Elizabeth Songstaffe, whose name
is inscribed in my gold-edged bible,
how was your life composed?
Did your pockets brim
with grace notes that scattered
like freckles on a shoulder?
Were you awkward
as a lonely clap, sounding after
a symphony’s first movement?
Born one hundred years ago,
your death was not recorded–
yet, I hear a faint refrain.
Did you once hum across prairies
on humid evenings, or [...]
The poplar’s shadow on her hand
Indicates a tree in spring.
Willets, catbirds, and broncos all hear
Big-hipped nature dancing across the Rockies
Stripping and putting on the many faces of
A weather-beaten land:
Green, red, brown, and white,
The flag of summer on the horizon.
They are indivisible incompatibles,
This landscape and
The mutterings of a middle woman.
Her words lie naked in a field,
Lost [...]
On a warm Virginia day I walked to the Eastern Seaboard Coastline double tracks near our house and came to a small pond lying between the track grade and the woods. A stand of wild irises grew in the water, along with rushes, green bubble-beaded algae, and sedges. It was a small habitat not entirely [...]
I cannot kick a mound of maple leaves
or see a pumpkin peeking from the vine
before the frost and not remember hills
where summer laid her green. A distant line
of poplars gleams like curtains made of coins;
it shakes at passing clouds. And everywhere
the magpie hops, I see another sign
of hawthorns beckoning the winter air
to breathe upon the [...]
Warning! Warning! Long post.
Dec. 21st, a.m. As I started out, temperatures bumped around in the low 20s. A ragged ceiling of waxy yellow clouds sometimes let through bright sunlight. Mostly, though, the cloud cover took the polish off the snow. An unexpectedly cold breeze chilled the denim of my jeans and cut through my gloves, [...]
I live in the Pittsburgh area, in the suburbs. Several mornings ago I was up a little earlier than usual, and the sun seemed to be coming up later than usual. I had the opportunity to watch out my kitchen window as dawn came to my neighborhood. Looking one direction out my window gives me [...]
When the moon becomes a mellow pear
on twilight’s bough, and stars swirl up like maple leaves
before they’re swept into the dawn, I’ve often
walked this garden where the voice of whippoorwills
would carry remnant melodies across long, dusky
hours. At times I feel this eastern breeze has lifted
me, somehow, beyond the soft-lit sloping fields
and conifer lined hills. To [...]
by Karen Kelsay
She is frail, her veil of happiness is
replaced in turn by fear, then bewilderment.
Today, she presents a branch before
garden lilies, like a child might coax a parakeet
to perch. Beside the magnolia, where shadows
meet white geraniums she once planted, the caregiver
settles her in a wooden lawn chair. Uneasy beneath
summer’s glare, she retreats to confines [...]
by Karen Kelsay
Tonight, a slow release of summer rain
sweeps through my pear tree. Gentle is the sound,
a metronomic lullaby that rolls
across each limb and patters on the ground.
Outside my room, traversing streamlets run
along the open pane–I try to count them all.
And leaves are soaked a darker green, while buds
appear to peek between the lattice wall.
The [...]
Dave’s post here caused me to reflect more self-consciously on what it is I do when I go out in the desert. Do I walk off pavement’s edge to get away from stresses or disappointments? Do I go out to have adventures? To think? Dave’s post is about seeking God in nature. Is that what I’m doing–looking for God out [...]