It is prayer, her sharing and my listening with interest to the details of her story—noticing her love of the memory of the taste and feel and look of a thing. It is blessing, her offering and my attending in affection and easy delight as I follow the weavings and wanderings of life through her eyes. It is joy, her gift of herself and my receiving of her in the beauty of her … [Read more...] about Listening

Today I said my good-byes to the trees that guard our street and populate the nearby park. I ought to know them by name by now, but I guess I have been walking by them like they were residents in a nursing home— lined up in wheelchairs in the hallway and gathered in the social activity room, never hearing their stories, never pausing in wonder at all they have seen in their years, never … [Read more...] about Their Stories

the one thing we do not ever want to be true the great terror that has chased us for years the loss we think we cannot bear to suffer the door we hoped never to open the path we find when all others lead to dead ends the crack in our dungeon wall allowing in light the gift we relinquish our illusions to receive the weight lifted from our chests making room for … [Read more...] about We Admitted We Were Powerless

What if we saw our faces, our bodies as the canvases they are, telling our story over time in their etchings and changes, like the walls of a great canyon shaped by the caresses of the wind, carved by the movements of the water? What if we cherished this story and its record, written in our skin embedded in the caverns of our heart? What if we knew it to be a sacred telling, one … [Read more...] about The Beauty

I sit near the window in the diner, wrap hands around a warm white mug, and gaze back across the boulevard to the hospital, aware that this day’s solo wait for my love is an early drill of things to come. Aware that as sure as winds sweep riotous autumn leaves from the trees, as sure as migrating geese wing their way out of sight, today’s wait during a routine screening will … [Read more...] about One Day

You gaze down on us like a tall man on stilts, walkin’ round, showing off nothin’ but your golden smile— you are a spy with hat pulled low. What do you see, new moon, as you survey this blue marble? You, who inspire love songs, when you bare all, do you see us loving this breathing beauty we are called to husband? Bare your face. Inspire us to sing love to this … [Read more...] about New Moon

I am stumbling down, stupid drunk— inebriated on spiked slogans and sophisticated appeals poured freely from screens, billboards, magazines, lulling me into an intoxicated stupor until my brain is pink cotton candy fluff, my senses, numb— so that I can no longer clearly see or feel the natural world or all that matters most. All I want is more. … [Read more...] about Inebriated