Cape Disappointment

You broke my horizon,
claiming a noble neglect,
"I don't want to hurt you
like others have hurt you."





Yet, we became a tragedy anyway,
one of recognizable proportion.

Now, knowing the sorrow
of waves on ragged rock,
wounded shorelines,
and a seagull's scream,
the ocean is no longer a lullaby
unless this song was our last.

I have loved, oh God, the beauty...Psalm 26

Why is that not enough ~
loving the beauty, oh
when everything else is gone
does the etching of love remain ~
yellow lips deep within
open petals of violet iris,
echos of a poet's heartbeat,
cello vibrations, strummed,
rippling out, faint but still
audible, attainable
when all else is said and done?

The sword fern awaits
my planting.

My Nephew Grows Up

From dressed to charm at 4 months to dressed to...protect.

I yam what I yam

THAT SORT OF WOMAN
by Jan L. Richardson

She is that sort of woman
so annoying
not content
to let the truth stay hidden.
Discovering
is her forte,
revealing the masks
that others choose,
reminding those
who dwell near the holy
fire will find them
shadows will take form.

Restless Spring

The first hummingbird buzzed by
yesterday late ~
fluttered in place
against an airy wake
and sucked the sweetness
I’d put out for her.
Essence

yesterday late
afternoon ~ a brief visit
from an old friend ~
And the ebony crow, too
cawed his thrice warning
about the ache of love,
as he bent a lofty bough
with a scold, then flew away
as shadows fell.
How straight the crow flies.


This morning, a riotous flock
of starlings commune
in the camellia bush.
It’s warm enough
to sit on the porch
in shirt sleeves with a second
cup of coffee and Mary Oliver ~
Our Story, her 40-year conversation
with a lover, her partner, her mate.

My craving for companionship ~
to be with one who understands
me without explanation ~
that craving is at odds
with a seasonal, burgeoning
desire to experience life,
once again, autonomously.

This is my half-story,
always a partial contentment.
I really am trying
to let loneliness and fear
rest from their vigil
over my life.

Today, I accept the silence
from a friend, trust
what is stirring and growing
healing and becoming
in the spring soil.
She has imposed
a silence on me as well,
“Do not write me anymore.”
Heard too much from me
I imagine, my muffled
half of the story.
Why is it we only wish
to hear and tell our stories
from the safe side
our side?

Just now, a pit bull
and its owner walk by.
I hear the innocent
click click of the bull’s nails
on pavement and see only
an easy saunter
in the black man’s gait.

For our Journey

This being human is a guest house

Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes

as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,

who violently sweep your house

empty of its furniture,

still treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,

meet them at the door laughing,

and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,

because each has been sent

as a guide from beyond.
-Rumi

Lenten Renewal

I haven't written for a very long time (as some of you faithful ones have noted). There is a reason...I haven't been myself. This January I crashed into that realization and started looking for solutions to find myself again. One solution was to rent my own space again. It has been wonderful sharing a space with my friend...she has been generous and we have been relatively compatible, but I really am a soloist when it comes to living space. I missed my art work on the walls, my own garden space, talking to myself without getting caught. :-).

So I came upon a little yellow house to rent, only a mile away from the "fun house" with the poetry pole. With great intention, I found a place for every knick-knack and wall hanging. If the piece didn't fit, I stored it, threw it away, or gave it away. Slowly, I am finding a rhythm to my day in this house. I am reading, writing and meditating again in the mornings...renewing my spiritual self...reading at night again. Most importantly, I am addressing old habits (addictions if you will) that have kept me from me. This is the hardest part, being still and silent, grieving if that's what comes up, until I can feel me in my body again. I wake in the mornings in my lavender and white room feeling my spirit hesitating to re-enter this body. "How are you going to treat me today?" it seems to ask.

My little yellow house has some small neglected gardens in front and back. There is a hunk-o-bamboo that appears randomly placed in the middle of the lawn. I was going to try to remove it, but it is too big and too deep. As I looked closer, I realized someone had a plan with this bamboo. Someone left before the plan was complete. It is my job to wait until I can see where that garden wants to go next.

To the right of the front door is a garden bed with lavender and tulips popping up. I planted some baby rust hens and chicks barely visible in the red rock right now, but I know they will spread and acclimate quickly. Purple heather and euphorbia will also fill out nicely in a zero-scape kind of way. Calluna vulgaris, with its downy gray leaves and pink tips, is so rooted in her pot that it takes quite a bit of coaxing to get her out and planted in the new space. I decide to transplant the tulips and other spring bulbs into the center bed where I have planted the proverbial purple lupine, already catching tear drops of rain in its open palm of green.

One tulip, a single leaf, that I think will be shallow and young, easy to move, refuses to reveal its bulb. I dig my trowel past the red rock, inching into clay soil, blindly easing around what I assume is the bulb. Then I press down on the handle, lifting a hunk of soil, no bulb; only the broken stem.

This week I broke a friend's trust. I hurt someone I love. I dug too deep (or not deep enough), pushed too soon and now I believe she will no longer bloom in my presence. Who am I to be someone a friend can't trust? Who am I to be so cruel? I can't just say, "Oh well, maybe next year. At least I didn't slice the bulb. I only broke off a stem. That's life. I'm not perfect." I can't say any of that right now. I have to say to myself that I didn't take care enough, I didn't let well enough alone. Why? Because I have not been myself? Why, because I have numbed myself with all sorts of distractions and addictions and it is time to fully admit that I am lost and must do all I can to find myself again.

I am paying the price of losing myself (in some ways literally- as in a car payment and higher insurance). My Epiphany word this year (we get one every year at church) is ALERT. I get it now. I thank the garden, I thank my friend, I thank my little yellow house, and I thank God that I didn't do more damage than I did, that I am awake now and ready to take that first humble step of renewal.