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Winter’s Last Verse

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IMG_0149Our typically mild Texas Gulf Coast Winter has teased us with its wide variety of weather. The past week has been an example of the season’s vagaries. An unseasonably warm few days ended with storm force winds and a cold front – which for us has meant a return to morning temperatures in the upper 30’s warming up considerably as the day moves on. I already see that first hazy blush of green on trees that leaf soonest.  In these last days of winter, Spring is already humming and I look ahead with excitement.  But in a desire to celebrate the now and savor the gifts of this season, I walk in the sunshine and remember…

“Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand, and for a talk beside the fire: it is the time for home.”    ~ Edith Sitwell

The cardinal that perched outside my kitchen window early this morning didn’t linger long enough for me to get his photograph, but just long enough to sing me the last verse of Winter’s Song.

Fragrance

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Paying attention is not just for eyes and ears. This week I am aware that being present to the fragrance in my garden brings a sharpened awareness of beauty and story. Joe brought these gardenias inside this morning. How lovely they are, shining with dew. But their sweet smell reached me before anything else.  I breathe deeply and say “thank you”, remembering all the way back to those that bloomed by our front porch when I was a little girl.

 

Yes

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It is easy to fall prey to complaining these days when the temperature registers 105 and most people, animals, and plants slow their pace and wilt.  I remind myself that the same blistering sun that sears my skin and makes getting into my truck seem like opening an oven door also flavors my herbs and ripens the figs on our tree. Lord, help me be alert to the yes in every day.

i thank You God for most this amazing day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything which is natural which is infinite which is yes
(i who have died am alive again today, and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay great happening illimitably earth)
how should tasting touching hearing seeing breathing any–lifted from the no of all nothing–human merely being doubt unimaginable You?
(now the ears of my ears awake and now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

— from E.E. Cummings: Complete Poems 1904-1962, by e. e. cummings

Christmas Afterglow

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Christmas Afterglow

Christmas Afterglow

savoring Christmas gifts not in a box,

sweet echoes of laughter,

dear traditions of music and story

 

Savoring Christmas gifts not in a box,

candlelight burning steady,  strong

dear traditions of music and story

keeping and being kept, golden circle

 

Candlelight burning steady, strong

sweet echoes of laughter,

keeping and being kept, golden circle

Christmas afterglow.

Christmas Is A Place

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Christmas Is A Place

Christmas is a place, like the hearth,

where we all come in from the cold.

Drawn by warmth and promise,

cheered in flickering light,

we get closer to the flame

and each other.

Christmas is a place, like the hearth,

Where we gather

 in anticipation

 of Gift and Giver,

basking around a campfire

 of retold story.

Stoking to keep it hotly burning.

 Christmas is a place, like my heart,

where the Mary-me receives once again

astonishing news and says yes

to giving birth and being born,

to delivering and being delivered,

to remembering.

Moonflowers Revisited

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A writing exercise recently posted in my online writing group was named the Adjective Project.  Actually, it should have been called The Missing Adjective Project because the goal was to write a descriptive poem or story using few nor no adjectives.  It happened to coincide with another morning at which my kitchen window revealed a  bountiful display of moonflowers.  Here is the missing adjectives poem.  I might have done without the rest of the words, since a picture can be worth a thousand of them…
 
I greet morning as I see moonflowers blooming at dawn.
 Each flower opened at dusk,
 welcomed darkness as I slept,
 kept watch while I dreamed.
 Daylight washes over them,
 folding their covers and saying goodbye
. Vine twines at window,
dressing with lacey  curtains
 of leaf and shadow.

Framed Art

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My kitchen window frames an ever-changing work of art.  The Morning Glory and Moon Flower Vines grow and twine, spreading their heart-shaped leaves for morning sun to cast light through.  The pea vine tendrils hurry to fill the gaps.  Then there are the blooms!  White tissue paper blooms at night for the Moon Flowers.  Rich purple trumpets herald morning for the Glories, and the brightest cerulean blue buds are offered by the pea vine. If that weren’t enough show and variation, light changes the colors as the sun moves across the sky all day long.  I know it is just a window frame, but the gifts of the Creator it contains are never the same twice, and always make me breath a “Thank You” as I reach to pour my coffee early in the day, and at every kitchen sink task all day long.

A Spiritual Journey

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Every time I enter my front door, even before turning the key in the lock, my eyes rest for a moment on the small engraved stone nestled in the feathers of foxtail fern planted in an urn beside the door.  I take the word into the house with me, breathe deeply, and am grateful once more for being home.  The house itself is only a container for this awareness, though tucked into baseboards and behind walls throughout its rooms are small scripture cards which we placed as the house was built.  The walls are only reminders, with their glad burdens of family pictures and framed statements of faith and hope.  Home is God-given surety inside me.  I love coming home.

“And the world cannot be discovered by a journey of miles,
no matter how long,
but only by a spiritual journey,
a journey of one inch,
very arduous and humbling and joyful,
by which we arrive at the ground at our feet,
and learn to be at home.”

-Wendell Berry