You and the Earth

Her love rose and spilled across her cheeks, witnessing the young seeker in the mirror of her journey, her elder wisdom opening with tears for her caring spirit. Knowing she must be alone after all, she and the earth in the long dark silence, the light of her inner lamp flickering, fragile, determined to continue. […]

Sirius Calling

Sirius visited last night, trailing Pleiades and Orion, awakening me to the sacred manuscript etched in darkness, of Earth alive, moving into the depths of God’s imagination.    

Storing Vision

Sun casts the sea in silver, low slanted light skimming off the water, gleaming like vast ornamental plates beset with wooded islands, more fallen from heaven than raised by the sea. I am watching, gathering images like late apples, storing vision for winter nights.    

Sound of Night

The air grows still with silent pressure, urging the weight of discovery; the inner ear trembled by the sound of night. Everything dark, suggestive of hidden life poised to emerge; frightening yes, but who we are beneath the noise and uncertainty.    

Creation Song

Driving through the rough-hewn gate past the carved wooden sign and down the gravel lane, I found the broad russet hay field lifted into autumn maple or perhaps rising up to greet me like an old friend. Every tree and trembling fern had a voice in the slanted sunlight, the rubbed bronze earth reaching out […]

On Saturday Shoulders

The rain came softly in velvety mist, falling on the wet turf and our Saturday shoulders as we watched the match. One grandson streaking forward, another beside me, enjoying the gray clouds and steady blanket of moisture. No umbrella or parka for him, where home feels like rain and the way we stand together, heads […]

Take Heart

The season is turning with the aroma of fall; the earth exhales, the scent of leaves and open ground fill the air with her essence. The thud of boots and grinding wheels obscure the delicacy of her rising, yet even the timid take heart in autumn, letting go like trees in the wind.    

Twelve

The hat drops over his ears, bill straight, uncurved, a slight angle to the side though not yet the full teen rake. He’s turning twelve this year, in first year of middle school, the growing strangeness of encyclopedic social rules, protocols ever changing in the hormonal entry zone charged like summer lightning. I stumble along […]

Night World

By day the light upon water is brilliant and bright, securing the outlines of what is safe and real. by night, now shimmering the moon invites you deeper; everything trembles in this light, speaking through shadows. If I had the courage I’d live in the night wonder, walking forest paths with slivers of silver breaking […]

Light Quickening

The sound of your voice lifts the autumn wind, a golden light quickening, as the almost dead rise from their obsession into dew-soaked grass, trembling with life.    

Third Way

When wind and sea collide a third way will be found, of eddy line beside jagged rock, where water shapes a counter flow to release the conflict. We tell our stories in black and white, yes or no, yet in the way of water there are many paths of current and choice. Learning to yield […]

Challenging the Sun

The stories can be harsh in the pervading gray of concrete and rumbling thrum of traffic. The young dad with a jitterbug son, waving his arms to the sky, while dad pushes sister, the treasury of hope on stroller wheels skittering over the ribbed sidewalk. The manic boy juiced on sugar, proclaiming ecstasy like a […]

At the Heart of the World

At the heart of the world an altar pulsing light, crucibles of fire where the stories of Earth rise with fragrant incense into streams of compassion, nourished by a single life and all its mystery.    

Ancient Well

There is a well older than the earth; when I fail this depth is my nourishment. I know the animal in strength, the tooth and claw of many wars, and the way my arms can wrap an innocent heart filled with grief. The way to understand is to travel within, to discover the frightening possibilities […]

Further Shore

Over the unbroken fetch the southerly breeze

raises the channel in wind driven swells