Category Archives: Uncategorized

August 14, 2013 · 1:53 pm

Theology of Trust

 

Theology of Trust

When the call comes to announce a soul’s sudden departure; a child’s end

And all I can consider in the moment is

the lives of thankless, lesser mortals  extended far into old age,

The injustice of disease

man’s cruelty and indifference … these things in the landscape that never go away …

and then to close my eyes against the pain, reach out in silent prayer to

an ancient mother-father I neither know or understand, but sense

The mother-father of wishes and dreams

of birth, lovemaking, death …

why? Thank you it wasn’t my child

In this moment I feel so alone and feeble.

And then there is a quiet whisper, almost inaudible

Just against my ear or a faint humming in my mind

Reminding me that apples ripen in their time, unless they are first cut down

By drought or frost

In either case

The fates have their way.  Ripening love or stealing it from us –

All there is for us is to tend our apples and trust.

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August 6, 2013 · 9:41 pm

Ripe

Grapes ripening on a little vine in the backyard hang in indiscreet bunches, decorative baubles, playful and teasing,

not plump yet, turning a sugary shade of magenta from frosted green – perky, still firm, the color of spring.

Promising.  Not the kind you want to pluck, yet.

I contemplate readiness.  And time.  Desire, Impatience, and the satisfaction of ripeness.  The kind that you’ve waited a season for.  The kind that fills your mouth with so much pleasure you forget your name

and makes you glad you waited.

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July 31, 2013 · 2:05 am

Telling Jessica

Along the river the water sparkled and grass bent in a breeze that whispered it was finally safe to tell

The Leaves leaned in, breathing in your patience, listening

There were secrets shut up tight for a long time.  The kind that I did not want to admit to myself, much less speak. Some I understood, others I didn’t.   My heart, tight for so long with the effort of concealing them, willed them out.

I wanted to clamp my hands over my mouth as the little strangers came bustling into the summer sun and stood there, looking naked and pale and staring at me queerly.

Miraculously, Jessica was calm.

The wind slipped over our skin, warmed in the summer sun, mingling quietly with the smell of fresh water and rotting leaves.  Momentary and permanent, the ritual of decay, making religion for us.

Years of friendship buoying us, we shared smaller secrets that were like wildflowers, until my own suddenly seemed to have taken on a more legitimate aspect, now with flowers woven into their hair.

Until finally, hungry and tired, we exited the forest, leaving the protection of the trees behind us.

Some sorrow had moved into the place where the tightness had been; but the door to my heart, tightly shut for so long, opens now.

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July 26, 2013 · 1:43 am

the shining pebble of desire

At first there were polite exchanges during which  I imagine – I tell myself it must be true – you thought no more of me than I did of you.

But again and still you came, seen by all, not obvious to me.

Somewhere the tide washed up further onto the shore, overtaking my knees and making me gasp and run for higher ground

It had to do with you standing closer then usual.  Your eyes probing, penetrating.  I looked up and  bit my lip and hoped

That no one had seen.  But of course they had.  the air was thick, your proximity a landmark.  And I was caught, flipping about in the receding tide.

If breath leaves me now, or if the gracious sea wells to swallow me again it is one in the same.  Every mer-maid knows that the shining pebble of desire wears no more or less than a reflection of one’s own heart.

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Aside

Confession

Collar tight, I open the door of the confessional and take the seat

Old wood with ears and breath, the floor creaking with leftover guilt

I allow the walls to close in all around and above me

Quietly listening for the presence of another in the place

I usually occupy on the other side of this porous wall

There’s no one on the other side of the grate.  No peer.

No absolution from the voyeur.

No escape for the one damned to listen.

Sweat rises on my palms when a thousand confessions, none of them mine, visit me

Whispering that all is forgiven, all is forgiven. In His Name.

And then, as in ritual, my own voice rises inside me

rejecting, as it always has, the words I’ve spoken a thousand times.

I prepare to speak. “Bless me father, for I have sinned…”

Your wish is unholy …  “My head swims with visions of profane love.”

Your craving soils and lowers you   …   “But it’s all I ever think about.”

“I firmly resolve, with the help of your grace, to sin no more…”

Liar, liar.

And then

A voice reaches through the heavy air

Just as I stand to exit the iron-barred, sensually appointed box

of my mind

Almost a whisper – May the lord be in our heart …

“…that I may make a good confession.” I finish,

before stepping out and drawing the door closed behind me.

After all, Its also said

Do not give what is holy to the dogs

Nor cast your pearls before swine.

And taking the advice of Thomas,

Bringing forth what is within me,

I step forward

Leaving my guilt laying on the floor behind me, as so many others have done

Anyway, workplace politics and confessions don’t mix.

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July 13, 2013 · 1:46 pm
February 17, 2013 · 10:43 pm

the sky tonight

sunset

Bare, naked trees propose to each other against a sky on fire with color and winter wind

Alight and blazing orange at the horizon, dark trunks stretch up through a delicate soft pink into the sky

one can imagine chapped skin, an exposed breast or tender arm in  the rounded crests and limbs

swaying and moving together higher in the sky, awash in a bed of vivid, deepening purple

They seem to not notice their leafless state as they bend together, creaking and whispering, no trace of shyness

or self consciousness.

Silhouettes in love against the darkening sky.

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February 8, 2013 · 8:20 pm

First Love

I once saw a blue-eyed mystery

pass by in a crowded high school hallway

smiling easily amidst a clamor of teenage boys passing in a  wave

like a piece of sea glass that washes past and disappears in the tide.

The revealing was

the sound of a voice on the telephone, his skilled hand on

a standard transmission

the close up curve of his lip when he wasn’t smiling

and the sense of distance and loss he felt for a father remarried and moved away.

Just before …  he lowered firm, full lips to mine,

breath held in an endless moment that melted into hours

and weeks, then months.  Until adulthood and independence swept it away.

It was a fast slow confused tingling first glimpse of love.

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January 18, 2013 · 10:03 pm

One Story … Many Stories

When I set out to write The Seventh Sister it was out of some sense of duty to a dear friend who had been a victim of domestic violence.
Fast forward about 6 years to today and the book has been published (albeit imperfectly). Her story is out … sort of. Lots of folks read the book, passed it around, told me they enjoyed it and finished it very quickly. It even got a write up on Good reads – all on its own merit, I like to think.

And lots of people have asked me if I made money … How many copies did I sell? The answer is some money, not much. And the book paid for its own production costs. But I did not do any marketing for it all. And here is why: It would have been wrong to profit on my friend’s story.

Although the book is a work of fiction it’s based on a true story. The main character is very real. In fact, all of them are. And so are many of the events the book describes.

This week my step daughter Gabrielle told me she really enjoyed reading the book and asked if I had a Facebook page for it.
No, I don’t have a Facebook page for it. But an idea occurred to me. What if I did? What if I gave any profits that sales of the book make to a non-profit that combats domestic violence?

So that’s what I’m going to do. I am going to create a page for the book on Facebook and give proceeds from its sale, if it sells at all, to the New Hampshire Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence. (http://www.nhcadsv.org/) …
Wish the book luck!
I am hoping that Eva, knowing this, would smile and say “well, at least something good came of it all…”

http://www.nhcadsv.org/

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September 21, 2012 · 4:05 pm

Basil

September is late for basil. My patch, still fragrant, overflowing now with flowers, is finally abandoned by the bumble bees who spent the summer cheerfully denying me access to it. When I bend down to breath in the summery scent, though, I can see the bottom-most leaves spotting, turning yellow.
And so, it is time to trim the leaves, make the pesto, and freeze it for winter…

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September 13, 2012 · 1:17 am

Last Quarter of the Moon in Leo


In the last Quarter of a lunar cycle those of us that pay attention to lunar cycles plow under our psychic crops. We shed what we can no longer use, those things that are vestiges of past growth, using it for compost in our next cycle.

Leo, the sign the moon is currently in, is the sign of ego, the sign of who we are, of where we find our strengths and express our selves.  Leo rules the heart.

… so Leo in the third quarter is a good time to notice who you are under the activities and facades you’ve tried on over the past weeks or months. Perhaps you won’t find you have a choice in the matter – you might find your self foisted back on you, if you aren’t paying attention.

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