I’ve been journaling all my life. But over the years my journaling has taken different forms. For awhile I would read scripture and then rewrite the verse in the first person, putting myself into the prayer of a psalm or into the story.
Over the last few years, my journals...
A bunny sits sunning in the early morning dews,
The chipmunk flits and darts from under two canoes,
A rooster is calling us with cockle-doodle-dos,
And plaintive is the song of mourning doves' coos.
The dogwood barks, and the cowslip moos,
The weeping willow sobs with loud boo-hoos,
The sanddab sits...
Sometimes I love
an opening line,
flashing brilliant,
glorious annunciation,
but more often
it is the last line,
final exhale of words,
that grabs me by the throat
choking tears
from my surprised eyes,
like lights
coming on at the close of day,
illuminating the bridge
to sleep, and to dreams
that are...
As the summer days wind down,
the sunlight slices shadows
across the hay-baled meadows,
and ferns curl up, brittle-brown;
as summer waves its goodbye
the monarchs ascend like kings
on their regal, stained glass wings,
catching currents wafting high;
as summer gimps to its end
the turtles scrabble...
Awhile back I spent a few nights in my hometown, Indianapolis. (Apologies to some of you I didn’t see…I always have to make hard choices, as I have friends on the eastside, westside and all around the town!) When in Indy, I always plan some time to visit my parents and...
Sunday morning after
one of many parties,
my parents hung-over
from boozing too hardy,
spoiling plans of mother's
to take us on a hike;
she, spiting my father,
fried chicken through the night.
Crisp the day in autumn
and paths where turkeys run
were golden as Dad marched
ahead silent, sullen,
in...
Human effort, “elbow grease”, isn’t enough to save our souls. However, human effort can produce wisdom for a person or a community or a country. But it’s a certain kind of human effort. It is the effort to push the ego out of the way, to strive for...
Trading her nest
of taffeta and tulle,
laying her buzzed and peach-fuzzed head
on crisp linen
hospital corners.
And pinned to a gurney by a tangle of tubes
carrying a slowly dripping chemo cocktail,
pried open by a surgeon's scalpel,
as it probes for cancer
in her fragile frame.
She rises, a...
“O, beware, my lord, of jealousy;
It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock
The meat it feeds on."
From...
When I was a youngster, I twisted my ankle often. We spent hours running in the open backyards of our suburban neighborhood, and uneven grass could trip me up. After years of these occurrences, my ankle developed a weakness. I can twist my ankle walking on an uneven sidewalk...