Miracles are all around

=0=0=0=

R u s h i n g   T o w a r d s   N i g h t

Beaverdam Creek

Landrum, South Carolina

=0=0=0=

Now, we take the moon

into the middle of our brains

so we look like roadside stray cats

with bright flashlight-white eyes

in our faces, but no real ideas

of when or where to run.

We linger on the field's green edge

and say, Someday son, none of this

will be yours. Miracles are all around.

We're not so much homeless

as we are home free, penny-poor,

but plenty lucky for love and leaves

that keep breaking the fall. Here it is:

the new way of living with the world

inside of us so we cannot lose it,

and we cannot be lost. You and me,

are us and them, and it and sky.

It's hard to believe we didn't

know that before; it's hard to believe

we were so hollowed out, so drained,

only so we could shine a little harder

when the light finally came.

= Ada Limón =

=0=0=0=

Happy Thursday

Bending to be never broken

=0=0=0=

L a n d   o f   t h e   O n c e   F r e e

United Church of Christ :: Park Street

Belchertown, Massachusetts

=0=0=0=

love is a deep and a dark and a lonely

and you take it deep take it dark

and take it with a lonely winding

and when the winding gets too lonely

then may come the wildflowers

and the breath of wind over many flowers

winding its way out of many lonely flowers

waiting in rainleaf whispers

waiting in dry stalks of noon

wanting in a music of windbreaths

so you can take love as it comes keening

as it comes with a voice and a face

and you make a talk of it

talking to yourself a talk worth keeping

and you put it away for a keen keeping

and you find it to be a hoarding

and you give it away and yet it stays hoarded

like a book read over and over again

like one book being a long row of books

like leaves of windflowers bending low

and bending to be never broken

= Carl Sandburg =

=0=0=0=

Happy Wednesday

Mist of angels

=0=0=0=

T r e e f o l d   B l e s s e d

Hope United Methodist Church

Belchertown, Massachusetts

=0=0=0=

Hello Winter, hello flanneled

blanket of clouds, clouds

fueled by more clouds, hello again.

Hello afternoons,

off to the west, that silver

of sunset, rust-colored

and gone too soon.

And night (I admit to a short memory)

you climb back in with chilly fingers

and clocks, and there is no refusal:

ice cracks the water main, the garden hose

stiffens, the bladed leaves of the rhododendron

shine in the fog of a huge moon.

And rain, street lacquer,

oily puddles and spinning rubber,

mist of angels on the head of a pin,

hello,

and snow, upside-down cake of clouds,

white, freon scent, you build

even as you empty the world of texture --

hello to this new relief,

this new solitude now upon us,

upon which we feed.

= Mark Svenvold =

=0=0=0=

Happy Tuesday

Some glad morning

=0=0=0=

W a v i n g   H e l l o   t o   G o o d b y e

Interstate Images

Raleigh, North Carolina

=0=0=0=

One day, something very old

happened again. The green

came back to the branches,

settling like leafy birds

on the highest twigs;

the ground broke open

as dark as coffee beans.

The clouds took up their

positions in the deep stadium

of the sky, gloving the

bright orb of the sun

before they pitched it

over the horizon.

It was as good as ever:

the air was filled

with the scent of lilacs

and cherry blossoms

sounded their long

whistle down the track.

It was some glad morning.

= Joyce Sutphen =

=0=0=0=

Happy Monday

We dream we know

=0=0=0=

T w o   O h   ( T w o )   O n e

Mr. Weber's Old Room

Rossford, Ohio

=0=0=0=

What can be said in New Year rhymes,

That's not been said a thousand times?

The new years come, the old years go,

We know we dream, we dream we know.

We rise up laughing with the light,

We lie down weeping with the night.

We hug the world until it sings,

We curse it then and sigh for wings.

We live, we love, we woo, we wed,

We wreathe our brides, we sheet our dead.

We laugh, we weep, we hope, we fear,

And that's the burden of the year.

= Ella Wheeler Wilcox =

=0=0=0=

Happy Friday :: Happy New Year