Resurrection Clothes

The Visit Beached in his lean-back chair   He sits reclin ed and staring into what   I cannot reach .   An introvert at soul , h e comes alive    W hen younger spirits enter , sit   A ttendant after banter in the circle   Discovering their own lives inside   His gift of weaving wings from spiderwebs     Memories of dialogs gone by   Characters like sibling stars   Intermingling until   A laugh erupts and bubbles from the belly up   U ntil it catches fire a round the circle   Fills and lifts o ff high    Into eternal elements.         Inspired by Mary Lou Kowalski's little book of poems and commentary entitled Old Monk, this is the first (and only, so far) in my hoped-for collection: Old Married.    

Transfigured, Transformed Jesus, just as You on the mountain with Moses and Elijah, whitening, brightening in the sight of those with eyes to see, were changed from inside out, that what was in your soul shone forth as light, called forth a burst of joyful pride from the One-Beyond-All-Form: “My Son, my focus of delight!” So are we called in this our ordinary life to shine, be changed, be light. As Elijah, so Elisha. As our Lord, so we, watching You with laser eyes, trained to see You everywhere, will be transfigured, be transformed, shine bright. And shining, move as You did toward the Cross, that light may burst across the universe as our particle ignites. 12/14/19 Inspired by the story of Jesus’s Transfiguration in Matthew 17:2 (and commentary) and the invitation to us in Romans 12:1-2 in The Message Devotional Bible .

Why count the years when mirror after mirror does it well? But what the hell? I do feel younger than I think the number is supposed to tell. Another cup of coffee as I sit in bed looking out and into trees, the turning leaves of fall. My autumn too, as late and long as it will be. It’s good that we don’t know how many autumns, winters, springs and summers we will have. Just smile, and drink the cup, and be. November 16, 2019, one of my many birthdays

Being where I am is such a long-forgotten skill but now I’m trying it again… in this body, here, and now, breathing this breath, cool and quiet, filling me, then pausing, holding still, then letting go, exhaling long and soft. And walking down the tire-worn drive between the woodlot on my right and grass and trees and landscape on my left, and beyond and almost out of sight, the county road, each step a balancing my body knows. And looking upward into trees, their leaves, their separate shapes, their variations on the color green, kaleidoscopic, mesmerizing shiftings in the bluest blue-sky breeze. And now attending to the sounds of katydids and crickets, birdsong echoing from trees, a car and my awareness of which way it’s coming from, and when it passes by and glides toward town. And catching next the grassy scent of cattle in a neighbor’s pasture, bringing back old memories of other homes and pastures, children youn...

A Letter From a Friend Who’s Dead The other day I got a letter from a friend who’s dead. She wrote it first, of course, to tell me things she wanted said about our friendship, all the fun we’d had, the talks about things near our hearts, things happy and things sad. And now I’m thinking how so many dearest friends are gone: the Judy who died years ago, my nearly-sister Gayle, Patricia, Mrs. Faulk, Mary Ann and Sally, Bernie and the Judy I received the letter from…. Then it occurs to me how all the people at the breakfast table of my childhood left and left and left and left, and I alone am here, recalling dimly or with unexpected clarity those ancient times. But then I think how life has multiplied the friends, the family—never to replace the ones now gone, of course, but filling in some empty spaces, holes left gaping when they went. How many more will go before I join the great collection on the other side? I cannot know, of course, and th...