Home Again Soul As a child I thought my soul Was an organ That sat In my breastless chest. Pure, As white as a cloud, A cotton ball, A baby blanket, Downy soft, A place where The Holy Spirit dove Coul...Read More
Tiny Paradise I don’t know anything. I just watch these birds in childlike wonder. Two little wrens in the leatherwood outside the porch, a flicker, working its way down the walnut tree. Oh, they li...Read More
Younger Self I can see her there, looking confident, cocky even, but I know her well. She is terrified, has no idea what she is supposed to do with this “life” that is now, suddenly, hers. I wonde...Read More
Today I have borne up, taken the blows, adapted to reality again and again, made the best of it, encouraged and taken care of others. But some days, I just have to stand still and let sadness work its...Read More
In June All around me, there are worlds within and beyond my world inviting me to let go of my preoccupations and enter. The mourning dove coos a deep lullaby from afar, quieting my bothered mind. A s...Read More
I wrote this one over five years ago and still feel the same way. On Turning Sixty I am not old. But I can see old there on the horizon. Which has always been true, I suppose. Its just that now, I don...Read More
Book Review The main character has kept me company for a while now on quiet afternoons, has coaxed me back to sleep on anxious nights. Against the backdrop of a particular moment in history in a parti...Read More
Now “And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul.” John Muir I bring my troubled mind with me to our cabin in the forest, and so, for hours, I cannot really see, cannot really hear,...Read More
Written a long, long time ago. Happy Mother’s Day! I’m the Mom I wasn’t born a mother, like my children think. Once, not long ago, I was a child, too. I hung my head off the couch and lo...Read More
This I need to remember When I am looking back from the perch of old age, this is what I need to remember: Every morning in the spring, summer and fall, I would get my coffee and notebook and sit on t...Read More
What If? What if, instead of living in its shadow, we shone just the gentlest light into the secret corners of our grief? What if, instead of pushing it away, we held the trembling animal of shame in ...Read More
Note to a Young Parent Despite the vastness of your love, you, too, will undoubtedly encounter a particular brokenness in yourself so deep that you cannot traverse it, even for your children’s sake....Read More
Along for the Ride The whole family piled into that station wagon. Big kids sat in the middle seat, little kids in the far back, facing the rear. I was one of the little kids, just along for the ride....Read More
Hallelujah On this crisp spring morning, the dogwood tree gracefully offers its abundant platters of delicate blossoms in an act of grateful praise. A royal carpet of violets covers the ground at its ...Read More
What My Words Cannot Contain I want my life to be a prayer and by that, I mean a seeking, a listening, a blossoming toward. Toward what? I don’t want to say “God” because it is a word too fraugh...Read More
camping I by the fire staring off into the woods aglow with morning’s rays you walking the carpet of leaves noticing each subtle change of light I reading a book of poems you reading the trees the h...Read More
Hello, friends! I wanted to let you know that I have a new book coming out in April! I am really excited for you all to see it. This is my fifth book of poems and it is a compilation of poems that I h...Read More
Squirrel Show On warmish mornings, we sit on the porch with our coffee and watch the squirrel show. They will take a running leap from the end of an oak branch and fling themselves over the driveway o...Read More
Weary When overwhelmed by the abrasiveness of information coming in, too fast, too disturbing to absorb, I let my mind rest for a bit in the silent prayer of familiar daily tasks and that is often jus...Read More
Missed Boat There was a time when I looked at other people’s expansive homes, their accomplishments, their travels, and I got the sense that we had somehow missed the boat. We hadn’t gotten news t...Read More
Expansion and Contraction In the beginning, I lived in a womb. That is how small my world once was. When I stretched that place to its limit, I was born. My world has been an expanding circle ever sin...Read More