Those dry days

As the dry days of summer settle in, 

We say farewell to the last of the rhododendrons 

 As the lavender turns, first gray, then brown, 

And the calla lilies wilt on their tall stalks. 

Is it any wonder I woke up wondering, 

“Have I done enough? 

 Have I reached out enough, or cared enough, 

Or loved enough, or given enough? 

Have I done my part; 

Have I paid enough attention 

 To the needs around me? 

Those moments when the reality 

Of mortality sets in…

Giving back

It’s been so dry (as always in the summer)

 The birds are reveling in our birdbaths: 

I go out every morning to refill them, 

And clean out all the mess they’ve left behind — 

The eagles leave fish heads, 

And the crows and raccoons dip their peanuts — 

We do our best to give back 

 To those with whom we share 

This awesome acre.

Before the fade

Bold as a graffiti artist,

 The evening sun brushes 

 Both the Madrona branch and my potting shed 

With fiery streaks of red; 

Streaks that fade like memories 

 As the dark rolls in and edges blur 

Between known and unremembered, 

Now and past, presence and loss. 

I stumble back across the pockmarked yard, 

Wary of the molehills and the divots,

 Lest I trip and break some newly fragile bone…

Forgiving absence

Our swallow babies have grown quite large, 

Yet still their parents feed them — 

Clearly their wings are still a bit too stubby 

To consider attempting flight.

 I used to think the fact that their parents 

 Flew away whenever we opened the door 

Was because they didn’t trust us, 

But now I understand it’s because 

Feeding these hungry teens is a full-time job: 

There’s no time — or room! — for them 

To rest and socialize. 

We do our best to grant the same understanding 

 To absent friends and children, 

And trust it’s their busy lives, not fear or distaste, 

That keeps them from making 

 That physical connection.

Sylvan artist

As an artist, there’s so much

 I could learn from the trees: 

How many shades of gray there are,

 And how to use them to convey life and death; 

How to blend colors, 

And let them spill across a page

 In a song of survival; 

How to take opposites like red and green 

And pick shades of each that stand side by side 

And work together, totally complementary; 

How to use texture to express 

 The depths of our shared pain, 

As well as the capacity 

 And determination to overcome…

Art depicting art

The expression on this face 

So beautifully reminds us 

That Samuel Clemens’ humor flowed 

From a deep abiding sadness 

With the injustices and thoughtlessness 

Of his world, in hopes of drawing attention 

To its cruelty. I am reminded, seeing this, 

Of a favorite Eckhart Tolle quote: 

“The purpose of all great art 

Is to serve as a portal to the sacred.”

Thriving without our help

Though my watering efforts have been focused 

On the newly seeded dirt that was dug 

When we added our foundation, 

The rest of the garden seems to be thriving 

Despite — or is it because of? — 

This dry summer — reminding us 

We’re not the saviors of the whole world; 

We just need to do our part...

Survivors

This one made me think 

 Of that Rudyard Kipling poem — 

“If you can keep your head 

When all about you are losing theirs 

And blaming you” — 

And isn’t that part of the value 

 Of a classical education, 

 That you can’t but realize you’re not alone;

 That whatever you might be suffering, 

Others have gone before you and survived 

To tell the tale and offer hope?

That golden glow

The golden glow of morning 

Colors everything it touches: 

Bathed in spirit, awash in gold, 

 Our lavender turns pink; our grass to amber. 

 All, ignited, is united, however briefly, 

At the rising and the setting of the sun; 

Those times when the divine spark within 

Spills out, enflaming us all with joy.

A simpler life

I can’t not stop for scenes like this: 

The fog, the barn, the bales of hay 

All call to me: a siren song 

Of textures, colors, childhood memories —

 The tastes and scents of summer, 

All stored up in a photograph; 

A gentle reminder of the pleasures 

Of a simpler life.

Trusting the path

There will be times 

 When the path we’re meant to travel 

Is clearly marked, 

 Even though we may not know 

Exactly where it leads. 

And so, guided by circumstance, 

We take that chance, 

Trusting that, whatever the result, 

The lessons learned are meant to help us grow.

Serendipity

There’s something very special 

About walking out your front door 

And seeing this. 

As a woman who used to quilt and taught quilting, 

With a daughter who makes quilts 

 And a quilting friend who just paid 

Her annual visit, and took me 

On a fabric shopping spree, 

And gave me one of her quilts, 

The serendipity of this — a stranger’s choice 

To build a photograph — seemed enormous. 

It amazes me at times, how often 

Coincidences like these seem to occur: 

I find them somehow very reassuring— 

Like those instances of deja-vu, 

A gentle indicator that I’m where I’m meant to be...

Learning to sing

We turned our house 

From yellow to gray this week, 

But elected not to disturb the swallows’ nest 

(You can see, below right, where yellow stops

And gray begins.) 

Happily, the babies have thrived 

In spite of all the commotion. 

Mama got some paint on her tail, 

But it doesn’t seem to have interfered 

With her characteristic swooping flight 

As she and her mate fly back and forth 

In support of their young. 

Such a pleasure, watching the little ones 

Learn to sing!

The firefly in the heart

Asked to give a workshop on abstract art, 

I came up with a set of steps and choices 

That would make it easy to demonstrate 

A wide variety of tools and techniques. 

But I found the colors and choices so addictive 

That for the first time in my painting career 

I seem to be doing a series: over 20 paintings now, 

All in the same style, and I wondered: 

What should I call them? And today, a gift, 

This poem appeared in my reading:

 “Who knows 

That in the depth of the ravine 

Of the mountain of my hidden heart 

A firefly of my love is aflame.” 

Thank you, Abutsu-Ni!

Harbingers of hope

A spectacular evening sunset —

 One I’d have missed, if I hadn’t been exposed 

(Or possibly exposed) to CoVid 

 And decided to stay home — 

Turned the Madrona trees behind me to scarlet; 

It seems only fair to share them both 

As a testament to the beauty of the day 

And the gift of happenstance: as we look back, 

Is it not true, that some of the best gifts 

We’ve received in life could only have occurred 

 Because something else more painful 

 Cleared the way for something new? 

And, knowing that, might we resolve, 

To treat our future setbacks 

As opportunities; harbingers of hope?

Gifts from the sky

Driving home last night 

 From a birthday dinner with friends, 

We were treated to these amazing clouds. 

They were particularly fabulous 

 When we could see the nearby water, 

Which was pink with their reflection, 

But I wasn’t quite quick enough

To get my camera out to show you that. 

Nonetheless, their drama was impressive, 

And a joyful end to a joyful evening: 

Good friends and a glorious sky — 

Life’s precious gifts: who needs presents 

With gifts like these?

Imperfections

The last patch of lavender in my garden 

 Is blooming; all the others, once vibrant purple, 

Have gone to gray, 

So I thought I’d take a picture of these, 

Glowing in the evening light, 

And now that it’s morning, I see there is 

A stray white blade of grass — 

 Just there, near the center — 

And my photographer’s eye is offended. 

Do I toss the photo? 

 Pull the grass and take another? 

Photoshop it out? Or keep it as a reminder 

Of something age is teaching me, day by day: 

That things don’t need to be perfect 

To be beautiful…

Stuck on the bridge

Stuck on the bridge behind a large truck 

As we wait for a sailboat to pass through, 

I place a phone call to my daughter, 

Discussing the challenges she faces at work 

And rejoice in the beauty of the day. 

Life is good.

Enjoying the fog

For me, fog has always offered an invitation; 

An opportunity to see things anew 

Without the distractions of complexity; 

To appreciate the textures 

 Of elements close at hand 

While enjoying the simplicity 

 Of a world where black and white 

Have merged to gray…

The gift of awakening

I confess I was a little annoyed 

At having awakened so early — 

I’d have loved another hour of sleep — 

But in the summer, in a room full of windows, 

That becomes a bit of a challenge, 

And so I climbed out of bed 

And walked downstairs 

To be greeted by this fabulous sunrise, 

And somehow all my annoyance slipped away…

Preconceived notions

So many of us come into new situations 

Dragging our preconceived notions 

Like sails behind us, 

Ready to catch a prevailing wind 

And take flight at the least provocation — 

Especially when leaders rely on power, 

Rather than sharing the risks experienced 

By their followers…

Recovery

Recovery — from anything: addiction, disease, 

Losses, bad relationships, accidents, surgeries — 

Can be a very long and difficult process, 

And, standing at the beginning, it may appear 

Impossibly daunting — and yet, we persist. 

Despite the pain and the inevitable setbacks, 

We continue that upward climb 

To health, stability, serenity — whatever it is 

We’re seeking to restore — trusting, and praying, 

That our efforts will be rewarded 

And our understanding will be deepened 

By the process.

Assumptions

“Did you realize,” my friend asked,

 After I shot this picture,

 “That that was a real human person?” 

And no; having first glimpsed it from the back, 

I had assumed it was a statue, 

And my only thought was to get a shot 

Of the face, and the hands holding the flowers. 

Why is it we humans so often make assumptions 

 Based on exterior indicators — 

 Skin color, clothing, possessions — 

And fail to detect the very real person beneath?

Determination

Those who are determined to grow 

Will somehow manage to thrive 

Even in the most unlikely places. 

The very fact of their existence 

 Is then an inspiration to us all.

Between loss and acceptance

There’s an overlook, a road end by our property, 

And people gather there on summer evenings 

 To watch the sunset. 

 But once the sun goes down, they drive away, 

Never realizing how glorious the colors are 

That emerge between sundown and night — 

A beauty that reminds us 

It may not be the endings in our lives 

 But the aftermaths of those endings 

That have the most to teach us; 

The intensity of emotions that arise 

Between the loss and the letting go…

Distractions

When I first began exploring photography, 

In the pre-digital age, 

The man who developed my photographs 

Encouraged me to take a weeklong workshop 

(Held in the town where I now live). 

One of the first things we learned 

 Was to be very aware of what’s on the edges 

That might prove distracting — 

And clearly in this I forgot to do that:

 I was so enchanted by that bright orange, 

I didn’t see my own feet! 

And what a life lesson that is…

The generosity of trees

Our plum and cherry trees, 

Which, last year, failed to give us any fruit, 

Are making up for lost time now 

And heavy with the harvest to come. 

I’m not a baker or a canner, 

Though I hope to get the chance 

To snack on a plum or two 

 Before we call the gleaners, 

 Who come and pick the fruit 

For delivery to food banks and schools: 

So much better than losing it all 

To the hungry deer!

How independent are we?

I

t’s July 4, Independence Day in my country, 

And red, white and blue are the colors of the day, 

Just not this shade of blue, 

Which is the turquoise—or is it aqua?— 

Of the ‘58 Chevy my parents had 

When I was growing up. 

Someone else’s restored version of that Chevy 

Keeps reappearing at the car show 

That’s held every year here on the 4th, 

And each year it triggers memories of childhood. 

I wonder now if those memories explain 

The appearance of this shade of blue 

In so many of my paintings… and why 

So often those same paintings have 

 These same, orangey-red accents.

 Are we ever truly independent of our origins?

Redressing the balance

Now that the fawns have grown a bit, 

Their mother invites them to share her corn, 

Keeping watch, all the while, to be sure 

No interlopers interfere. She times her visits 

 So the males, the bucks who push and shove 

All smaller deer away so they can feast, 

Are dozing elsewhere, unaware; 

I aid her efforts — mama to mama — 

By refusing to put out feed 

 When the boys are around; 

They retaliate by eating plants and trees 

The nursery owners swore to me 

 Were absolutely deer proof. 

All life, it seems, is a balancing act, 

And our efforts to redress the balance 

Often — though not inevitably— backfire…

Sharing what light we find

It’s evening, growing dark 

And the nightly watering’s done. 

I move to put away the hose 

And catch sight of these little flowers, 

Glowing in the dark 

As if they’d stored the day’s light, 

Hoping to point the way back to my home. 

May all of us be so conscious; 

Gathering what light we find 

And sharing it for those in the dark.

A celestial introvert

There’s something reassuring about the moon; 

The way she waxes and wanes with the tides, 

Sometimes igniting the clouds around her, 

And other times hiding behind them, 

A celestial introvert, carefully choosing 

When to appear and reveal herself 

And when to mask or retire;

 Adapting to circumstances as if it were a game…