summer’s precious purple flowers
give way to Autumn’s call
golden globes of berries glow
telling me it is time to let go
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Category Archives: discovery
Reflections
Blowing bubbles on the porch with my 2 year old granddaughter turns me into a child again. We laugh as we watch the bubbles float out over the grass and disappear. This batch of bubbles mysteriously decided to stay longer, lingering on a fern frond or hibiscus leaf long enough to amaze us.
globe of mystery
holding wonder.
I hold my breath.
Centered
This.
Here.
Now.
After the Storm
storm ends
reluctant raindrops linger
gathered on leaf’s edge.
Deliverance
A few days ago as I sat on our back porch after watching the sunrise, I noticed a dragonfly near the edge of Bougainvillea planted nearby. Something about it made me get closer to pay attention. Then I saw the dragonfly was trapped in a strand of spider web and had beat the edges of one wing to fray. Now it hung suspended with only an occasional wiggle. I called to my husband, who reached up and gently disentangled the lacy wing and held him in the palm of his hand, then placed him on a begonia leaf. We watched happily as awareness came, wings lifted, and the dragonfly flew away. The photographs tell the story.
Stop
Warning Signs
Stop, the sign seems to say
to its clinging companion
but wild things pay no attention,
heed no warning
and stop signs don’t say Help.
Evergreen
Reno, Nevada. July 24, 2016
Deep roots fasten in dry rocks
Still strong and alive
Hope ever green
Burning Layers
Sunrise, June 11, 2016
“By means of all created things, without exception, the divine assails us, penetrates us, and molds us. We imagined it as distant and inaccessible, when in fact we live steeped in its burning layers.” ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
After the Storm
We are happy every year when the magnolia tree in our yard begins adding little upright buds that look like candles on an old-fashioned Christmas tree. The smooth, straight stick figures that hide tightly furled promise were described by poet Wallace Stevens as “ghosts of its forthcoming flowers” They look fragile as if bird or breeze could tip them over and onto the ground.
So after flooding rains and wind that snapped some trees, we welcomed the unfolding of huge ivory blooms. Joe brought one to me as I sat on the porch swing this morning. Its fragrance and beauty bring both tears and smiles. The magnolia is one of my earliest childhood memories. Like pine boughs and gardenias, even if I close my eyes, the fragrance brings a surge of memory and story.
“Like the magnolia tree,
She bends with the wind,
Trials and tribulation may weather her,
Yet, after the storm her beauty blooms,
See her standing there, like steel,
With her roots forever buried,
Deep in her Southern soil.”― Nancy B. Brewer, Letters from Lizzie
New Again
I have watched the knobby bare branches of our fig tree spread in the past few months, bereft of any sign of life. Now, suddenly, green buds swell and begin waving tiny green flags announcing the approach of another season of leafing and fruiting.
Morning has broken, like the first morning
Blackbird has spoken, like the first bird
Praise for the singing, praise for the morning
Praise for the springing fresh from the world
Blackbird has spoken, like the first bird
Praise for the singing, praise for the morning
Praise for the springing fresh from the world
Sweet the rain’s new fall, sunlit from heaven
Like the first dewfall, on the first grass
Praise for the sweetness of the wet garden
Sprung in completeness where his feet pass
Like the first dewfall, on the first grass
Praise for the sweetness of the wet garden
Sprung in completeness where his feet pass
Mine is the sunlight, mine is the morning
Born of the one light, eden saw play
Praise with elation, praise every morning
God’s recreation of the new day
Born of the one light, eden saw play
Praise with elation, praise every morning
God’s recreation of the new day
by English author Eleanor Farjeon and is set to a traditional Scottish Gaelic tune
Stones and Feathers 