Tuesday, March 31, 2020

Reaching for the light


We who are mired in dark thoughts,
Sleepless in dark nights,
drowning in darkness,
Trapped in the dark grasp
Of a future unknowable,
Still lift our hands,
Reaching out for the light,
Trusting and hoping 
that dawn must arrive before long.

Monday, March 30, 2020

Grace in a time of pandemic


This is grace in a time of pandemic:
To take the remains of what has been lost
And turn it into a home for something new;
To build on what is left, providing shelter
For some new life, in you or in the world,
That is waiting to be born.

Sunday, March 29, 2020

Escalations


The numbers keep on growing,
Escalating, exponential;
Thousands struggling for breath
And thousands more braving death
In their efforts to keep their patients alive,
And thousands more, confronted
With familiar chairs, now empty,
Watch in shock as the sun rises again...
How can we breathe through so much grief?

Saturday, March 28, 2020

Warily we carry on...


Warily we carry on our solitary tasks,
Wondering what awaits around the corner
And how long it will take us
To rebuild what we have lost.

Friday, March 27, 2020

An invitation to hope


Beneath the threatening skies
And the menacing tendrils of fear,
The cherries lift their branches full of blooms,
A promise there will still be fruit to come.
Watching, trapped behind our windows,
We contemplate their invitation to hope.

Thursday, March 26, 2020

Safe travels


Having left the shores of what was then,
We travel now in separate boats
And hopefully provisioned,
To a destination yet unknown,
Over waters unfamiliar for a time unspecified.
May your seas be calm, 
May you remain in health;
May the wind be always at your back, 
and the sunshine warm upon your face.
And may the rains fall gently on your sails
Until we meet again at journey’s end.

Wednesday, March 25, 2020

Rest in your own company


Listen! Beneath the silence of the skies,
Beside the ribbon of empty roads,
Spring is breathing health into the air.
The earth is helping us to heal,
Sending new life forth as if to say
Staying in place is what allows us all
To deepen, and to bloom: 
Be not afraid to rest in your own company,
For there your future lies.

Tuesday, March 24, 2020

Imagine you’re breathing for the world


Bored, trapped at home? Perhaps it’s time
To exercise your widest imagination:
Picture the forests and mountains,
Finally able to breathe again,
In air empty of the fumes of a million cars.
Picture the doctors and nurses
In their blue and green scrubs,
Struggling to help their patients breathe
In halls full of tears.
Picture the children, trapped and prohibited
From playing with friends; picture the lonely,
The sick and the elderly, the poor and the hungry;
Picture the artists, musicians and waitresses; 
All of them frightened and newly unemployed.
Picture a whole world struggling to breathe
Through this crisis, and take a deep breath;
Take a deep breath on behalf of them all.

Monday, March 23, 2020

Enfold the world in love


In times like these we offer up
Our thoughts and prayers for all who suffer,
Enfolding all the world in love
As the iris wraps her petals round
The future at her center...

Sunday, March 22, 2020

Obsessing on the small things


I am humbled by how easy it’s become
To mourn the small things;
To obsess on minor losses and ignore
The greater impact of this sickness
On the peoples of the world.
Don’t read the news, our friends advise:
To keep your spirits up find ways to laugh,
But then the larger picture seeps in anyway.
Hearts sinking, we lie awake in the wee hours,
Wondering how and if the world will ever recover;
So much easier to obsess on the small things.

Saturday, March 21, 2020

The door to compassion


Trapped inside now, looking out at when —
When, before, we were free to move about;
When, someday, we can hug our friends again —
We ignore the prism of the moment.
Instead of dreaming of where we cannot be,
Can we learn what this window 
Of time is teaching us
About how we see the world; us and them,
Inside and out instead of we, and all,
And one, and humankind? 
Let us pray this enforced seclusion
Opens a new door to compassion...

Friday, March 20, 2020

Look beyond the edge


That’s the thing about sunlight and shadow:
Both are always moving,
Sometimes exposing, sometimes masking.
We need to look beyond
Who’s being blamed or praised this week
To the bigger picture that lies before us:
How can we all best support one another?
We’re standing on the edge of something big:
What can we do to keep each other safe?

Thursday, March 19, 2020

Cautious but not consumed


Left to ourselves for days on end,
Assaulted by frightening news and images,
How will we stay serene and trust;
Be cautious, careful; not consumed
By fear or its cousin, fury,
But rather by compassion and generosity,
Turning these winter snows to springs
And filling the lakes and rivers 
And the hearts of all who suffer 
with songs of joy...

Wednesday, March 18, 2020

Rosy enthusiasm


In spite of all the changes,
All the people hovering, frightened, in their homes,
My camellia’s optimistic, 
and blooming with assurance 
That the world’s not ending any time soon.
I drink in her rosy enthusiasm 
And feel warmed with possibilities...

Tuesday, March 17, 2020

The comfort of old friends


Morning again, another day 
Of social dark, though sunlight tosses
Sparkles on my lap, like sprinkles on a cone;
Sweet blessings to remind me
Of the Spring that’s yet to come.
I turn to my dearest, oldest friends for comfort:
Hafiz, a cup of coffee; a rocking chair, a fire;
The sculpture friend Anita made,
And just around the corner, 
another person struggles for
The breath that still comes easily for me.

Monday, March 16, 2020

As the world turns to flame


From the window of my chosen isolation,
I watch as the dying sun
casts one last glance upon my garden,
Igniting for just a moment,
Like the last sight of a friend
Before we close our doors and all goes dark.
And in the night, 
we hold our loved ones close and wonder,
Keeping watch as the world turns to flame...

Sunday, March 15, 2020

What patterns?


And in the empty park
the ducks still gather on the pond
Hoping for a crust of bread that never comes.
What patterns have we formed,
Only to be forever altered 
by these strange/estranging times?
Will we finally learn to fly,
Or just keep paddling?

Saturday, March 14, 2020

Light on the other side


In faith, we reach across the darkening abyss,
Praying there will be light on the other side.

Friday, March 13, 2020

Comfort in isolation


We cannot know where this new path will take us;
We only know the choices and the chances that we take
Will make or break us.
Acquainted though we are
With the inevitability of death,
We continue nonetheless to hope for life
And do our best to find some peace
And comfort in the enforced isolation.

Thursday, March 12, 2020

Before our petals turn to dust


And here we are at the center of things:
This fragile, delicate ecosystem,
All the tender care we put in
(Weeding out dark thoughts, feeding the soul)
Culminating in a single bloom;
All our life preparing for this one moment;
This one critical chance to show
Our courage, our compassion, and our faith
Before the petals fade and turn to dust...

Wednesday, March 11, 2020

Keeping our spirits up


No children play outside the school,
No children in the park,
No toilet paper on the shelves,
The stores and streets are dark.
How can we keep our spirits up,
Faced with thoughts of doom and death?
Finding ways to help and hope;
Feeling gratitude for every breath...

Tuesday, March 10, 2020

How can we continue to trust?


However beautiful my home is from a distance,
I must confess it’s challenging 
To be down here on the ground
Where fear, disease and confidence 
Are struggling for supremacy.
How can we continue to trust
that what will happen is what is meant to be?

Monday, March 9, 2020

The work of a lifetime


Somewhere within you,
Ancient truths, like Sleeping Beauty lurk:
It will take love, and dedication,
To fight your way through the overgrowth 
And discover the roots of being.
Start now: it’s the work of a lifetime...

Sunday, March 8, 2020

Secure in the arms of love


Whatever precipice you’re eyeing,
Know that you are held,
Secure in the arms of love.

Saturday, March 7, 2020

Liftoff


Whatever your natural habitat may have been,
Whatever your dreams of fitting in,
The time may have arrived for you to act:
To recognize your true self, find your wings,
Pull free, shake the water from your feet 
Take flight, and find your new horizon.

Friday, March 6, 2020

Aching to bloom


All nature, aching to bloom,
But wary of vulnerability,
Pressing at the seams of wonder;
A flame within, longing to burn forth...

Thursday, March 5, 2020

Reddening skies


Waking in the morning 
To a red sky full of warnings
We bravely venture forth and trust
The sky, still red at night,
Will bring sailors delight.

Wednesday, March 4, 2020

Emptied by fear


The boats sit empty, idle,
Eerie echo of the barren shelves,
The coffee shops where no one sits,
The streets, the planes, the halls
No longer echoing with children’s shouts —
A community, emptied by fear,
Becomes just a cluster of houses,
Each clinging to its own hope for survival...

Tuesday, March 3, 2020

Armed and isolated


Worst-case scenarios abound,
And so, awash in fear, wondering what-if and when,
We arm and isolate ourselves against the storms,
While thoughts of scarcity 
Drive a deeper wedge between us.
Who’ll reach out and offer help,
And who will turn a blind eye to the troubled?

Monday, March 2, 2020

Collaboration


Collaboration makes it possible
For all of us to cross the waters that divide us.
Together we can accomplish
So much more than as individuals, alone.
Why, then, do we insist
On squabbling over differences
Rather than focusing on and resolving common goals?

Sunday, March 1, 2020

Hold and spill out love


We are all cups, drying in the sun;
Created by divine hands, each unique,
And yet, from a distance, all the same;
Each needing heat and light
To firm us and prepare us 
To perform that sacred duty
For which we were created:
To hold and spill out love;
To hold and spill out love.