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January Bird {a #poem}
Where have you been? Out of town like those who flee our chilled clime and metallic skies? Elsewhere, warming up your voice to herald today’s sunrise with your song? I welcome your morning melody making its way to my ears, stirring memories of other songs on sullen, silver days when your music was my only companion, a balm for the emptiness at the edge of my days.
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I am From {a #poem}
I am from doughboy pools and homemade Barbie houses from Huffy bikes and Helms Bakery donuts. I am from three sisters to a room and broad green bermuda lawns. I am from bright sandy beaches and weeping willows whose drooping green sheltered me from California’s sun. I am from Coppertone and Sun-In from Helen and Wes and John. I am from belting out a tune and scribbling in the dark from roller skating and tree-fort-building from fighting at the top of my lungs and finding quiet at any cost. I am from Bible stories with Mrs. Cluck and anywhere-you-can-take-5-kids-on-a-Sunday. I am from the Hebjums and Lindseys, a Best at heart…
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Autumn Seventeen {a #poem}
When did the hills gather this golden?yesterday’s horizonsturn amber in waves? I slept with green outside my window and woke to topaz, russet, moving yellow, mellow against the sky.
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Begin Again {a #poem}
September’s singular day arrives with the turning of many pages, paper or otherwise. Limbs of another rich and growing year branch upward, leading to vistas bright and unknown. An imaginary climb, I’m grateful for handholds, eyes on the open, azure sky. Did Eden’s first morning in that tree-filled glade startle the couple awake, their eyes on a new dawn? Burst with the gift of hope, that unknown need of a fresh start? I say yes. This new day, like that one, rich with possibilities awaits as we journey. Now at a walk (or sometimes fly) and fall, sure of a steady Hand to right us. Our steps re-turned to the…
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65 is Just a Number {a #poem}
There is no statute of limitations on vision. My old eyes register a darting messenger of God’s blatant, creative joy. Watch the winged creation hover in a web of air. Spy a sleuthing intruder snap-tapping its way across the wood, tunneling away and down the outside stairs. No expiration (yet) for hearing, cataloguing birdvoice and the chipclacking of breakfast at the feeder, the squeaking insistence at the fountain. Teach me to number my days, Lord, to register the ways your wind ruffles the tablecloth in the morning’s gentle breeze, how cool, shortened shadows signal this sea change of a season rippling towards quieter times. May I live this calendar daily,…
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Inventory {a #poem}
Lavender linaria spikes upward, miniature clouds stalk-perched as they reach for the sky. Hummingbirds crowd-feed in the waning afternoon sun. Carnations, red as a fresh-cut thumb, wave divine perfume from ruffled taffeta on gray-green stems. Sweet peas’ pungent surprise, a salmon/marshmallow palette, celestial bouquet a fragrance of that far away gate in the Heavenlies. Juncos chip-clacking in rhythm, sure-footed clutching on feeders afloat, trapezing in the breeze. Leaves, light-transfigured day lanterns lingering against a cornflower sky. Voices ferried on the wind, gleeful hollers loud as a…
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Writer’s Break {a #poem}
I’ve been awash in words of late, missing out on the wind waving through steel branches, blue and white sky. Eyes too crowded to take note of the weather which goes on without me, whether I watch it or not. A glance through the dining room glass speaks loudly in all caps. I am listening. “There is no earth-changing work worth writing that can compare to the lines written in the night sky on an early March evening.” Memory safely deposited for another day, I bank on the Holy Spirit’s call to tug at my downward eyes next time I am consumed with my own importance. I will myself to…
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Isaiah 1:18
The snow comes, unexpected like grace after a fall (yours, mine, ours) a quiet wool covering missteps, mistakes, messes. White-soft gift leaves an expanse of peace, pulling my eyes away from the ground, these humble, human feet, to the misty, gray horizon. Heart now centered, sheltered, still where Creation whispers my thanks. **** Do you remember the Oscars from a few years ago, with the mess-up at the end, a snafu that has never happened before with the envelope announcing Best Picture being the wrong one? How would you like to be the one who did that? Sometimes life is disorienting, yes? The root of ‘orient’ is from the Latin-‘oriens’,…
