The Forest Edge

Let my breath be swept away,

Let my eyes search for days,

A never ending horizon opens up to me

And I cannot stop my feet-

My soul runs over memories,

Mountains ever reaching,

Canyons and valleys,

A lake I long to swim though again,

A hill with boulders I must scramble atop

Sometime when

I catch my breath and

Time holds fast my hand,

Carrying me across the lands:

Painted rocks of never ending

Colors and shapes,

Textures soft to rough,

As every care stops

To stare,

And moments of exhilarating peace

Sweep my very breath away.

The Rockies

The rocks bleed red and rust,

My lungs inhale Mountains’ dust.

.

I can longer revolve

Around the idea of

A cosmos uninvolved-

If this is the undoing

Of the universe, this

Universe is caring.

In these slabs of toppled monoliths

I see the very fingerprints

Of God, Himself.

.

My eyes have engulfed a scenery

Too lovely

To no longer fight against a

Society

Determined to be

A pleasant mistake-

I have A Creator and what

A Magnanimous

World He makes!

The Clumsy Flamingo

There was once an aviary in the zoo that was filled with parrots, parakeets and doves. As they floated and sang above peacocks and peahens dragged their shimmery cobalt and green tails along the ground.

Across the lawn and through the windows stood a flamingo. Alone in it’s kind, disconnected from the other birds, awkwardly tall with knobbly knees. The pigeons that sat on lions’ heads at the entrance of the zoo would cackle and laugh at each glance of the steps the flamingos wobbled through. The morning doves would coo with sympathy at the hardly noticeable height the flamingos would jump to with wings aimlessly flapping. All in all they were a mocked bunch of birds and so unsurprisingly most of the flamingos were distant, shamed and very unconfident.

Except for one.

There was one overly pink and preppy flamingo that, though most likely the klutziest that ever lived, was happy and confident. She ignored the stares of the pigeons and the pity of the doves; She delighted in the peacocks’ tails and always offered her compliments.

One morning a fellow flamingo stopped by the rock she was standing on and gazing up with a black beaked grimace asked,

“Why do you bother being nice to the other winged ones when they’ve never bothered being nice to us? Don’t you realize they think you’re ugly compared to them and clumsy and disgraceful?”

“I’m not ugly compared to them,” she said defensively. “Marv, I’m just a different kind of beauty. And I’m not disgraceful, I elegantly kind. And I’m not clum- oh. Okay, so I am clumsy but that’s not too bad. There are worst things to be.”

“Such as … ?” Marv rolled his eyes.

“Such as overly- sensitive, divided and rude. Perhaps too self-conscious to admire the beauty of those around me, or too bitter to let the sunshine be the thing I am most grateful for. Comparison is the thief of joy, they say.”

Marv sulked off towards the flock, dragging his large webbed feet through the mud, contemplating and simultaneously pouting.

But the clumsy flamingo paid him no mind, and turned to squawk her daily greeting to the peahens through the window, across the yard.

“Good morning beautiful friends! Isn’t it lovely today?”

“Of course it is.” They muttered back, “Of course it is for you.” They continued on with their grooming and grumbling, ignoring the observant stares of their flamingo “friend”.

The clumsy flamingo sighed and turned to step off her boulder, slipping and falling into the wade around her.

Yet, with a chuckle, she shook off the droplets of green water and stood back up, continuing her odd little strut back to the flock.

Eventually Marv would join her on the rock she claimed each sunrise. Because her view of the world, small and caged as it had been, was forever filled with a wonder she longed to share; that she loved to share. 

398.2

Her problem was that she

believed in a world too big,  too unreal and without edges;

bounding past logic and reason and

diving beneath waterfalls of mystery.

She didn’t need the answers of reality, her soul

fed on unknowns and adventures- she

saw magic everywhere and never once

flinched at the unexplained.

.

.

.

(398.2 is the Dewey Decimal systems number for Fairy-tales)

A Piece of Paradise

(Alternatively titled, “I need a Vacation”)

Take me where the mountains touch the sea,

Where the ocean kisses the rocks shamelessly,

And with loving refreshment pours over and cleans

Minute by minute, the stones, till they gleam.

.

Take me to where the range steps inside the Caribbean waters,

Where it stands waiting for the tide,

When the waves come much closer to the view the crag hides;

Unending open sunny skies.

.

Take me to that ledge, a rough rocky throne,

I’d watch the sunset and rise from that sandy pedestal-

But I cannot stay forever there, it is not yet my eternal home,

Where the mountains touch the sea.  

Light From Light

The shining of yellow on the edges of the leaves,

A stained glass window in a temple of trees,

A playful push of October’s breeze,

In moments like these

My very bones believe.

 

Believe in one Father Almighty,

Maker of woods and shadows who breath,

Of all things visible and dreamy,

Of one Lord, My Jesus Christ,

Who with love, created this moment for me.

 

In humble honesty,

Again my feet crunched the leaves

And my eye wandered from the golden canopy

Without another prayer of tranquility,

I left a doorless church behind me.

 

But

 

I think I may now understand,

what is truly meant when

We faithfully utter words such as

“Light from Light”.

Amen.

 

“… God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God…..”

–Nicene Creed

And Then it Was Autumn

I woke up this morning,

But that’s nothing new,

I woke up yesterday,

And the morning before, too.

But this wake was different

As the sun came through

My cracked open window

All hazy; golden brewed.

And a crisp good morning

Crept from my heel to head,

As my feet touched the cool floor

And my blankets shed.

I woke up this morning,

Refreshed and then some

I opened my eyes

And then it was autumn.

September

Look at how much of the year has past

whispered the gentle, astonished breath.

Three fourths of the calendar filled

And what is it you’ve found at last?

Your liveliness like the lines of a map,

crossing and layering till there’s no space left.

The song of wind against your ear, the calm of another nearly gone year.

Have you found it?

You said you had. Why is your smile so lively and glad?

“September”, you sigh.

And I suddenly understand.

Your life is a map and September

the land.

A Pace of Life

I am addicted to the wind,

To earth’s blissful rhythm.

It takes me back-

Since when

Have I need an excuse to pause?

For silence, needed a reason?

In the quiet moments of statuary wonder

I ponder

and wait for the breeze.

 

.

 

I love how one can hear it coming

As distant grasses welcome it

And far off trees’ leaves shake

And every inch of this alive planet

Sighs.

 

.

 

I am addicted to the wind,

The way it teases my hair

And my eyelashes, flutters.

A brief, moving, sanctuary.

I love that I have permission,

To create these silent seconds

(Why do I think I need permission?)

To feel it dance around me.

 

.

A Stillness

Pardon the passing days

But I am here to stay,

Like the creaking cypress

In windy May,

As evergreen as pine and sea.

The years bear no ill-will

But they race each other,

The next faster still,

At far too rapid an

Impatient pace.

So onward I’ll plod

But without the disgrace

Of moving so swiftly

And merely passing the days.