six going on sixteen
that’s how you look to me, girl,
making my days bright and evergreen
with your unique window on the world
that’s how you look to me, girl,
pondering deepest thoughts
with your unique window on the world
piercing the depths of my heart
pondering deepest thoughts
like what would life be without you
piercing the depths of my heart
where I will keep you always
what would life be without you
making my days bright and evergreen
I would keep you always
six going on sixteen
Some people call it one word. Others call it one little word, abbreviated OLW. Either way it’s the tradition of choosing a focus word for a new year. Maybe even a new word for each month. Make of it what you will, how you will, the chosen word serves as a tool for reflection, a lens for living, a frame for your days.
At the outset of 2021, I wasn’t in the frame of mind to choose a defining word unless it was survival or endurance or possibly perseverance, none of which were inspiring or lyrical (shouldn’t your OLW strike deep chords in your spirit?). After 2020, I was tired. We were tired, all of us. It was a year that seemed liked ten. The world as we knew it changed overnight. Quarantine, separation, isolation, closed businesses, bare shelves at the stores, working from home, doing school online. Plans disrupted. Staggering losses of so many kinds. Grief. Rage. Despair. Navigating the unknown every single day. The COVID-troubled world kept turning but we almost didn’t recognize it or ourselves anymore…literally, behind the masks.
We hoped. We clung to our screens. We cherished every glimmer of light in the long, dark night of the soul. How long? we wondered. How long?
On the brink of 2021, as I wearily turned the page in my academic planner, I said something like this to myself: Forget the one little word thing. I don’t have the energy to think around it or write around it. What difference does it really make, anyway. After all, my word for 2020 was reclamation. I wrote in January, before the onslaught of COVID-19 in March, when everything shut down that Friday 13th for what we thought would be only two weeks: Moving forward becomes an act of will, a revised determination to do what you can, what’s most important, for that given day. Recovering ground, inch by precious inch.
Note to self: Be careful what you wish for…
But then, then, turning that page… I discovered this quote, in tiny font, sitting on January 1, 2021, in my planner: Experiencing awe (the feeling of being in the presence of something bigger than you) can improve your physical health and make you feel more altruistic. Intentionally create awe this month by spending time in nature, meditating, volunteering, etc.
I knew, then.
Whatever might come in 2021, I must look for awe. I must keep the door open for it. Anticipate it. Invite it.
There’s a psychology, a science, to awe. A savoring of life, an ineffable hope, a spark of joy, an inhaled breath of wonder at the wonders all around, a reverence. It can make you feel more altruistic…desiring to benefit others at your own expense…can the world not use more of this?
I sat in awe of this revelation…and that is the story of awe choosing itself as my word for this year, now in its final days.
It’s everywhere, awe.
In fragile periwinkle flowers poking through the January snow, in the piercing cry of a red-tailed hawk, in the flight of an eagle near enough for me to see its white head. In the resilience of children learning from home and in their happy dogs who attended class with them. In my own dog, who slept in my lap during those long hours online. In colleagues who stopped resisting new learning in the hardest of times and began embracing it…and each other. In children learning to read despite all, in one student pointing to a new word, “trombone” (without a picture), and telling me I don’t know how to say it, but it’s a musical instrument. In resuming church services and eventually singing hymns again. In the return of the little finches which have built a nest on my front door wreath every year except for 2020. In the gift of new life…in the announcement that my son and his wife were expecting a baby in the fall. In the long summer of anticipating, in finally making it to the ocean again, in seeing how seabirds stood on the shore, protecting one of their own that was missing a foot. In passing three white horses in a grassy meadow on morning drives to school, reminding me of a game my father taught me to play on long journeys when I was a child (I have a lot of thirty-point days now, Daddy). In teaching poetry again, in seeing the kids’ faces light up with their own writing discoveries. I wrote a lot of poetry in 2021; much of it centered on awe.
I have so much more to write. I am awed by what my sons have accomplished this year, one as a minister, the other as a funeral assistant and musician. I am awed by other people who say your boys have blessed me.
Baby girl Micah arrived at the end of October. Her big sister’s wish, come true.
Christmas Eve at my house, 2021
Awe abounds. It waits to be found. Just like the little present placed in my stack on Christmas Eve during our family gathering.
That’s especially for you, Franna, said my daughter-in-law.
I opened it.
Micah’s tiny handprint, in white plaster.
Awe.
And tears. Too overcome for words.
My daughter-in-law didn’t know the story. One day I will tell Micah about the handprint I made for my grandmother so long ago, how it hung on her bedroom wall for over thirty years…
Awe. Awe. Awe. Life in its abundance, making full circles. Light to be found, even in the darkest season. The treasure of having each other. Love, blessing, wonder, the gift of life itself, all from the hand of Almighty God.
I see no reason whatsoever for changing to a new word in 2022.
Wishing awe to you all – each new day with its waiting treasures
*******
with much love and gratitude to the Two Writing Teachers for the weekly Slice of Life Story Challenge. There is sustaining power in writing. There is more in a writing community.
Every December I open the small cardboard box, remove the pin, and place it on my winter dress coat.
This is the fifteenth year.
The box is now timeworn but the little poinsettia still sparkles like it did the day I bought it. There it was, right by the checkout counter where I purchased black hose to wear to my grandmother’s funeral.
Not one poinsettia pin.
Three of them, just alike.
I bought them all.
I packed them for the journey to my grandparents’ hometown. The setting of so many idyllic childhood summers, so many holiday and birthday gatherings.
It happened to be her ninety-first birthday when the family gathered at the funeral home on that cold winter’s night.
She was born the day after Christmas. Used to chuckle about not having anything to look forward to the rest of the year, with her wedding anniversary, Christmas, and birthday all in December. But she loved the season more than anyone I’ve ever known. Sending and receiving cards. Baking. Cooking, cooking, cooking. Glass ornaments and colorful lights on the tree. Gifts in festive paper, old-fashioned hard candy in the candy dish. Collecting angel figurines and bells across the years. The aged, sepia-toned Nativity scene atop the piano. Going to church. Carols. Snowfall. Candles in the windowsills, shining in the night. Little children with wonderstruck expressions. She loved it all. She exuded holiday joy.
It was her season.
One of my favorite old photos was taken at Christmas when I was a baby: Granddaddy holds a new shotgun. Grandma holds a poinsettia. It’s their first Christmas as grandparents. Her face is radiant.
I would give her a poinsettia every Christmas in her later years. She would exclaim over each one: Oh, it’s just beautiful!
It had to be red, like her season. Like her name. Ruby. Deep red, precious. Bright as the cardinals that also enchanted her.
I knew she would leave at Christmastime. Seemed written in the stars.
And she did. The day before Christmas Eve.
The holiday was a blur. Arrangements were made. The visitation set for the twenty-sixth because there wasn’t time before Christmas Day.
I would speak at her service the following day. I would read Proverbs 31: Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies…
I would ask that her favorite Christmas song be played. Silent night, holy night, all is calm, all is bright…the first song she taught me how to play on her chord organ, when I was around four or five. Her hands guided my fingers along the keys.
I would find the tiny old church of my happy childhood summers laden with red poinsettias. Christmas remnants. I would recall someone giving her a silk poinsettia after she went into the nursing home, and how she lovingly watered it…dementia erasing pieces of the mind, of memory, leaving fragments intact.
I arrived early for the visitation. There was something I needed to do.
Three poinsettia pins, just alike.
I wore one on my coat. I gave one to her last living child, my aunt, who met me at the casket. And I leaned in to pin the third one on the lapel of her suit.
She would be buried with her last poinsettia.
Merry Christmas and happy birthday, Grandma. Sleep in heavenly peace.
December comes again, and again I wear my pin. She is near. In the songs, in the lights, in the color, in the spirit, in the story. As undiminished as brilliant cardinals against the wintertime world.
It is forever her season.
For oh-so-long she wished her,
dreamed of being big sister…
meeting at last, she kissed her.
a Spiritual Journey offering
in memory of my father
and in honor of Micah, my granddaughter
who will be born later this month
*******
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again…
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.–Mary Oliver, “Wild Geese”
October is here
and with it, memory:
it is the month
of my father’s birth.
I am here
because he was here
once upon a time.
October is here
and with it, wild geese
coming home.
My father loved them
like he loved planes
in the wild blue yonder
of his service years
when he was young.
At his funeral procession
a flock of wild geese
stood by in solemn ranks.
He chose to be buried here
so Air Force jets
would fly over his grave
every day.
October is here
with its fiery oranges, reds, golds
and heartrending blue.
Blazing colors that are here
for just a little while,
coming and going
before the long sleep
and eventual rewakening.
October is here
with its bright story
of permanence
cloaked in
the temporary darkness
of impermanence.
October is here
with its beckoning to
see, smell, taste, feel, know
life in all of its spice
and fullness,
never bound by a calendar,
a schedule, a checklist…
October is here
with its own organic order,
a natural reminder
of all our comings and goings
and of the taking of one’s place
in the family of things.
October is here.
You will soon be here,
firstborn child
of my firstborn child.
I, too, am
the firstborn child
of a firstborn child.
My father named me
for his mother.
Your father named you
for God
by whose infinite grace
I am here
to see your coming.
A downy-soft blanket and a whole lot of love are here awaiting you, little precious one.
Your name is one of ancient faith and praise: “Who is like God?”
*******
with much gratitude to Ramona Behnke, who inspired our monthly Spiritual Journey Thursday group to write around the word “here” with this quote from Emily P. Freeman’s podcast, Episode 188: You Are Here (And It Matters):
“What if you being all the way here actually mattered, with your cold feet and your stomachache and the light shining through the window. You with your stack of books, by the bedside table and hopeful feeling inside your heart. You with your deep grief, over a loss you thought you’d be over by now, standing in the kitchen while you microwave your coffee. For now, this is true. So what is true of you? And do you really believe God is with you no matter what? That you are not alone, that you don’t have to be you all by yourself? Here’s to being where you already are. Fully present with all that is true. And then here’s to doing your next right thing in love.”
*******
On the Ethical ELA Open Write for Educators today, Mo Daley invites poets to try the decima. Originating in Spain, the form is comprised of ten-line stanzas, eight syllables each, with the rhyme scheme ABBAACCDDC.
These poems typically go on for forty stanzas. I’ve managed only one!
Here’s my decima debut, as well as far more important debut…
First Poem for My Granddaughter, Micah (Whose Name Means “Who is Like God?”)
But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. —Matthew 6:33
Three things he said he’d never do:
marry, have a child, start preaching
like his dad, all the while reaching
out for what is solid and true.
God brought your mother. And now you,
Beloved One, coming this fall.
Blessing and fruition of all
my boy always longed for, despite
his fears. Now with tears of delight
he embraces his Father-call.
Franna loves you so much already, Baby Girl.
I love the mid-monthly Ethical ELA Open Write for educators. The kickoff for July is hosted today by Mo Daley, who offers the invitation to explore your name, and who you are, through poetry.
I happened to write a post about my name in March: Frances. This morning I rework it here, with a few more layers of meaning…
Early morning
before the dawn
as first birds begin to sing
I light a candle
on my table
I sit
by its wavering halo
to write
about my name.
In the beginning
I didn’t even know
it was my name.
My kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Brown,
called the roll:
Frances?…Frances?
She finally narrowed her eyes at me:
Aren’t you Frances?
Sitting before her at a tiny table, I blinked:
No. I’m Fran.
An inauspicious start
to my academic career.
The first shaky foot
on the lifepath
of learning who I am.
I didn’t love it at first,
my name.
Early on
(sometime after kindergarten,
that is)
Daddy told me
it was after his mother,
Ruby Frances
Grandma
my consummate storyteller
avid letter-writer
daily diarist
devout reader
tireless defender-angel
Grandma
On the day you were born
I stood at the nursery window
and cried.
You looked
like a little angel.
Grandma
My life’s memories
begin in her arms
on her lap
being rocked
in time to the beating of her heart
and the cadence of her voice
singing
Jesus loves me, this I know
or reading reading reading
until I could recite
the rhyming stories
by heart, page by page
long before I went to school
Grandma
who read the entire Bible aloud
several times over
to Granddaddy
who could not read it
for himself
Grandma
who was named
after her beloved Papa,
Francis
a very religious man
who nevertheless hung himself
on a tree in the woods
in front of her childhood home
when she was just sixteen
—Grandma,
I asked, when I was around sixteen,
did you know
that the name Frances
means ‘free’
or ‘one who is from France?’
We talked about it in French class
today
—Does it? I didn’t know.
I loved taking French
—You took French? Really?
—Yes. Such a beautiful language
I didn’t tell her
we got to choose French names
for class
and I chose to be Renée
without realizing
that it means born again
or that the kids back in elementary school
could never get our name right:
Hi, France! they’d cheerfully greet me.
I’d grit my teeth:
It is Fran
or Frances.
Not ‘France’.
I am not
a country.
No one else in school
had my name.
It wasn’t cute or popular
since maybe 1886
not to mention
the spelling problem
such as on labels
from the pharmacy:
Francis
Does the world at large
not understand
or care
that the feminine spelling
is with an e?
I wanted to hurl
those little orange bottles
through the window
along with my problematic name
until the day I was teaching
a group of little Spanish-speaking girls
how to read English
and one of them grabbed my badge
to decode my name:
Fran
Very good! That’s really my nickname.
It’s short for Frances.
Ooooo, breathed my little student.
That sounds just like ‘princess’.
In all my years
I’d never thought of that
even though Princess Diana’s middle name
was Frances
and I have to laugh a little now
because Daddy always said
You ought to take Spanish instead of French,
it would be more useful.
He couldn’t have been more right, alas.
He usually was.
I wonder what he’d say now
if he knew my DNA tests
reveal a dollop of French ancestry
that he very likely
passed down…
and as I’ve been writing
the sun has risen
bright and ever-new
a red dragonfly
lands on the little statue of Saint Francis
by my front steps
never minding that I’m not Catholic
nesting birds find sanctuary here
on my porch
along with a host of small creatures
seeking a resting place
even the occasional stray cat in need
for whom I leave fresh water.
The candle’s wavering halo
is invisible now
in the sunlight spilling
through the windows
as I write about my name
this inheritance
I’ve come to treasure
at last
and it just so happens
that the candle’s fancy label says
chèvrefeuille
French for “honeysuckle”
the flower and scent
of happiness
of hardiness
of devotion
and everlasting bonds
like a legacy of love
and unseen angels
that are
always near.
Note on red dragonflies, mentioned also in my most recent post: I’ve seen them for the first time this summer. They’re stunning and in some cultures, considered a sign of the sacred.
Late June afternoon on the porch. A long-settling stillness, the day’s brilliance deepening to amber, shadows slanting across lawns and pavement, a cool pre-dusk breeze riffling trees and wind chimes, carrying the sound of a child calling in the distance. It’s not a child; it’s a little goat from a neighbor’s pen, hidden in a patch of woods. Bleating for its supper, I suspect. Startlingly humanlike voice. A neither-here-nor-there sound, disembodied, suspended in the air like time itself, clinging to these green and gold moments, unwilling to let go…
“Mom, let’s go for a walk,” says my youngest son (aka Cadillac Man).
I grab my shoes.
Walking beside me along our neighborhood street, my boy speaks, as he always does, of music. Songs he is learning, one he wants me to practice with him (it has to be simple for me. He can sing any part he likes in any key he likes; he can play anything he wants on the piano or guitar). I say I’ll try. He speaks of his new job at the funeral home; we reflect on the recent death of a beloved friend who’s the same age I am. Fresh-grated sadness, still surreal.
As we talk I note that no neighbors are out and about this afternoon. We seem quite alone. At one house, pool towels draped over the front railing billow in the breeze. American flags on front porch flagpoles ripple and flap with crisp smacks. A couple of cicadas rattle from high in the trees that frame backyards. Our long shadows stretch out on the pavement before us, where flecks of quartz wink; when my boy and I turn at the road’s end, the shadows disappear.
We pass a row of cypresses where there’s sudden movement in the grass. A black shape materializes, runs after us, crosses right in front of us…
Good thing we aren’t superstitious.
A young black cat, meowing.
“Awww,” says Cadillac Man, as it rubs against his legs. “What a sweet little cat.”
It comes over to me, rubs against my legs, purring madly.
We are devout dog-people. I can’t have a cat. I’m allergic. I learned this at age five or six when my family took in a stray Siamese (Mr. Cat, we called him) that took refuge on the stoop of my childhood home during a storm. Swollen eyes and asthma didn’t stop me, however, from bringing home a black kitten nobody else wanted when I was in college…
“It looks so much like my cat Moriah,” I tell my son. The name came from a magical cat in The Forgotten Beasts of Eld, a book I read when I was about twelve.
Cadillac Man bends down, picks up the creature. “I would keep it if you could breathe.” The little cat nestles against him. Animals love my boy. They seem to sense his gentle spirit.
After a moment, the cat twists to get down. Cadillac Man releases it.
“It looks kind of thin. I wonder if it’s hungry…” Do moms always think about this first? Is this our deepest default, this hard-wired compulsion to feed all little living things, to keep them living?
The cat sits looking up at us with big, unblinking, green-yellow eyes. Meow.
And it trots right beside us, like a good dog would, back to our driveway where I feed it some of Dennis the dachshund’s steak-flavored food in an old dish.
“I hope it stays,” says Cadillac Man. “It can be an outside cat.”
I examine the cat as it eats. “It has all its claws.”
“We should name it,” says Cadillac Man.
“Look how rusty its fur is in the sunlight,” I observe. “Black cats aren’t exactly black. It’s a genetic mutation of the tabby pattern. See the faint rings in its tail, there at the tip? So much like Moriah, only she was smaller and didn’t have a tail…” another mutation. She was the last kitten left in the Free Kittens box on campus the day I found her and took her home. Shelters say black cats are the hardest to find homes for; no idea on stats of cats with stumps for tails…
“We aren’t naming it Moriah, Mom.”
“Of course not. She was one of a kind and besides, this one’s a boy.”
Cadillac Man is silent for a moment. The cat has nearly finished his steak dinner. “Well, you know it has to be a musician’s name…”
This is what he does. Since childhood he’s named pet fish after bass singers; his dachshund, after drummer Dennis Wilson of The Beach Boys.
I can see what’s coming: “Brian, I suppose?”
Cadillac Man smiles. “Not quite. I christen this cat Douglas.
Brian Wilson’s middle name. I was close.
After licking the bowl clean, Douglas follows us up the sidewalk, cutting in front of Cadillac Man to roll over just like Dennis the dachshund does for a belly rub.
“Awww,” says my boy, rubbing the proffered belly. “Listen—he’s purring like a truck!”
Indeed he is.
It’s getting late. We need to go in to wash up and have our own supper, so we stroke Douglas one last time. I make sure to wash my hands well, with extra soap.
We peek out of the windows from time to time. Douglas is lying on the porch, and then he’s gone.
But not really.
He’s curled up under the rocking chair, sound asleep.
When he wakes, I take one of Dennis’ soft blankets out and put it in his chosen sleeping spot. Douglas sits on it at once.
“There,” I tell him. “Now you know that if you need a safe, comfortable place to sleep, you have one. If you’re hungry, I’ll feed you whenever you come around. I’ll leave water out for you. It’s summer, see…”
Douglas purrs as if he understands…and maybe he does, for the next morning he comes to polish off a whole bowl full of food, and he’s waiting in the driveway to greet us on Wednesday night when we return from prayer meeting.
And then he vanishes.
A day passes, and another, and another. No Douglas.
It storms. Thunder, lightning. Rain gushing from the gutters.
I hope he’s all right, wherever he is. If he belongs to someone, I hope he’s back home and happy. We ought to have named him Macavity, the Mystery Cat.
I shake out his blanket, fold it, replace it. I toss yesterday’s water from his new dish and refill it with fresh.
I think of Mr. Cat. Of Moriah. So long ago.
I wonder if it’s absurd to keep leaving fresh water out for a cat that may never return.
But I do it anyway, because I told Douglas I would.
I also told Cadillac Man we could have named him Question Quigley (from Harry Potter) for that tail
The best shot I could get of his face; Douglas kept trying to rub against me while I attempted to take his picture
Asking for a belly rub
For comparison: my cat Moriah, almost forty years ago, with my childhood dog, Bagel
—OH, and P.S. Guess who came for dinner last night?
Memories, like little shadows, return, too.
*******
And so it is that black cats are my favorite, despite their long-maligned history (another reason I feel concerned for Douglas). I wrote another take on them if you’re so inclined: 13 Ways of Looking at a Black Cat Crossing Your Path in the Time of COVID-19 While Driving to School to Teach Online Near Halloween of Election Year 2020.
–with special thanks to the Slice of Life community at Two Writing Teachers.
We are our stories.
She comes into the house, suitcase in tow, little face aglow at spending a couple of nights while her parents keep doctor’s appointments. She hugs them good-bye and before they’re halfway down the sidewalk, she grabs my hand:
“Franna, want to play with me?”
Isn’t there only one answer to this question?
“Of course! What do you want to play?”
“Family.”
Ah.
We head to “her” room, where I keep books and blocks and bears and dolls and even a couple of old baby blankets for wrapping them. She’s always the mom. I am always the oldest child. I have to help her hold, feed, and potty-train the toys…er, my siblings.
“First I need to unpack,” she announces.
“Okay,” I say, as she unzips her suitcase, navy-blue with pink and white unicorns. “So, tomorrow we find out if you’re having a brother or sister! Isn’t it exciting?”
She nods: “I want a sister.”
“I know you do…but a brother would be nice, too” (because her parents and I think the baby is a boy).
She nods again, pulling a couple of stuffed animals out of her suitcase. She sets them on the bed. “Mama told me to be happy if it’s a boy.”
I am about to speak but just then, I notice something…
She’s brought Allioop, the raggedy orange cat that belonged to my son when he was little. She’s dressed him in Curious George’s T-shirt. He leans against the pillow beside a woolly bear sporting a pastel nightcap.
Allioop and the bear are wearing diapers.
“Did you put these diapers on your toys?”
“Yes. I’m practicing for the baby. Watch…” She shows me how to remove and replace the diapers with their little Velcro tabs.
Strikes me as one of the greatest acts of love I’ve seen.
Preparing.
Her parents FaceTimed to tell us that the new baby is, in fact, a girl.
My granddaughter, who’s five, bounced up and down with joy:
“My wish came true!”
She later told my son that she can’t wait to teach her sister the word “photosynthesis.”
Dear Baby, what a wealth of love surrounds you, already.
*******
–with thanks to the Two Writing Teachers community for the weekly Slice of Life Story Challenge.
As I turned the pages of my academic planner from April to May, I discovered a quote from Buddhist nun Pema Chödrön…
“You are the sky. Everything else is just the weather.“
The implication is to just be. To remain. To not worry about things beyond your control. The storms of life may rage and wreak havoc, but not indefinitely. They pass. And they’re interspersed with moments of incredible beauty. The sky exists above clouds. It is the sphere through which the sun, moon, and stars pass…what would it mean, then, to “be the sky”? I feel more posts coming on this later…
Meanwhile, more Chödrön:
“Each moment is just what it is. It might be the only moment of our life; it might be the only strawberry we’ll ever eat. We could get depressed about it, or we could finally appreciate it and delight in the preciousness of every single moment of our life.“
On Mother’s Day my family gathered for lunch. Sunday afternoons have an ethereal quality; they are not your ordinary afternoons. They beckon sleep, or reading, or other quiet pleasures; they also offer an outlet for expending physical energy and embracing joie de vivre, joy of living. After lunch my granddaughter, age five, needed to “run and get her wiggles out.” Her mother and I watched her running through a sea of white clover in my backyard. I’d been irritated that our lawn service hadn’t yet cut the grass but as I breathed the sweet, clover-perfumed air, I thought How perfect is the fragrance of this day. My daughter-in-law and I began identifying all the different types of plants growing with the grass in my yard with the “Picture This” app on our phones: Tall goldenrod. Spreading hedgeparsley. Ryegrass. Bluegrass (who knew?). Posion ivy on the far corner of the fence under the pines (lawn crew must be notified). Woodsorrel. Wild geranium. And wild mock strawberries, which enchanted my granddaughter. She picked them and carried them around, tiny red fruit in a tiny pink hand… my son said, “I never knew those grew here!”
There are a lot of things we never realize. Such as the value of simple moments, in the living of them. We cannot imagine how the memory of these will remain with us, like the sky, for our lifetime.
One more quote…
“Rejoicing in ordinary things is not sentimental or trite. It actually takes guts. Each time we drop our complaints and allow everyday good fortune to inspire us, we enter the warrior’s world.“
One of the thick, spiky weeds we identified on our backyard exploration is a species of “Everlasting.”
I said to my daughter-in-law: “I had no idea so much poetry lived in the grass.”
I think about all that would have been lost in these dappled Sunday afternoon moments, if the grass had been cut like I’d wanted. My granddaughter didn’t complain. She savored it all, blue eyes as brilliant as the sky above.
I do not know what tomorrow will bring. For now I only know we stand as we are, in our shared sky and story, moments in the making, entering the warrior’s world, a family of everlastings like those growing in the universe beneath our feet.
Where nothing is ever really ordinary.
lit bits and pieces 