The Madeleine L’Engle book that has been one of my Lenten companions is called A Stone for a Pillow, and centers around the story of Jacob. As a result, the idea of an altar has been on my mind, which has led me to repeated listening to one of my favorite songs by my friend,…
Today has been a difficult day. I struggled to find words. I might do better to say these words found me. lost and found everything rides on the conjunction— and, not or. I am both. lost in grief, and found by friends; full of joy, and broken hearted. grief house rock— what’s my function? Peace,…
weather report yes, there’s a certain sadness in the tears of a late night rain, the showers of memories, now caught in tiny sidewalk ponds— and I’m stepping around them, wishing you would call to say you saw the storm on the news, them ask about the weather as if our lives depended on it….
the last time you showed up, I didn’t know what to expect. you kicked in the door, filled the room with a dead chill . . . surprise attack: a stroke, a call, a funeral; and then miles of ache and absence, but not this time. she made choices; we made choices. we had days…
I wonder what the shepherds did the year after the angels came, or how the Magi went about their business when they got back home. I wonder if the innkeeper woke in the middle of the night and sat in the barn for no reason. How did they keep the story fresh— Did they go…
redolence we drove south of the city, and straight into a sunset that had no sense of time we were going nowhere together, following our noses, as the saying goes, breathing in the evening reading in a bakery,I discovered “the fragrance of our lives in the world” . . . from someone else’s words rose…
“The shadows are deepening all around us. Now is the time when we must begin to see our world and ourselves in a different way.” (Madeleine L’Engle, A Circle of Quiet 246) in other decembers It has done nothing today but rain. In other Decembers, there would be snow to go along with the carols….
It was raining when I walked out of work to make the three block trek to where my car was parked so I could snake through the city, the construction, and catch the highway home. I slipped my hearing aids in my pocket, losing the high harmonies of the street’s sounds; the small but persistent…
thursday it rained enough last night to let us waken to a fresh-scrubbed morning a diamond of a day offering me the chance to cook on a Thursday for the first time since I left our porch full of friends who gathered weekly I was cooking for a group at church—Ginger invited all those over seventy…
The day has been long, not because of anything other than the passing of time, I suppose. I worked at the computer store and came home tired. I have searched for words for a couple of hours now and found them already written by others. I offer three poems that spoke to me tonight, all…