees will stop clapping and only their bony limbs will remain. Stripped of their raiment, they will stand naked and cold against the leaden skies. And what then? Will I be like a stilted lover whose heart has cooled with the dawn, chasing the shadows of night so as not to be discovered cleaving to a naked frame?

Oh, how fickle my heart is. 

Passion is not just throbbing emotion. It is a spreading out. An undergoing. An allowing of things to pass. A suffering, even.

It is me, hands outstretched, receiving. Always.

Yes, I want all of this beauty, all of this joy, all of this goodness. I want to press it to my lips. I want to  tattoo memories in the hidden places, so I will always remember.

But I need to pray to be pulled apart so that my soul is all but out of me. And, in the opening that is created, I need God to fall in.

Because, Lord, I have to hold thee close enough.

There is a winter coming.

Linking with Emily and Duane

Ten days later...what I've learned

I'm back from vacation and it's weird and wonderful all at the same time. I am both comforted and confused by the smell and feel of home after having been gone for days on end. There is even a little grief that comes upon the returning...the end of time set apart and away, contrasted with the realization that life continued on, even in your absence. The sun rose and set, rain fell, people went to work, time marched on...almost as if you being there mattered not. Humbling, it is.

And then there is the processing of it all. Perhaps I should just be like other people and let the last ten days be what they were: vacation. But I'm not other people and I write to figure out what I'm thinking and so I need to revisit it all. Again.

Ten days ago I was full to bursting with palpable excitement and energy. I had hopes and expectations of a trip that I portended as significant. Three generations were going to pack themselves up and journey together. This was going to be an adventure, dammit!

And, while there is most definitely a place for hope and anticipation, there is a more pressing need to simply be present and that, my friends was the first thing I learned while away.

Early on, I realized that if I didn't stop thinking about where we were headed and focus on where we actually were, I was going to miss the whole thing. 

And the whole thing was as big and wide as the Kansas sky. 

I found it in the early morning dark and the sharp smell of strong coffee 

in the small towns like Knob Noster and Emma 

in the bouncing of my dad's head to the driving rhythm of a Mumford & Sons song as the landscape blurred behind him

in the graceful majesty of miles upon miles of wind turbines, jutting upwards and spinning all pinwheel-like

And when the van decided to simply. stop. going

and we were, quite literally, in the middle of nowhere

when my usual response would most likely have been wailing and gnashing of teeth

my son, August, chose to respond with song. I turned from the symbol of ruin, the broken down van on the side of the road, and found my little boy and his ukelele and the dark ribbon of road, buoying me up with improvised melodies and suddenly we were gypsies and this was just the beginning of one grand adventure

And then someone told me to turn around and look and there was the sun, so heavy with orange and red that she couldn't hold her head up any longer and my cheeks glowed and we were all bathed in glory, swelling and sinking right there in the western sky.

That's how it all started, that very first day.

And it could have soured quickly and spoiled the whole brew but there were prayers being whispered and traveling mercies wrapped us right round and we had to smile at the angels disguised as tow truck drivers and state patrolmen.

++++++

I learned, on our second day, that even though I want to see and taste and feel the expanse of it all, my ability to truly capture every moment is determined by how I choose to frame them.  I take pictures because the lens closes in on those crazy rugged mountains with their spiky backbones and fuzzy pines and it disciplines me to do the same.  

I marveled at how thousands of pounds of rock could balance on its head with grace and gravitas and how maybe the impossible wasn't what I thought it was. That maybe, just maybe, I could dare to stand so boldly with dreams blazing and head tilted up and that what might appear as lunacy to some might be catalyst to another.

I stood small and, seemingly, insignificant before a cascade of rock and ripples and found myself with an incredible urge to scream my presence to all of creation.  As if, in failing to do so, I would be swallowed up by the hugeness and forgotten. But then I watched as the clouds played hide and seek with the sun and their shadows covered and uncovered the landscape beneath and I saw that there is a time for everything and everyone and all of it is unceasingly beautiful.

++++++

On the days that followed, we hiked among rock and ledge and we held our hands up to receive showers of gilded joy. The aspens shook with glory straight up and their quaking sang with a whispering beauty. As the skies turned to slate and dripped tears and the pines took on a darkness that hushed the hills, the aspens began to glow. The leaves were lit with a fire within and we drank up their light, eyes wide open and brimming. It's true...there's gold in them hills.

And we beheld the miracle that is a mountain pine. Roots held fast to rock, exposed to every extreme of weather, it takes the shape of its life experience. Unshielded, it becomes like clay in the hands of the potter wind and it twists and turns and wreathes upon itself. It would seem that such treatment would leave it maimed and disabled but it rallies, in spite of itself. The result is a gorgeous tableau of lines and curves that speak of both struggle and triumph and the beauty that comes from a life fully submitted and fully grounded.

I suppose the trip was truly epic--there were heroines and deeds of great strength and the muses spoke continually to my poet heart. But I think what I took most from this journey was the richness that comes from time well spent. Time with the people you love so much it aches. Time spent keeping your eyes wide open. Time allowed to unfold with wonder and curiosity. Time on top of time.

Go West Older Lady!

Go West Young Older Man Lady!

One more day.

That is all that remains before my family embarks on an epic trip to Colorado. 

Today will be full of hustling and bustling, list making and organizing, packing and planning. We will drop our dog off at the kennel that makes her smell stinky and clinical but where she is well-loved.  We will load up the family truckster with all the necessary accoutrements, fill fuel tanks and tires, clean windshields and seat cushions.

And tomorrow, when the sun peeks over the edge of the world, we will be driving away from it, headed West.

You see, we are making this trip with my parents.  

They were supposed to go to Italy, those two.  That was their dream and something that they carefully researched for quite some time. It was going to be beautiful. They were going to cruise the Mediterranean, eat themselves plump and take in the beauty of that boot shaped land. 

But, in the interim, my dad's hip and back and feet decided to betray him and my mom's leukemia got a little riotous and so Italy was put on the back burner.  First, indefinitely. Then, permanently.  

And there was a sadness.

So, for a time, they attended to their health and garnered up their strength. And then, being the amazing people that they are, my parents pitched an alternative.  Why don't we take a trip together instead?

And the dream for this trip was born.

Tomorrow, when we back out of the driveway and turn that loaded van towards the West, there will be a lot riding on those wheels.

There will be two boys who will take their schooling on the road.  The rugged landscape, the strange geological formations, the ancient homes built into the side of cliffs, the hundreds of thousands of acres of unspoiled land filled with elk and bear and mountain goats...all of it will become their classroom.  

There will be me and my husband.  And we will find ourselves in the unique position of traveling as parents and as the parented, navigating decisions with another set of opinions and perspectives, summoning patience for the young and the old, and loving each other through it all.

And there will be my parents, whose generosity of head and heart knows no bounds.  This time around, they will be passengers rather than navigators.  Their job will be to look wide-eyed at the beauty, to soak up the laughter of their grandchildren and to marvel at a length of days that is beyond a gift and is, quite remarkably, a miracle.

++++++

For the next ten days I am going offline.  This space will be quiet as I travel with my family and focus on being fully with them and in the moment.  It will feel very strange to not immediately share my experiences with you as I have become quite accustomed to chronicling my days and my heart in this space.  But I believe that this time away will grow something new in me.  I need to unplug and slow down and be present.  It will be good for me to have conversations with the people who are most important to me and wait for their comments, rather than virtual ones.  And it will be soul stretching to be still and quiet and listen for the sounds of the spheres.  Thank you for your patience and understanding.  

{Imperfect Prose} The shimmering

It has been a very dry season and I was beginning to stumble around, drunk on dust and the droning of locusts. Living in the middle of a drought causes your very edges to shrink in upon themselves and you become smaller, in spite of yourself. There is a brittleness to your frame that cowers in the presence of deep shadows.  Everything becomes too heavy.

And then one day, someone else's storm birthed my salvation.  The irony was not lost on this soul who craves justice and mercy.  From death comes life.  Always.

The leaden sky swelled with promise and then began to leak through all the holes I had poked in its crackling and leathered veneer...holes made by my pointed prayers and broken hallelujahs.  

And as the rain fell, I saw that it fell on the dying and the living with equal measure because surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.

The rain fell, hour upon hour upon hour and we all bowed low from the weight of glory falling all around us.

These bodies had curled in upon themselves, parched and done with the business of living and, in a singular moment, it was as if that was the miracle...that in the giving of our very lives we had become the perfect vessel for receiving this living water.  Cupped corpses had become holy altars.

And in the quiet of the woods, stretched between limbs that reached for one another, were invisible strands.  Spun in the hushed nights and hidden in the folds of darkness.   The silent work that goes unheralded.  

It was the rain that revealed their magic.  

As the heavy sky dripped sloppy on the world, one by one, the fat drops were strung on strings. 

And suddenly the world was wrapped in gowns of gossamer and there was a shimmering.  

{Word Candy Wednesday}

 

A Prayer for a Tuesday

The Praying Mantis

by Ogden Nash

From whence arrived the praying mantis?

From outer space or lost Atlantis?

glimpse the grin, green metal mug

at masks the pseudo-saintly bug,

Orthopterous, also carnivorous,

And faintly whisper, Lord deliver us.

{On, In, and Around Mondays} How to dive deep

The water has warmed since we first slipped our toes sideways

past the shimmery surface

to explore what might be hidden beneath

It was early summer then

and we had been tricked into believing

that we lived somewhere further North

where the nights belie the calendar

and the mornings are cloaked with a drop of purple chill

It is further along, now

And many fiery days have blazed and melted

filling the inky pools of dusk

Then

as if devoid of all reason

those same manic days emerge

to sing the familiar refrain on the morrow

There have been no offerings from the sky

all these months

So the lake has a bank now

and there are piles of rocks

large and small

littering the edges

standing like little altars

Ebenezers to the days of rain

There are different water plants, too

Not the familiar duckweed or cattails

But willowy grasses and water dragons in their stead

growing thick and dense

choking out the bellow of the bullfrog

while making beds for cottonmouths

We have come to the water at midday this time

And you boys dive deeper than ever before

I'm startled by your boldness

The lake sort of scares me, of late

And yet you both have grown braver

How is that?

I'm the one inching, by the day, closer and closer to midlife

And where is my fear?

It is palpable and practiced and it pricks at my cheeks

You have decided to explore the bottom of the lake

where it is cold and quiet and dark

Just your feet, at first

and you show me the mud between your toes

proof of your presence in those deep places

My head thinks you should be stunned into defeat

deterred by the muck and mire of the deep

I know I would be

And yet, you both dive under again
letting the green water push you down
further
closer and closer
to the bottom
Your hands reach out
groping along the depths
searching, exploring, mining
and it is there
that you stumble upon them

They are hard and dark and ugly
but you cup them in your hand
like treasure
As you bring them up to the surface
you bathe them in the water that birthed them
clearing away the mud that
has hidden them
all this time

And then
we see it
the sun slants
and the light
finds a crack
and suddenly
ripples of pearled color
fill up the concave space

And what once was 

hard and closed and black

hidden deep and dark and dead

is transformed

by light

I look out on the surface of the lake

across its patterns and dancing light

and I sigh

for I know that this swelling body

that ebbs and flows

that fills and empties

it holds a deep darkness

that grips and scares and blinds

the weight of which

could suffocate

but that same being

with its trills and tender flickers

its deep quiet and silent ear

it has

luminous joy

bursting through its cracks

 

What pulls me

I stare into the center of the hollyhock blossom and am caught unawares

I already knew that it was beautiful
with its blazing color
and
its feathery grace flowing 
its length and breadth swaying 
with subtlety and nuance


And I had long ago marveled
at
the joy it brought
how it connected me to
the man
who walked along roadsides
in a state miles away
gathering colored joy
in his pockets 


And how I wanted that
delight
to grow in my garden
and
for my boys
to be dwarfed by
its
beauty
and comforted
by its
humming

These things
I knew

But it was
the
outstretched hands
inside
with rays of light
pulsing
that
gripped me

This...
this is what pulls me
I gasp
this star shaped center
almost hidden
but still brilliant

This is what it has always been

And so I wonder
when people turn their heads
and gaze
at
all that is me
what do they
already know?

what has it always been?

Fibonacci's number

The flower emerges, opening wide its petal arms and, just like that, Jesus has come again.
The seed head stands gallant, reaching skyward, a star burning at its core.

It was there from the beginning, you know
at the very planting of the seed,
the miracle.

Of pattern and spiral and dancing coils.

Before the flower grew skyward, or opened itself to the eyes of the world
a mystery was embedded within.
A figure of beauty and grace
seeds lining up just so
going on to tell stories and ring out glory
yes?


And if I were to look deeply 
might I begin to see that same joy tattoo
everywhere?


In the birds and the bees and the sycamore trees
a dripping spiral
of utterly wondrous magic.

How the sun burns

We are in the full throes of summer now that we have rounded the corner of mid-summer's eve.  The days sear sun and the Earth answers in shadow.  The air hangs long and low, enveloping all that brave its embrace.  The heat invites those that remain hidden to emerge, to look for water, food, new places of protection.  We, on the other hand, the ones that can usually be found among the grass and brooks and trees, find ourselves hunkering down in the coolness of home.  We are beginning to shun the sun and its cohorts.  The summer burns hot now.  And we are more fragile than we thought.

But there are two sides to a flame.

There is life in light.  Deep, throbbing life.  It is written in the leaf of the swiss chard, with its veins of blood red crimson, spreading like a tree of life in every.single.leaf.  It is in the swelling berry that, at first, blushes scarlet but quickly grows heavy with sweetness, turning darker and richer each day.  That long, slow flare, that is what elicits this life source.


So we ignore the heat and the humidity, fan our foreheads and set up our tent.  We promised.  So we must.  And we haul in our sleeping bags that no one plans to sleep in and we carry our pillows and stuffed animals and pen lights and books.  And we settle in.  We adjust our eyes to the darkness, only to realize that the sky still glows with the memory of the day while it rocks the fingernail moon in its bosom. The locusts and the katydids and the cricket frogs hum and sing and click, laying the rhythm of night and we float on its trusted cadence.


Because to burn is to also glow.  And glowing is magical.

these are the days I hope they will remember

"You're writing the story of your life one moment at a time."

-Doc Childre and Howard Martin