Promise, unfolding

As we watch the flowers of spring unfold, 

We feel an echo of that unfolding in our hearts; 

A breath that comes more easily,

 A barrier that falls away, 

Allowing some to promise to bloom within.

Open to the light

Like the tiny flowers 

That flourish in the grass 

Until the mower comes, 

We open our hearts to the light 

And rejoice.

Fog’s illusions

Fog has a way of adding mystery 

 To other people’s lives: 

The structures around them begin to seem 

More sinister, 

 And when we struggle to understand 

It’s easy to mistrust and assume the worst; 

To see reaching out as grasping; 

To see a natural reticence as devious, 

And to misread well-intentioned words 

As insults and assume the worst… 

A search — and wait — for clarity 

 Can help alleviate many misunderstandings.

Illumination

Illumination — when it comes — is often subtle; 

Easily missed: a patch of light, 

Encountered as we round a corner, 

A gentle stirring in the blood 

When we address a situation—

 Quiet cues that we might miss, 

Had we not been paying attention; 

Had we not worked to overcome the temptation 

 To get lost in our thoughts, 

Or to assume that everything 

We need to feel or know 

Can be touched, or heard, or seen 

Through our five senses…

Finding our way to tranquility

In times of change and transition, 

This is the kind of clarity we hunger for: 

The promise of smooth sailing, 

With a minimum of easily surmountable obstacles. 

But finding our way to that simplicity and ease 

May often necessitate a harrowing trek 

Through storms of difficulty and disapproval 

 Or hacking our way through a jungle 

Of outdated rules and regulations. 

May the memory of past ease 

Give us the courage to trust in and work toward 

An equally tranquil and productive future.

Ships passing

We use that phrase — Ships passing in the night — 

To describe those occasional connections — 

Sometimes deeply felt, but always brief — 

That have much more potential to impact us, 

If only the currents of life were not so strong 

And pulling us in opposite directions. 

And later, looking back we wonder: what if? 

What if I had resisted that pull to keep on going? 

What if I’d made the time to stop, or turn; 

What if I’d paid attention 

 To the call of that moment; of that person; 

Of that life?

Gratitude in Spring

There’s so much grace in bending 

With age, and the weight of our blooming. 

There’s such delight in the spikiness;

 The sprouting of new beginnings. 

There’s so much promise in the lifting 

Of our faces to the sun; 

In the paths we’ve not yet traveled, 

And the blue of the sky after rain. 

So much to be thankful for 

When Spring finally returns — not least, 

The surviving of yet another winter!

Sunday flowers

It’s Sunday, 

 And the flowers know 

Their time is all too brief, and so 

They lift their petals to the light, 

Drink in the rain, and celebrate 

 By bringing joy into the lives 

 Of those who dare to love despite our differences.

Beyond the boundaries

To see beyond the boundaries that divide us 

To the wholeness that lies beyond 

 And all around us:

 That is the greatest challenge, and it calls us 

Every day to new, magnificent, horizons.

Seeking Coexistence

I’ve been painting for ten years now, 

And I’m beginning to realize 

That the best of my work is about coexistence:

 Dark with light, warm with cool;

 Structured and linear with flowing and organic. 

It is, at heart, an alchemical search: 

Seeking ways to combine fire and earth 

That neither extinguish the passion 

Nor result in scorched earth, 

But instead coalesce: a creative magma,

 Forming new islands of hope as it flows. 

And though nothing ever quite fully succeeds, 

The search for that balance is what fuels my art 

(And might also explain 

 Why each piece is so different!)

Entangled

We all, I suspect, 

 Have these secret, tangled places in our hearts; 

The doors we don’t want to open, 

But choose instead to hide behind 

A thicket of distractions and obfuscations 

Until we can no longer recall what lies beneath. 

Of course we could hire someone 

To help us tear away the clutter 

And reveal what’s hidden there, 

But we could also leave it be, 

And let the mystery serve as invitation to explore 

While reminding us our motivations 

 May be deeper and more complex than we know.

When artists collaborate

The sunset paints the sky each night 

In cooperation with the clouds, 

Which provide an ever-changing composition 

 While she layers in the colors — 

One night pink, another gold; 

One night subtle, another bold; 

Some nights lavender, others blue, 

But each delicious and all unique.

Response time

The way this bell once called volunteers 

To help put out a local fire, 

The telltale ding of a new text message 

Puts us on alert, though what news it brings 

May vary widely, depending on the source. 

I can’t help but wonder 

 How our brains are evolving 

 To cope with these more frequent interruptions…

Morning prayers

When morning gilds the skies 

We offer up our prayers of gratitude 

 For yet another day, another Spring, 

Another year in which we have the opportunity

 To share and learn and grow,

Uncovering new blessings as we go.

A fistful of stars

What hand is this,

 That turns a tired weed into 

A fistful of stars?

 There is. such beauty everywhere,

 If only we open our eyes.

The courage to bloom

Transitions can be challenging: we know this — 

Even the ones we go through over and over again. 

As a child, starting school in the fall, 

We ache to leave the summer behind 

And worry what the new school year will bring. 

As adults, each move, each new job, 

Each relationship that ends or begins 

Awakens those same questions.

 I draw courage from the perennials, 

The rhodies and the daffodils 

Who burst from the earth and buds each spring 

To give us a taste of the beauty that’s to come 

When we leave the constraints of the past 

And flower into the light.

Appreciate the ephemeral

In the delicate tracery of clouds above the sun 

We see the hand of a master artist: 

Like the lacemakers of Burano, 

Weaving her magic spells into the sky —

 An invitation to appreciate the ephemeral.

Thriving within constraints

Each photograph’s a metaphor for something: 

It becomes my job to ascertain 

What lesson might be learned 

From what I’m seeing.

 This one reminds me of something I heard 

From a therapist long ago: 

That we find the greatest freedom 

Within boundaries — or, in this case, constraints.

 This man can fly because his body is contained 

 In an elaborate system of harnesses. 

A relationship flourishes 

Within agreed-upon limitations; 

A society thrives when bounded by laws; 

Even my paintings seem to improve 

When I limit my choices of colors and tools…

Open to possibility

After many days of clouds and rain,

 I was delighted to see this morning’s sun. 

To the east, the sky was cloudless,

 But in the west — normally the province 

 Of sunsets, not sunrises — 

The colors of reflected light were spectacular:

 So surprising! Yet another gentle reminder 

 To be open to possibility; 

 That glorious things may appear 

When and where we least expect them.

Lift thine eyes

Sometimes, when we’re down in the weeds, 

It’s difficult to look past our current challenges; 

To see beyond the heartache 

To the hope that lies ahead.

 Lift your eyes — if only for moment — 

And be reminded of what it is

You’re working toward.

A blossoming too brief

Deluged by spring rains and wind, 

The newly blossomed cherry trees 

Are already painting the sidewalks 

 With the petals being stripped from their branches:

 A blossoming too brief; too quickly gone.

Happy Easter!

Lift petals and rejoice: 

All earth is new again!!!

The green song of spring

And now they begin to appear at last: 

Those bright yellow greens, 

Dancing before the wind 

And singing their heraldic song of spring.

A firmer foundation

Sometimes, in order to make things right, 

You have to reveal what’s wrong 

And be willing to fix it — whatever it takes. 

No one said it would be easy, 

But if longevity matters, 

You just need to bite the bullet 

And take whatever steps are necessary 

To ensure a firm foundation for the future.

The promise of sunlight

This time of year, 

When the skunk cabbage clusters 

There by the side of the road,

 Lifting their heads in prayer,

 I pull over and stop as the traffic flies by, 

Lured by their delicate shape 

And their golden promise of sunlight to come…

When life gives you lemons

What happens when you don’t get 

What you thought you had earned or deserved? 

What’s your response? 

Do you whine a bit to your friends, 

Feel sad or discouraged; 

Lose a little momentum? 

Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, 

And start all over again, believing 

 When one door slams, 

Another will surely open? 

Or do you launch a new campaign 

To overturn the results, discredit the judge, 

Or fantasize or enact a fitting revenge? 

Disappointment comes to us all: 

It’s the choices that follow 

 That make all the difference 

In how our lives play out…

Perception

The human eye, like the human heart, 

Will notice details more mechanical assessments 

 Fail to capture — 

Which explains why I drove round the block 

After passing these madronas, 

So that I might photograph 

 The wetness of their skins — 

 A feature that only registers here 

If the viewer zooms closer in — 

Just as intuition, when explained, 

Somehow loses its conviction —

 Which doesn’t necessarily mean 

What we noticed wasn’t real…

Dealing with the quirks

Some pictures tell a story 

We don’t really want to hear: 

Like this one, taken just this morning, 

Of my husband’s desk 

Beneath our brand new roof… 

(And yes, of COURSE there were 

 Papers that got wet!) 

At times like this I’m grateful 

Our response is never anger, 

Just a question: what do we need to do 

To solve this problem? 

Luckily, in a small town, 

 The roofers are your friends, 

And we all understand: 

 Old houses have their quirks!

Everything changes

First this: 

 And then, not five minutes later, this: 

 We go along, serene, secure, 

Rejoicing in the rightness of things, 

Appreciating the efforts of those around us 

And the beauty of life, 

And then the storms come, 

And suddenly we’re reminded: 

Everything changes. Nothing stays the same, 

No matter how much we might wish it could…

Still hanging around

There’s something endearing 

About those traits 

 That stood us so well in the past; 

It makes it hard to let them go, 

And so they linger, cluttering up our psyches 

For all to see, though they have long since lost 

Their usefulness, if not their charm…