The scent of sage

opens an old door.

Portrait of my heart as an old juniper

Thinking about the sea tonight / wishing I was there--

Spring evening before the rains return---

My brother, in another summer--

A secret about a secret

It's a dog's life--

She predicts brighter days

Like a new flame --

Twilight and snow--

Recalling the first evening,

and all that came after.

Persimmons:

the first fairy tale fruit.

Let's help each other out ---

Every day.

Sometimes, I just want to look around

When my girl turned thirteen

I knew it was time for a dog.

I like to remember

that the world is huge, and full of light.

Reading late at night,

with only the crickets for companions

Color over all---

Sweet, and late--

 

In the garden, with three bright spirits---

A few weeks ago, we were fleeing the heat

Mornings at my table, afternoons in the river

      When I take a few days to do something solitary, I'm astounded at the effect. 

       I planned these 3 days thinking that I would write non-stop, but I actually swam 

       in a green-blue river for hours, wandered its bank, and sat on a big flat rock--

       knee-deep in the water and "noodling"--going from one idea to another, 

       trying on memories--holding them up to the light. 

Some evenings go on forever

        

       There are so many things that I love about summer, but perhaps the best thing

        is the way that hours seem to open out and expand--a day goes on for more 

        than 24 hours and evenings last forever. This counterweight to the rush 

        of time offers a wordless pleausre--like an open hand holding out 

        just one apricot, speckled and golden, sweet in the mouth.

Each day carries

its own sweetness.

When we talk about love

it's easy to lose sight of what it might look like over time--over days and nights and years--
but the longer I'm alive the more I cherish this through line of devotion--

a bright gold thread stitched through darkness, holding everything together.

Four days shy of sixteen---

I remember so well the sense of standing on the threshold.

For you--

my delight, and my humble regards.

We all love to stand at the edge of things

 

             and look out over an open space that seems to promise every possibility.

            This is the feeling I recall from my twenties, from my thirties---and it's been an

             ongoing shock to live in the complicated rat's nest that is middle life--every hour spoken for,

             details and demands growing faster than the blackberry vines crowding out my roses, so that 

             change appears impossible--or, at least, impossibly difficult. This summer I want to return

             to a faith that all doors open to bright air, that every road leads to a place I can love. 

             How about you all? 

Up close, nestled--

Space and light seem to open the door

to an expansive sense of possibility. And the older I get, the more I crave a wider vista.

Her beauties ---

We carry the sea inside us

In the rain, a sense of beginnings--

Tender:

Inside/outside

Space and light

What snow does:

Caught in a moment

that opens outward like a rose at dusk--all ghost scent and innuendo.

Last night, I dreamed of beginning ---

A dose of light

on the shortest day

Those we love sustain us---

End of the road, with the light running out

Sometimes, I dream of living on top of a hill

 where the fields open out before me and the sky goes on forever.

My summer-nostalgia

is kicking up again.

We're all just passing through

 

Somewhere to call home

Most days, as my dog and I wander away from the river 

we run into folks going the opposite direction--they're heading back home 

to windswept tents and shelters made of willow and tarps and splintered driftwood.

The shining world

Like the opening of a long novel--

Watching my daughter change as naturally

as the seasons has made me reconsider my own willingness to let go of old habits and be new everyday. We adults sometimes believe that we hold the secret to living gracefully and well, but I can see that it's the teens around me who are modeling courage and showing me how to open to each day, open to new ways of thinking and being and feeling in this world.