Tuck it Safe

Steel cut oats and a new dawn, a little chillier than expected. A relief from the heat is not unwelcome but no one wants a reminder of winter in August.

Plants and the Tree of Life grow in the garden still. Nature is not mute and has her way with us. It's “her”, right? Knowledge in the plants. Transcendence. Those who have ears to hear.

In weakness, I hug the tree and feel a little better. Will that soothe enough in the cold, winter darkness? But that is not now. Now is August and shimmering heat and cicadas strumming, “ harvest but don't hoard...share...love better in the first place.”

A grebe nestled its baby using her whole neck to wrap around the little one and tuck it safe. Like that.

In a high-minded sky, striated clouds hang like a rib cage as if to say that the heart was below, here with the plants and the trees and the flowers and the humans making a mess of everything.

During our conversation on the trail, vines snagged my body. They put holes in my shirt and shredded the skin on my arm. I didn't tell you that. But now I will have these bloodied scars as a way of watching the healing up close. As if the heart wasn't close enough!

Pine needle basketry. Clematis spurning suburban mailboxes. The realization that desire is pitch-forward.

I think the way chicory grows with Queen Anne's Lace is about as close to heaven's door as we can get today. We. Always we.

A Certain Mouthiness

angels
refusing prayers
and saying nothing

Who are you in moonlight? This and other rock-projected kryptonite.

And what if there was a ceremony by which we could sip moonlight from teacups

and then share this light

with each other's kiss?

There is someone who would do this with me, which reminds me that this someone IS me, because who else?

Rain falls with a syncopation of sound eating space and spitting it back out. A certain mouthiness. A kind of creative ruin.

Every once in a while, the rain gets hungrier so the cadence changes. Eventually it all fades to equilibrium as all things must.

Hunger as rain and witches and little boys who throw things at the moon.

Cardinals in the rain. And Blue Jays. Okay, “hate” is a strong word.

Slowing it down, whereby “it” is way one kneads the dough. Needs?

The cardinal hop from slat to slat on the wooden fence. Wetness stains and drips downward along the fence and also creeps upward in the same toothy way from the ground. Whose mouth am I looking into; who's eating whom?

Body as instrument.

Billy Joel's “Piano Man” keeps playing in my head over and over today. Sometimes the only way out is through, so I play it with the intention of hearing what wants to be heard. All that happens is the realization that I cannot listen to that song and do other things.

That doesn't mean what you think it means.

The rain may stay all day and I may listen to it.

Making Our Way Back

Dawn is muggy and damp as of late. Walking in the half light, an older man, hunched in the upper back, passes on the cross street. His shirt is so threadbare that I can see scars and moles on his back. I see his skin. He says, “good morning” and I give him my eyes and smile and heart. Maybe he is a Trump supporter; there are so many of them here. Maybe he is a racist and person only wrapped up in himself. But in the moment, I gave him what I had.

Do you ever get the feeling that we were swept away in a rushing river and we are just now making our way back?

I press further into the subdivision to the park and the trails. There are paved and unpaved paths, but this early in the morning, I choose the more visible route.

The path changes direction several times and when it places me face to face with the east-rising sun, I forget myself utterly. A cardinal lands asking me to ignore heartless expediency. And prayers climb accordingly.

Did Mary Magdalene have to let Jesus go in order for him to become the Christ? Is letting go a false story, because really, what can be let go? Is love even ever possessed?

Rabbit ears aglow with morning light. Wild berry brambles encroaching well-laid plans. Warbler's words fall into my ear and heart. Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

Am I a ghost, whose participation is relegated to seeing? Does my image steal whatever space is left in the room? You, with unquiet dreams and a canyon's capacity to love – let me visit. Let me know. Let us.

Norman O. Brown, out of context, but still: the pleasure of ideal participation, and the prohibition of real participation: a eunuch in the harem.

I'm asking the Lord everything.

Give me ears to hear.

Horizontal Magic

Look back – women were never silenced.

Burned and raped. Mutilated and murdered.

Yet never silenced.

Today, if men wanted to take away my rights, they could. Power pools at their feet.

And yet, the healing force in the physical world expressed Herself – sacred, sensual, fiercely strong in love. Have you seen Her? Prima testis.

I watched a cardinal feed its mate and I was purified.

Tonight promises to be clear and crisp. I wondered if you might sit outside with me and gaze. Turn west, and I, east. Look with those eyes given to you by the One who draws us together. Search the dark in gratitude and weep a little with me. Weep for the night before we kissed. And weep for the lips that won't ever feel the same way again. I like watching stars best when my back is on a blanket on the damp ground. Horizontal magic.

Brattleboro and a little dirt road. Farms and sugar shacks. Mountains and trees. Maybe I'll know about the woodsman's smoke east of here. Maybe I won't. But I want to.

Pregnant milkweed pods and red tasseled corn. Monarchs write your name around me on the way. Willows over Rush Creek and the bridge graffiti that says, “ don't look back.” Tell me, Beloved . . . will you?

tried by fire
constantly arriving
in love –

Fidelity

Another candle. Another prayer. Another substitute for what is real.

Sitting down to write, a cardinal inches side to side on the rim of the gutter, his red tail hanging over the edge. I see him off my right shoulder and looking back at him from a position underneath, I see light streaming through this tail feathers. His staccato is untranslatable because I am not a bird. Yet I love him and he is here so I open my arms and heart always to him. Always.

Though I can't make it fit, I know what love undoes. I know Who undoes it. For Mary Magdalene and even for Jesus, it didn't happen alone. Who is Christ, really? They are We.

The space between the stars isn't empty.

Dawn arrives as a smokey mirror. Inch by inch fog burns away to unveil this moment and this one and this. How many times do we pay for a mistake? One hundred thousand.

The impeccability of words. Are you enslaved or set free? My heart aches for sonnets and deep turtle dives. Always you.

Love is stronger than this death. A mercy. A dialogue. A constant exchange. The conversation of angels. And the river is no longer enough. Nor is the lake.

Life tries its hand at “normal” which means deeper grays emerge. Less technicolor. I make the font bigger on the computer and increase the brightness. MM stands to the side with her hands folded which is super unusual for her. A teaching moment, I guess. She watches the turtle flipped over on her back, legs and arms waving for something to help turn.

Buffalo chicken in the slow cooker, greens on the side. Plans for better health. Better fitness. Better anything coming from whatever this is. Bitter, much?

Assumptions set us up for suffering. There is a fidelity and truth in accepting love the way it is presented.

My Tree My Love

Hard rain breaks a record heat wave. I heard it falling in the middle of the night and immediately melted into the bed sheets with gratitude. I am so grateful, Beloved. And I can't stop. I am tethered to that which brings wholeness.

Inbetween rain bursts, I put a few echinacea plants in the ground. I move towards the medicinal. It's a small thing, but starting somewhere is important. Yes? A healer and her tools; when she falls short, she falls far.

Lemon balm, calendula, chickweed. A mending garden. Please, kneel here. I think we can; I know I must.

The woodpecker thrums and rolls. I love this sound because he is either calling to his love or feeding or warning that he is here. Every tree allows a different sound. Every bird hears the same song and yet, transcribes a different tune. Many woodpeckers are around this year; many chances to breathe together.

When I water lately, white moths and brown moths and gray moths flutter up and away from the ferns and hostas. I divert the water until they have safely escaped but I offer an apology anyway. In my tending I am also a disrupt-er. My heart is pure even though I can do better.

Apple slices and peanut butter. Basil from the garden for the salad. Lentils and rice. I eat alone and prepare alone and write alone; we are never alone. A hint of sun bursts through the iron clouds all at once, but only for a moment. I used to think that was God saying: look. Now I know it is Good saying: it is well. Yes, I meant type “Good.”

A cardinal wakes me and visits accordingly. My tree, my love, let my arms reach around. Let my heels press the soil above your roots. Let me hold.

I can only write these words here. I can only reach from here. I can only head east from here. Soon, but later. Let me. For now, I am stitched with absence. Mother Magdalene says: get the fuck up.

Worship This

For the first time in weeks, dawn contains something crisp and clean. The day rushes towards boiling, but for a few moments, deep breaths are possible. On the walk home at night, cicadas, too soon. How blood runs cold in a heartbeat.

The Magdalene begins to ooze: love that is love that is love. The truth in my body. She leans into that small door and pushes. In a siren's whisper she says, “Let us worship this; it is the truth.”

work beheld
by a sense of joy
vine of the soul
feeding us

The day keeps emptying. As heat takes everything, I feel nauseated. This sense of distance doesn't help. I hold on to the tree and pour moon water into the roots.

hold
prayer
hold

Truth in my body rises to see the Christ in you. There is no other way. And in listening to those sighs, I hear the voice of my soul. An ancient hatred fades. Stay beloved. Let us not be separated from Good.

I never knew how much I needed the Goddess. In her I wax and wane like the moon. Beauty, strength, power and will. Tell me again as you climb my thigh.

Conceive God another way. Like bees, we dance around life-giving beauty. Like honey, we sweeten light unto the tongue.

Yeshua, we need not bother with the lonely monk on the hill. Let us instead swim in the still waters, watching turtles slip into the deep.

Body as Chalice

Rain smelling like sea fills the space between darkness and you.

The Magdalene, Black Madonna, Isis, and Green Tara. She, stepping into and emitting.

Have you ever noticed how red renders us all equal? Red is the holiest. Get closer, Beloved. Listen to my soul voice and know my life. This union wants to be first.

How my body avers. Body as chalice. The veil of divine worth, falling.

I want to give away the abundance of love. Soul is in charge.

Who rises for you?

When Jessica was unafraid in her body. When my sex and gender was sacred.

My life as a small prayer to heal this. Kneel with me, you who sees the light pouring out of my eyes.

It's time to change the code.

I wake to fog and mist after a night of storms. Everything glows a little in the filtered dawn. This stillness reaches me and ministers.

Like Christ, fully human, fully divine, She is.

Dusty Totems

In this morning's dream, I crossed over a 3 foot wall of stacked stones into a vast desert. Nothing taller than sand was visible between me and the horizon, save but one tree. The tree was like an ancient cedar, only not tall, like Lebanon Cedars. It was almost like a huge bush of tangled trunks, bleached by the sun, white and leafless. It was something scary yet safe in the landscape. The tree was charred down the middle, where lightening or the voice of God had descended. The dream said this was called the “Siani tree” and it protected all those who once hid within it.

Morning breaks with a dull light. A world is beaten open with bullets and bully sticks. Not my world – my world maintains a status quo of bird song and entitlement collusion. White Suburbia wakes to go the grocery store, cut the grass and grab a latte before repurposing an old desk in shabby chic, antique aqua paint. After evacuating the violence of a revolution overseas, I chose to live here, where it is “safe.” But PTSD has a way . . .

Shame has a way.

Guilt has a way.

Privilege has a way.

We watch the news all night and remember the suffocating choke of tear gas. We remember how it feels to be caught in a crowd that was standing still one second ago but is now screaming and running and getting shot in the street. We remember black bodies mangled and macheted, red blood seeping into red dirt. We remember hiding people in our house from mobs at the gate, with a barricaded door and prayer as a weapon.

But we were white there. And we are white here.

Sunlight streams through the graduation sign hanging from dining room window. Meaningful nick-knacks from Kenya stand as dusty totems on our shelves, a portal to a place we no longer live. The refrigerator buzzes a little while it hums. There is no one on my street burying a murdered son or daughter.

I've been challenged and found lacking. But a new day is here. Socialization has roots and I'm going to name each and every one.

Apples and Almonds

Across west windows, prisms dance on threads strung from sill to sill. The sun drops below pines. What is left of today is everything. And nothing at all.

Maple seeds spin in this last light. I cannot forget the breeze or the anticipation of dawn or you, you, you.

Apples and almonds for breakfast. The dark night slips away leaving a wake of light in an ever-broadening V. My hands are but points in time, but would it be alright if I used them to hold yours? There is something sacred about falling asleep, about letting go entirely, about meeting darkness together. In my dream I notice every line and bend of our fit. Yet, I cannot seems to ride the wind long enough to reach you. Well, that is just one way of saying it. Another is that we exist and are happy.

May departs.

Dig

Loving through the music now.

Rain as down beat.

I keep time until Jesus says, “you don't need it!”

In the dark waiting until there is light enough to pray.

Day decides.

A lit candle.

A singing bowl.

A song in D minor.

Woven or tangled?

Creation is underway.

It's the cello, man . . . .the cello.

Writing with the pen in my mouth.

Writing with you in my mouth.

Writing with Christ knocking at the door.

Peace will not come until judgement is castrated.

Holding you in my hands.

Bread and olive oil on the tongue.

The world is burning and that's the plan.

I remember the sandstorms in Egypt and how we couldn't get out alive unless everyone was digging.

Dig.

Bubble Gum? Ylang Ylang? Sunburned Shoulders?

Who is the teller of black lies? The maker of promises unkept? You fold fortunes into fitted sheets while whistling a Lizzo tune. Will the lover of light finally turn to gold?

I walked the dog early to avoid the heat but even so, she couldn't go far. I dropped her off and went on and on and on. Too far. Too long. But body and soul said: do this. On the air: fresh laundry, cut grass, cigar smoke, lilacs, musky damp earth, straw and finally, skunk. People tied kayaks to their cars and polished boats and packed campers. North. They all go north. I divert through the woods along Rush Creek. All waters are running fast enough to hiss. Do you throw pebbles into the river? Do you draw with half broken sticks in the muddy banks? Do you close your eyes and set your head on your knees and wonder how this is all going to fit?

On the way back, lavender blooms of wild geranium brush the palm of my hand. Will you please stargaze with me tonight? Cheap wine works. But before that, brats on the grill, an inspection of growing things, maybe a cartwheel in the grass? In the too-long grass I feed my skin to the sky. Just take me; I have no otherwise but to give my light-loving self over to you.

Your hand reaches through the mirror. Can I grab it? They used to call me Pippi Longstocking and pull on my braids. “It means he likes you,” they used to say. Fuck that, okay? Stop telling your kids that. Stop letting that shit happen. I remember when he pulled my hair while having sex and I was like, “is this a thing?” Well, it's a thing alright. Do I like it? Ask me first next time and I won't put my elbow through your Adam's apple.

I remember winning Homecoming Queen and buying a fancy dress. My hair was long and red and I braided it with a skinny black ribbon like a crown around my head. A friend of the family in cahoots with my mother offered to do my makeup for the night. I agreed to see how it looked. While she was putting it on my face, she whispered, “ I've been dying to do this to you for years.” Another message about how things should be done.

Late in the day, before dinner, I need to shower. Peeling my shirt off, I bring it up to my face to smell. . . bubble gum? Ylang Ylang? Sunburned shoulders? Sweat, for sure. And maybe a hint of skunk. The shower is quick. I just wash my hair and shave as quickly as possible. Not too quickly though;. watch the ankles and knees!

In lessening light, a rabbit has supper in the deep clover patch. Its ears glow with sunset and I swear the veil is that thin, if one exists at all anymore. Heaven and earth. Here and there. Whatever is next belongs to you.

Silver Slips In

The neighbor tends to life in his funeral home suit. Ahead full light and ahead of the chorus, he feeds birds in his backyard before going to work. He was a pastor once; I guess he still is. The undertaker must hold and release life almost like a healer.

Perhaps the sickness is passing. Perhaps I can be outside today. Perhaps the overflow can reach you. Perhaps it can reach everyone.

The Thornapple River floods near my parents’ place and Gun Lake is high; it's been high for awhile. They talked about getting the pontoon boat in yesterday only to stall in Robin's Bay. Closer to home, the Grand River takes over roads as it typically does this time of year. Wealthy homeowners are losing their houses to Lake Michigan and as a lake girl and a human, I do feel badly about that. But I don't feel as badly as I do about other losses.

Kora moves from one deck chair to another; I always think of Goldilocks when I watch her try them all out before settling into her buff colored curlicue. She can be there all day now, watching birds and stalking squirrels. Although, a chickadee lands on the back of her chair for a chat, and she is unaware. She's slowing down and getting older like the rest of us. My pill case tells me what day it is.

You know how sometimes when you are reading something and the sun happens to get a little brighter and then everything tingles for a few seconds? Mentally it's like, “hey this must be important or some kind of true north guidance shit.”

Your brother's need is yours.

I'm feeling better. I made the rounds outside just after dawn. The creek isn't working again, so I checked for problems and refilled it. A few tulips are on their way out so I clipped and brought them in for a bouquet of last moments. Some areas of weeding have cropped up but nothing too overwhelming. Violets everywhere this year. The Lily of the Valley has come into full bloom in my absence. Heaven has a scent of these. Transplanted ferns have taken off but there seems to be a different variety mixed in with ostrich ferns. I may have to consolidate and move a few around. Creation ex nihilo.

The furnace stays turned down now at night and coolness creeps into windows cracked open. Maybe silver slips in to dress my comforter or my addidas or the clothes on the floor. A body too. Slips in? Makes one less empty? The clock in the living room ticks and clicks if you are paying attention. And then after you pay attention, you cannot unhear it.

Is there another life to live? Another body to become? I'm tired too, beloved. I want to complete the task. And want is an issue. Did I mention the Lily of Valley already? I must have. Forgive me. I thought maybe a little more time on the path of lilies and tulips and ferns would be nice.

Leek soup. Bread. That shared cup of coffee. Whose voice is that using my tongue to say your name?

Managing Purple

Beatitudes by the lake.

On the highway to Gun Lake, a red-winged blackbird hovered above roadside cattails, suspended by strong headwinds. He marked time while the car sped on. My passenger and I looked at each other and smiled. This.

In the other, I see light. The pure kind. It changes one from the inside out and becomes prismatic in reverse. I want to take a bath in it and sleep in it and die in it. I open and keep opening. This is Love. Given in full.

Deep purple tulips are new this year. Planted last fall, I did not know what color they would be; this rich, velvety opulence emerges as a stunner. Formed together with light and soil and bulb, the expression of what is begins to beg for the cultivation of more. But we must not do that. That will only make us fall in love with purple instead of being Love itself. There is nothing to do, save for allowing the flow of light and color and spirit. Perhaps our noble intentions to manage beauty are hindering Home.

Our bodies are folded in the brilliant shimmer of Christ. He in me sees Him in you. Bodies be damned. A robin's egg fragment beams with blue against the black ground. I hold it and feel things. It connects me one layer deeper. I think the desire to devour is a call to join, beloved. No? All at once or layer by layer, that might be the fork in the path.

These are the just ramblings of a sleepless pacer. In the middle of the night I eat saltine crackers and a few slices of salami. Just after dawn, the dog and I walk under the moon's apostrophe. My chest is tight with frost and my breath stays in the air to hover over where I once was.

Perhaps it is not your everything that I need. But is it enough to know that is you who turned on the light?

Mary's Tears

This thread, this ungraspable strand.

At 4 a.m. sleep finally wins. For the first time in weeks, I have missed the birds' call to prayer. But the Lily of the Valley buds are beginning to emerge and stack. We moved into this house in the middle of winter, so when spring rolled around and the Lily of the Valley began to push through, it was a sheer delight. A surprise.

Growing up on Gun Lake there was a tiny white cottage a few lots down from our house. The occupants didn't move in for the summer until June or July, leaving the place begging for childhood exploration the other 9 months of the year. My favorite part about this cottage was the fact that it was surrounded by thousands of Lily of the Valley flowers for a short time each spring. I used to visit the cottage daily to record the progress of the pips and their final blooming days. Later I would find out they can be deadly poisonous, but oh, that sweet, intoxicating scent! Christian lore says that these flowers sprang from the tears of Mary upon her son's crucifixion. I remember pondering as a child how this flower seems to weep. Those delicate white, ruffled bells – those fairy skirts dancing in lake breezes! They are almost here now and I cannot wait to greet them.

A turbid conversation roils and swims but some sediment seems to settle near the end. Is it the end? I have so much to give yet I don't know how to give it.

Folding sheets – walking dogs – tending things that grow.

May I? Let us. Please? Unravel, untangle, undress. Push a little, pull. Swim and float. Stargaze, dig deep, shoot for the horizon. Bend but do not break. Tilt, slide, tell it slant. Accept, forfeit, let it land. Because it will land, beloved. Let us bring it down gently, in a field of wildflowers or the carpeted floor of the pine forest or that cabin; you know the one.

Here I unspool – let out the line – am carried downstream. It's the best I can do right now. The most. The way.

Birds of Michigan

When bees land on the azalea blossoms now, petals fall to the ground. A day of earth work means tan shoulders, a sore back and the renewed connection growing from tending living things. Despite fatigue I grill dinner on days like this because I don't want to go back inside. Later, a campfire alone. Beer by the fire, the dog curled at my side, watching bats evaporate into stars. Moment to moment, I both carry you and set you free. The past doesn't seem tangible anymore and the future has turned into a mist, burning off with each new dawn.

Bird shapes in the trees. A Scarlet Tanager and his mate criss-cross each other's path up the oak, lacing up a dozen miracles. It's the first time I've ever seen one in person. When we arrived in Kenya, another family on the compound was moving back to the States. We arranged to purchase most of their household items in order to start our life there. The teenage son sold me his bird book, “Birds of Kenya and Northern Tanzania.” He had marked with dates and a yellow highlighter pen all the birds he had seen in person for the last 10 years. Every single bird was new to me – every song, every feather, every curious nest. Today I wondered about marking the Tanager in my own “Birds of Michigan” book. I still may, but it the thought came to me that this would be yet another way one might try to keep a moment which passes.

And some moments never pass because Love has something to say first.

Lately, watching ferns emerge – how they seem to stretch open like the uncurling of a wrist. Ending in worship of Heaven, their green arms lift and wave in whichever holy breath stirs their soul.

Light now shines outward from a place that used to only devour it. Mutual well of shared sleep, indeed! And also, Lovely, a mutuality of never having been separated even for one moment. No past, no future, no time – let's see what happens next together.

The Whole Story

He lost his job today

so we had ice cream for dinner.

That is the whole story.

Stop me

if you you've heard

that one

before.

Flowers flattened

by too much rain and

mud. The daughter

cried. The son stood silent

and the wife got on her knees

to hold him properly.

Burbling birdsong

in the morning rain

shower.

Another version of love

sinking in.

Another upside down way

of making it

work.

He lost his job today

so we had ice cream for dinner.

That's the whole story.

Stop me

if you know how

to make it

through.

Too Awake

At 3 a.m., I am flooded by the urge to open the bedroom window to the rain. After lifting the sash, I slipped back into bed with a happy reverence for cool, white sheets and smooth, naked legs and pillows that still smell like the shower I took a few hours earlier. Fresh air and the pattering of softly falling water floated over my rest like a benediction.

overwhelmed / under rain

This perfection is equal to a sunny day kissing my shoulders in the garden or to the zen moments sitting on the shore with the sea in my ears and salt in my mouth. I didn't go back to sleep because I was too happy. Too alive. Too awake, my love.

Taking a break from the vines yesterday, dirt and I fell into a pile on the deck step. When tilting my face to the sun rays between giant oaks, I had to shift a bit to get a full face of it. And that's what is happening now – an alignment with light. Back into the garage, I startled a cardinal couple. They flew around in a disorderly flurry, pausing in strange places before finding their way out of the garage. I spoke softly to them but my presence only urged them onward in haste. Every day there is a bird story; there is no memory of when that wasn't true.

This and other ways the altar is no longer hidden. Love on display and offered up as the only possible way.

More rain as I sign my last will and testament. Since last night, 4” have fallen and more is on the way. Again, water threatens to be the thing.

Springtime – like drinking from a fire hose.

The Collective Sip

Manure infiltrates sweet morning air; now it's spring. Day breaks into shards of sunlight from the murky deep. Coffee, Kora and I make the flower rounds to see who or what needs tending. The azalea bushes hum and nod with with the weight of bumblebees. How sweet the collective sip.

The neighbor offers her wayward ferns. I delight at the chance to add them to my evolving jungle. Is there a word like “menagerie” but for plants? I dig up a dozen ostrich ferns, hop the split rail fence, and sing my way to the arching backbone of the yard. Zero distance between this and joy.

Within a few hours, sunlight gives way unto West Michigan's default metal sky. It rolls over like the dull heaviness of a mausoleum door. The ferns and flowers will be glad of the showers.

What is not translatable begins to take shape. Stepping stones nestle into the stratum as nature fills the cracks. Getting anywhere is meaningless, yet giving light unto the path is everything. The way beyond awaits. Which altar, Beloved? Which choice-less decision?

Lex strums the ukulele as rain softly arrives. Together, the two streams pay homage to the flow of spring. The basement floods again this year, but this time its because of a leaking water heater. We rotate the rags and towels on our hands and knees. Kyle says, “ Isn't it funny that water is always the thing with this house?” Indeed.

Let us give up the misery. We go together, glad-hearted, do we not? We rest in waking. That's all I'm saying. I'm tired.

Alone at night, I sit in the dark with a drink in the room of many windows. I stare out into the rain feeling full. Alive. Happy. Enjoined. Limitless.

Full Circle Lighthouses

Unreasonably cold air and snow.

A woodpecker drums as graupel begins to accumulate on the deck furniture. Frost has nibbled all the tulip leaves and the rabbits have taken the lily tops already. The meteorologist says the fruit trees may be in trouble. The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men . . .

Ten yards of mulch sits under a blue tarp in the drive, waiting to be spread at the base of pine trees and to line the walking paths snaking the backyard. The work kills my back but I'm suited for it; and I love it. It's less windy today; maybe I can make a dent.

A call is scheduled with the lawyer at 2 p.m. The kids are old enough now be in on the discussions of estate planning and the will – old enough, yet not. They tear up a little discussing certain eventualities. Kyle does too. I guess I'm a little more black and white about the transaction.

There is no difference in the grayness at 10 a.m. than 7 a.m. The dog and I sigh a little too loudly. Squirrels drain the bird feeder and I'm over being mad about it. As the neighbor says, “squirrels gotta eat too!” Earth Day 2020: I sit in the dark, build a fire, sip tea, until every one wakes, but then again, that's everyday. What if there is nothing left to say?

And what if it's not about mountains and rivers and trails and lakes and dogs and birds and haylofts and stairwells? What if it's not about why or how or when, anymore? Oh my god . . . do you know what it is all about?! It's about the lighthouse! The lighthouse was the subject of the worst paper ever written, read by a most illuminated teacher. Writer and reader followed those beams for so long – student became teacher and teacher became student – until finally both realized they were the very light they had been chasing!

Mind over body. Presence over logic. We have already overcome the world, Beloved. There is no next, no yesterday or tomorrow. There is just all . . . this . . . love.