In this bright room

Perspective. Things seen on-line are never the same as in person or perhaps "in plant." This is the same part of my family as the one that cataloged Minnesota birds. Of course "pictures" are themselves one step removed from the plant or bird.

In this bright room

I read the email

My brother sent

With detail

Of watercolor botanicals

In the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum,

Detailed portraits of plants

By great-aunt Emma

Step-great-grandmother Agnes Williams

So detailed

He says

Every rootlet is defined

As if painted

With a single-hair brush.

In this bright room

I am reminded

Of members of my family

I never knew.

I am told the plants

May be published

On-line

But still

They won’t be seen

The same

As that rootlet painted

With a fine-hair brush.

At this rate

The weather is odd all over. 50 degrees on February 20. The seed catalogs tell me it's time consider the garden. When to plant?

At this rate we may

Never know the exact right time

To plant the garden.

Different order

I wondered for days and days whether this was perhaps not a "forsythia year." Other years have brought forsythia gold before the green buds. This year they arrived together.

The trees and bushes greened

Before the forsythia

Popped gold.

Spring arrived

In different order.

Perhaps it is always

In different order,

But I don’t notice.

On the front table

The pussy willow

The curly willow

Bud green

In the clear glass vase,

White root filaments

Beg to be planted

Out back

Next to the creek.

Scratch

There are so many things that tempt my creative nature.  I have started things, even churches, and watched them grow and die, only to become ground for something else.  Sometimes I can't see that "something else"  but still I know it's there.  Churches, and even life, are not meant to be grasped and held.  My daughter attended a great new church in Denver.  What a wonderful thing it would be to plant a church... she thinks.  Me too.  Still... me too.  I am reminded again... me too.

I have reached the stage

In my life

I realize

I will never start a church

From scratch.

Scratch never made

A good beginning anyway.

Nothing

After all

Begins from scratch,

Much less

Much more

Gatherings of people

Who care about one another;

People

Who figure out new ways;

People

Who adopt old ways

To care.

No one

Will ever start a church

From scratch,

Not even me.

Convergence

Ah.  So many things to consider today.

31 years a deacon

Today.

The large item

On the agenda

Is replacing the dead allysum

In the front planters.

Of course this first means

The arrangement

Of a ride to the nursery.

I may also harvest

The rhubarb

And pull weeds.

The convergence of life,

The acknowledgment

Of limitation,

The possibility

Of rhubarb pie.

So many things

Oh so many things

To consider.