Your heart is on my fingertip
faint as a soft kiss on the lips

a presentation of carmine
the semblance of a valentine

a bleeding heart, it is so small
that no one notices at all

but love’s a mark so permanent
it is affection seized, then spent

never squandered, given lightly
the size belies...

Tripping up the path
  of a morning moon
toes twinkling on
  bars of lunar light
the silver orb setting
  as the sky lightens
in a race to see
  if it disappears
below the surface
  or simply fades
in the pale light of dawn 
  washed grey, then pink
then gone...

How do I feel about time, really?  Am I working with it or against it.  I’ve had time anxiety during seasons of my life, particularly when my son was a young tween/teen.  He was certainly independent enough that I could go off and leave him, but in my heart I was comfortable...

Old goats flank a roaring blaze
    in a fireplace of mottled stone;
they lower their heads and gaze
    through fossil eyes with thoughts
as old as the inland sea that once
    covered their bedrock home.

My grandmother came to Banff
    in...

So far north, the winter sun is
   only just cresting by midmorning
moving to its apogee just barely
   clearing the mountaintop
the ever-changing wash of gold
   slashing across white snow

low it stays and stays and stays
    blowing snow descends,...

As the plane pulls away from the gate, I am filled with a mixture of terror and exhilaration.  I love the idea of going somewhere new, but I live in the gap between the is and the ought.  I ought to be excited, but to embrace the excitement, I have to give up control, give up knowing...

Much of the New Testament is devoted to letters that the Apostle Paul wrote to various churches in the newborn Christian sect.  Last spring, I was studying Paul’s letter to the Colossians and was intrigued by the fact that he was writing to a group of people that he had never actually...

To be sung to the familiar tune by Steve Nelson

Frosty the Snowman
Tumbled into town
With a duct tape hat and two duct tape eyes
And a scarf made out of yarn.

Frosty the Snowman
Was a jolly, prickly soul
He’d been painted white and his smile shone bright
On his tumbly, grassy knoll

He first...

A bright, arresting light
   shone from the Christmas star;
one star so bright that wise
   men saw it from afar,

And shepherds in their fields
   also saw it shining,
accompanied by lyrics
   a heavenly choir singing.

One light was born that night,
  ...

The Christ is coming
and the palm tree
dresses itself in pine and holly
the porous stem
providing a loamy home
for seeds to nest and rest
and then burst forth
in new growth
a divine symbiosis
...