Author: Fran Haley

Exploring mysteries

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Imagine my recent astonishment on sitting down to compose a blog post and finding a question already typed into the empty template…I wrote about this occurrence in The question.

Every day since, a new question has appeared in my empty post template, as if my Muse has suddenly taken control of WordPress. Some magic or benevolent ghost is surely at work here…thank you, whoever and whatever you are. I am compiling your daily questions for future use. I shall respond to today’s: “What skills or lessons have you learned recently?”

I am learning, Oracle-esque Blog, even as I write this post with a dozen windows open behind it, how to operate a Dobsonian reflector telescope.

Here’s why:

December nights
Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn
shine bright

beckoning:

Mere mortal
made of stardust

(for all humans are)

—come and see
our infinite mystery…

And so I must
before my temporal self
sleeps in Earth’s crust

Stay tuned on this astronomical adventure, friends…

The edge of understanding

/ Fran Haley / 2 Comments

It is said that
instruction should begin
at the edge of understanding

I know this edge

where the solid ground ends
and the unknown begins

all certainty suspended
as the mists roll in
obscuring the chasm
before me

I would linger here
until the end of my days
on the foundations that
sustained me thus far

if not for the Guide
speaking one step
at a time
into being

only materializing
when I place my foot
forward
to find a firmness
beneath
before I can
fully see

a little
of the mist clears
while the edge
on which I’m standing
under construction
is expanding

At the Edge of the Caldera… ER’s Eyes – Our planet is beautiful. CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

Spacecraft

/ Fran Haley / 5 Comments


Confession:

obsession
with phone app revelations
in the star-studded sky
and even straight through
the ground
to the other side
of Earth

satellite after satellite
and occasional
rocket bodies
littering space

for just a second
everything pales
in a stab of wild imagining

what if
they’re not all ours

Photos of my SkyView app looking beyond the other side of Earth tonight
to the constellation Virgo.

Note how long these particular rocket bodies have been in space.

December 12th

/ Fran Haley / 5 Comments

Eighty-six years ago
they married

during the Great Depression
with war on the rise

they meant for the ceremony
to be in September
but he had the mumps

so the wedding occurred
on the twelfth of December
before the justice of the peace

she wore a blue suit

on the day after Christmas
she turned twenty-one

Every December after
he gave her
a red poinsettia

he knew
how much she loved them

Across the decades
she’d jest about
having nothing
to look forward to
the rest of the year

with her anniversary
Christmas
and birthday all
in the same month

December
for her
was pure delight

celebrations
of Light
and life

In the last years
when he was gone
I gave her
a red poinsettia
during the season

for the sight
of her face alight
blue eyes bright

Someone else gave her
a silk poinsettia
after she went into
the nursing home

once when I visited
she was watering it

We did not know
all those years ago
that their wedding anniversary
would become
National Poinsettia Day

I just learned it

how she’d love it

just another sign
that love is divine
and lives on and on
and on

My grandparents, on my first Christmas.
Love lives on.

Photo: National Day Calendar

The blessing

/ Fran Haley / 3 Comments

My Dear Firstborn,

You were always the Lord’s.

I rejoice

that His divine purposes
cannot be thwarted

that your preacher-father
lived to see this day

that your first daughter
sitting beside me
as you receive your
Master of Divinity
is the same age you were
sitting beside me
when your father
received his

seven,
representing
fullness
and completion

in an endless
spiral of blessing
that flows on
and on
and on.

You have always
been my joy,
baby boy.

With love
and gratitude
and awe
at the divine work
of the Master

always,
Mom