Equinox: Spring

Equinox balance –
a midpoint between
winter and summer
dark and light
cold and warm. The
color green.
Inconsistent personality
moves through
stable and storm
peace and upheaval.
Middle comes – wherein
lies placid and thunder –
silence and howling –
chirping and gray –
explosive color
between joy and
perilous journey.  
Change between the
frozen of stop and the
agitation of go –
between dependence of
known and independence of
flow. Dance into
the spring of life with
armloads of daffodils.
Wake in the morning
with rain clouds of
drizzle. Everything equal,
everything the same in a
12 x 2 twenty four hour day. 
Equinox: the church door
we walk through – the faith
we hang onto --
the string of a balloon
aching for release into
the newness of radiant
skies in March.

Dogwood Spring

The best / the most valuable moment an earthling can have happens / when waking to this new day / excited to live it full stop / No spaces to fill / No holes of sorrow to trip into / Just a soft dry sponge ready / to soak it all up . . . to experience what comes / and to be okay with expectations lost / This day will not end     until / I say thank you     until / you know how very special you are and how wonderful it is to meet you here / within the layers of / a dogwood spring as / cream and pink blossoms / float in place within the green within the brown / woods of a Missouri morning.

Rain Light

Raining furiously at 10:30 a.m. and so dark that I have the lights on in order to see what I am writing.

Interestingly, I just read a piece from J. Ruth Gendler’s Changing Light: “Light spills over, light breaks through, light drenches us as thoroughly as rain. I listen eagerly as perceptive artists talk about kinds of light. Drawing with lines of light. Light bites into things. Light hits the Pacific and strikes off the ocean waters. Walking in the redwood fog, everything is lit from within. Over my desk three words: ‘Light determines form.’ We are all described by light. Defined by light. Outlined by light.” Rain is pelting the skylight and the street lights just came on. As I look beyond the window the trees are lit from within, the spring leaves glowing with unstoppable awakening. Slender green blades of grass pulled upward by gray light even as the heavy drops hit upon them. I feel dull inside as the cleansing water tempts me into the light of its April shower.

Peeking in and peeking out

I am a chair in the corner by the window kind of person. The inside looks better as I look out the window and I see so much--neighbors and cars, the mail person delivering expected seasonal catalogs, the UPS runner delivering the excitedly expected book from a used book store in Colorado. Today as the thunder storms continue to roll across Missouri's belly I see the elegant David Austin roses looking in at  me as they grow rounder and fatter during the wet, cool days of May 2013. Each day is a new page from a garden catalog--the roses hang over the pansies in the window box which sits above the deep purple iris next to the neon orange scarves of the poppy heads. Today is a silent inside day and I will continue to write in many colors as the storms pass by and the roses peek in.

Potato soup

Snow and ice fell
yesterday and to
day the summer
flowers Chuck p
lanted while I
was gone are co
vered with the
dreaded white
moisture of froz
en sheets. Purple
petunias droop
and the heads of
not so merry ma
rigolds hang dow
n --- I can't even
take a picture it
is so very horrib
le --- he is now m
aking potato an
d leek soup.Ama
zing the reselien
cy in both garde
n and gardener
--- all heads are
perking up! Tom
orrow the pict
ure.

April 4

The clouds are lifting

Thunder Snow

Cold gray mornings listen to the birdsong of mid-March and slips of tulips push through the ground as we zip and button our winter coats.

Woodpeckers hammer hollow branches within the maples, sweet gum and oaks along Walnut street marking 
the territory of our routine walk.

The time of day points to spring and a sharp breeze reflects snow against the tattered old elm and the weeping spruce moves in interpretive dance.

A new season sounds within snow showers and daylight saving time. The sky layers seven shades of gray and snow falls white as sprinkles drip wet on the dog's back.

In this moment with snowflakes the size of duck feathers we are silent within sound visions of magic---

Birdsong as silver shards rain as hollow drumming mixes as thunder vibrates the snowy sky far within, above, pushing us home.

Today would be blue

If I were going to draw a picture today it would be blue. A nearly spring day holding the first sustained warmth that we have felt in months.     66 degrees and the small piles of glittery black ice will surly melt away. Today is blue with a sky dependably above and the sun placed exactly so by degree and geometric pleasure of arch and straight line intersecting in precise usual-ness.

Early Spring

Well under

the black snow mountains

by the side of the street

covering the sidewalk

narrow nubs of green fingers are

seen along the edge of receding chaos.

We see them first the tips

then long narrow fingers

of daffodils. The sun of

early March holds

hope for growing things for

all breathing things for

all sentient beings

in this moment of

breath. Come

sunny day

we salute you

dance within you. We

greet our winterized neighbors as

doors open and

noses twitch and

lips turn up and

feet step out     again

into the world as we balance

on spots of concrete

the wet of melted snow.

Spring 'round the corner

I'm looking through past journals hoping for some inspiration for poetry or a clever inkling for art. This from 2-11-2012 caught my attention:  Saturday at 6:00am / 6 degrees. Winter, please keep it up for we do want spring to come and what will spring be like without a good long blast of winter? When it is 6 outside, the morning coffee tastes darker and hotter than summer coffee. The animals are inside and the lights are on. They have breakfast and water (ice water straight out of the faucet) and best of all their people read and write and talk quietly while the furnace chucks to awakenment and warm air spills out the old wall registers. Both Jack and Jane have flannel baby blankets folded in soft squares placed by the registers and the curl-up for a nice warm morning nap. Spring is around the corner. 

Beyond Betrayal

There are spring times of betrayal when
having survived the ice storms of winter 
the ice remains.

 

With windows open and fresh air filtering 

through seasonal screens, a harshness 

more bitter than sleet comes to stand 

at the broken heart.

 

Muse nudges, It is wise to witness where 

your gaze naturally falls and this morning 

you are looking into spring.

 

Far beyond betrayal stands forsythia, limber 

and swaying outside the window within your vision.

No matter the sting of despair at being 

dismissed from another’s good graces the first 

glint of spring’s change captures your attention 

and on your shoulder naps the afternoon sun. 

Flowering yellow cascades are the soul image 

the eye takes in as hope steps forward and 

wraps the stricken heart in a softness of petals.

Life continues richer and sweeter than ever 

before as you let your freedom ring . . . 

beyond betrayal.