Decision

Decisions pondered at night are best made in the light of day.  Sometimes, then, we find they are not even our decisions to make.  It's amazing what a little sun will do.

At 2 A.M.

I realize I have settled

Too soon

On a decision.

It is not even

My decision

Really.

At 2 A.M.,

In the dark,

I think of so many

Different decisions,

Even permutations

Of decisions.

All this energy

On a small decision

In the middle of the night,

But really early morning.

A small decision fills the space

At 2 A.M.

It is not even mine

To make.

Promises of blue jays

I love opening my eyes and knowing it will be a good day.  On a day like this I can hear the promises of blue jays for the winter... and believe them

I know the day will be good

Or mostly good

When I open my eyes

And think

Oh a new day

I have plans

For this day

So I get up

Open the doors

Hear the geese honking

Getting ready to fly south.

They too have heard

It will be a harder winter

Than the last.

The flicker

Makes his flicker noises

As he loads up on bugs

On the dead branch

Of the ash.

The blue jay promises

I will stay here

In his raucous blue jay voice.

Oh a new day

I think

A new day

And promises of blue jays

For the winter.

Singing bowl

Morning meditation.  Glad for it.

I watch the early morning sun

Through still green leaves,

Doors open to hear the birds,

I hear lawnmowers instead.

I find my finger circling

The top of my dinosaur coffee mug,

Realize almost anything

Can be a singing bowl,

Faint singing

But singing nonetheless.

Now I hear the birds

Under the sound

Of the lawnmower.

Moods

Before winter sets in, I am charting what "mostly fine" looks like.  I tend to remember the good days and delete the bad ones.  I am relatively new to figuring out depression for myself.  I think birds will figure in somewhere.  They always do.

While everything

Is mostly fine,

I put my moods

On paper.

I think a collage

Might be more appropriate,

Bits and scraps of colored paper

A flower here and there

A stone or two

Certainly some birds.

I have never

Been easily categorized.

Still

Last night hope

Settled down around my shoulders

Rather like the soft blue prayer shawl

A friend made for me.

Dickinson said “hope

is the thing with feathers

that perches in the soul”

I knew birds

Would figure in here

Somewhere.

*Emily Dickinson's poem may be found here:  http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/171619

Next step

Off to meet with clergy colleagues in a few minutes.  One I have not seen since 1983.  Wow.

The next step

To anything,

Is always

Right now

Right here.

Even when I sit

Completely still.

Even when I work out

Or not.

Even when I finally

Clean out the car.

The next step is always

Here

Now

Even here

Even now.

I remember the owl

There's something about owls... all owls, really.  Last night the great horned owl (and, I think, his mate) hooted as the night came on full.  I left the back doors open, put on a sweater, until they went off to do other things.

This morning:

I remember the owl,

His hoot

As the dusk paled

To dark

Last night.

This morning:

The passing faint smell

Of skunk,

The freight train

Rolling rolling rolling.

This morning:

The morning birds

Are quiet

I remember

The owl

In that fading light.

Not so empty

Everyone gets his or her own experience:  parents, children.  This nest is not defined by its emptiness. It is not so empty.

How’s the empty nest?

They ask

Not so empty

I respond.

There are traces

And texts

And the occasional phone call.

These tell me

Which updrafts

My not-so-baby bird

Is catching;

Which trees

Provide shelter;

What the flock looks like;

Where she flies alone

But still

Not too alone.

Empty nest?

Maybe

But still

Not too empty

Exactly the same

Jesus told wonderful stories.  He hoped that we might hear.  He hoped and prayed that we might have ears to hear.

Once more,

Yet again,

The Gospel for the day

Is about counting,

How we count,

How Jesus counts.

Once more

Yet again

We hear everyone is paid

Exactly the same.

More of us

This reflection was launched when I read that Holy Women, Holy Men might instead be labeled A Great Cloud of Witnesses.  It captured what I sometimes forget, yet somehow always have known: There are indeed more of us.

It seems there are more of us

Than I thought,

More of us

Who pay attention

To the birds;

More of us

Who pay attention

To the sun,

As it moves through

The day,

As it comes in and out

Of clouds,

As it slants its light just so

On the backyard lawn

Before it sets,

Only to rise again

Tomorrow.

There are more of us

Who notice

Such things.

Word

I am grateful for oh so many things.  Today I am grateful for time and experience among charismatic and evangelical folk in whose company I learned what being asked for a "word" might mean.  This may or may not apply to you.  If it does, Amen.  If it doesn't.  Amen.

This may apply to you

Or not.

I realize I wonder

About the reader

Before I begin writing,

Just like I used to title things

Before I began

The reflection.

I thought I knew

Where it would go.

So

This may or may not

apply to you.

Yesterday

My client asked me

For a word,

One word to carry her

Through the month.

I considered the request.

Sure enough

The word came.

The word was delivered.

This may apply to you

Or not.

Here it is.

The Carolina Wren

Thank you, Karen Husby-Coupland, for sharing your Carolina Wren witness this morning.  I listened to a range of Carolina Wren songs and I swear teakettle is not in his vocabulary.

Only male Carolina Wrens sing—a series of several quick, whistled notes, repeated a few times. The entire song usually lasts less than 2 seconds and the notes are usually described as three-parted, as in a repeated teakettle or germany. Each male has a repertoire of up to several dozen different song variations. He'll sing one of these about 15 times before changing his tune.

The Carolina Wren

Sings teakettle teakettle

Except when he doesn’t

He is sleeping in

Speaking of rising colors, I am now off to work out.  Perhaps I should feel virtuous, whatever color virtuous is.  I would rather be in bed.

In five minutes

I leave

To work out.

My beloved

Has gone back to bed.

My beloved

Will not accompany me

Today.

I envy his sleep.

I am blue

I am green

With envy

Ok really

I am pink

With pissedness..

He did not tell me

Last night

So we could cancel

Legitimately

And I,

I might have slept in

Too.

A reflection written at 5 in the afternoon

Too much to fit into a reflection.  Too much to separate out.  I will start again tomorrow... earlier.  Much earlier.

A reflection written

At 5 in the afternoon

Bears no comparison

To those written

With a hot cup of coffee

In hand,

The sun sliding golden

On the living room carpet.

A reflection written now

Carries almost the whole of the day

Within it

Worded

Or not.

The sun slants

Toward evening

At the back of the house.

The conversations of the day

Include the easy and the hard

And a whole lot

Of things

Which defy

Any category.       

They remain to be seen,

Remain to be understood

Heck

Some even remain

Just outside my hearing.

La la la

I sing,

My hands over my ears.

I have enough to consider

For now.

Rise

I find myself deep breathing, often out of nowhere.  It's almost as if I had forgotten how to breathe, and now I am remembering.  The exhalations take no effort at all.  They carry certain colors with them in the sunlight, like bubbles.

They rise. Memories.

Like oh so many bubbles

Rise. Catch the sunlight.

Nice warm bath

She is eighteen now.  We have stopped thinking a nice warm bath will calm her down.

We used to hope

A nice warm bath

Would calm her down

At the end of a long day.

No.

She seemed

The only four-year-old

Revved up for bedtime

By a nice warm bath.

Of course

It didn’t stop us trying

This time

This time

It might be different.

Titles

This was supposed to be a poem about the splinter in my foot.

I think I know

The title

Before I have even

Begun.

No.

Poems

Reflections

Chapters

Whole books

In their richness.

Now that I come to it:

Our lives

Defy summation

In anything

Like a title,

Words

In a neat package;

Words that say

Come read the rest;

Words that say

Come hither

A crooked finger

Beckoning;

A door opened just a crack

With light

On the other side.

Oh she says Oh

When they ask me how I am handling the empty nest, I think:  This baby bird was born in flight.

  

Oh she says Oh

Now I get it. 

I must leave this place

Next to the mountains,

Take Spanish,

Listen to the words

Of Mother Teresa,

Now dead,

But still wise.

Oh

She says

Oh

I must bloom

Where I am planted.

Oh

She says

Oh

Now I get it.

Everything needs company

Turtles live forever, it seems.  This one has been with us since my son was five.  My son is now 27. Felix, the turtle, is still going strong.  He likes company.  He likes blueberries.  He likes his water changed on a regular basis.  He likes the lights on in his tank.  Time to get up he says this morning.  Turn on my lights, he says,  Now... blueberries... he says.  Clink  Clink  Clink.  Turtle Morse Code.

Everything needs company.

We wake to noises

Downstairs.

Clink

Clink

Clink

We fed the turtle blueberries

On a ceramic saucer

Last night.

Now the saucer,

Firmly gripped in his mouth,

Smashes

Against the glass.

Clink

Clink

Clink

For a mostly quiet creature,

He has found a voice.

Everything needs company.

Exciting announcements

Today's email seems particularly uninspiring.  Even the email I have asked to receive on a daily basis... the inspirational kind.  Then there is the email that promises exciting announcements, or the one that offers me a special deal on a haunted corn maze.  OK.  I know.  Grumpy.  I am clearly not in the mood for exciting

The email subject lines

Are anything but exciting,

Even those

That declare themselves so.

I have no desire

To purchase a walk

In a haunted corn maze.

Pictures of the movie

Children of the Corn

Come to mind.

Exciting announcements

Are exciting to those

Who send them.

I exercise the delete function.

I figure if it’s truly exciting

It will come back around.

Sighs too deep

 I am not the family sigh-er.  Somehow my beloved and I have switched roles.  I sit and breathe and sigh.  These sighs have been stored a long time.  Beautiful even in a spun silk kind of way.  Perhaps I will weave them into a scarf.

Sighs too deep for words

Silver gray yet somehow light.

They rise.  They rise.

Still I try

I started this with a title.  Then tried to write something to go with the title.  So often, more often, the title comes last.  So I changed it.

This is the way

I can title

This portion of my life

This portion of which

I know

No beginning

No end.

Really no label

Is enough.

No title

Captures it,

Even partially.

Sometimes

No

Often

I unearth a label,

Try to live into it

For a time,

Then find words

Are not enough,

Never enough.

I climb to the top

Of the mountain.

I sit in the blue chair.

I go to work out with my beloved

In five minutes.

There are no words

No real words

To describe it.

Still I try.

Comfort

More change.  I find comfort in some things which stay the same.

Next door

A woodpecker seeks bugs

On the neighbor’s garage

Tap

Tap

Tap

The cat commences

To tip his tail

In the sun,

Seemingly asleep,

He raises and lowers

One front paw.

Do cats dream

The way dogs do?

The windows are open today.

I take comfort

In some sameness

Even as the world entirely changes

Around me.

Now the cat

Is upside down,

The woodpecker gone,

A blue jay,

Familiar,

Distinctive color and call,

Arrives different

Yet somehow

The same.

Community is vital

We slept in the morning.  It is start-up Sunday.  Balloons and the hot dog man and his wife between the 10:30 and 1:00 services.  If we'd planned far enough ahead, we might have attended the service at 8.  We didn't.  We pray with the birds outdoors, and the cicadas. 

We were going to go

To church this morning.

Community

In times like these,

Community

After all is said and done,

Is vital.

We were going

To go to church this morning

Instead we are home

Praying with the birds

Praying with the cat and turtle

Praying

Simply

Praying.

We think we will attend

Next week.

In times like these,

After all is said and done,

Community is vital.

It is difficult to wonder

We dropped her off a week ago.  The conversations and texts continue,  in a different way

It is difficult

To stand aside,

Wonder what is happening

On what seems

The other side

Of the world.

But really

We are only separated

By some prairie,

A whole lot of sagebrush,

Endless fields of corn.

The same sun

Rises and sets here 

No matter the geography.

Still

It is difficult to wonder

What is happening

Beyond the sagebrush

The corn

In full view

Of those mountains.

A quiet day

Today is a day of rest, God willing.

A quiet day.

Classes chosen

To the West.

Flowers on the front table

To remind us,

Life continues.

Sometimes it continues

The way we have planned,

Sometimes

Not.

Sudden mountains

Driving into Colorado we wondered where the mountains were.  We knew they were there.  We had the advantage of maps.  Still we wondered when the mountains would appear.  Then... there they were.

Hot and humid
Here in the lower elevations.
I would like to add a mountain or two
To Illinois.
I would climb to the top
And stay awhile.
We looked for the mountains
As we entered Colorado.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Then suddenly
They appeared.
We wondered about
Those who walked or wheeled the plains
Only to be startled
By those mountains,
Those sudden mountains.
I think how such sudden mountains
Might improve
Illinois.

Pain assistance

Caller ID has helped us know what calls to answer.  Most often my beloved answers any call and has conversations with strangers regarding how we might invest our money, or who we will vote for.  Neither one of us has answered the Pain Assistance calls, but curiosity may win out tomorrow.

Since coming home

We have received five calls

From

Pain Assistance.

Caller ID

Is a wonderful thing.

We have not answered

The call

Five times now.

We speculate

About who or what

It might be,

What pain

They mean to address.

We think for now

We will not answer

But perhaps tomorrow

Curiosity may win

We will see then

How we got on their list.

We will see then

What pain

They promise

To address.

I face

Home again.  The cat is happy.  We text and call back and forth with our daughter. Today we clean out and return the van to Enterprise.

I face

My daughter’s first days,

As I remember

My own:

The speed of new life

With new people,

New possibilities;

The draw

Of the old familiar,

The old comfortable shoes

In the closet,

The pile of kitchen floor tiles

On the back patio;

The tiles we now use

As a table,

Of sorts,

For garden tools.

These are her first days,

I remember my own:

The swiftness of new life;

The learning how to breathe

With new people,

New possibilities;

The draw

Of the old familiar.

What to share

Our daughter shares a room with two other young women.  We watched the beginning negotiations yesterday.  Impressive.  We know our daughter... will be fine.

What to share.

What to keep private.

We watch the beginnings.

Of course

We only see

The beginnings.

The rest will be worked

Out of our sight.

It has been that way

Already

Of course we know

It has always

Been that way.