Blue Sky Wanders

The Blue Sky Wanders I was afflicted today with a distracting, uplifting, case of the ‘blue sky wanders.’   When gravity says I won’t hold you bound; When the road is open and the map is vague.   The type of day that brings to its company a certain sort of memory:   The color…

Psalm Vision in the Rain

I loved looking out from the rocking chair this morning and seeing one bird proclaiming life in the midst of slappy wind-driven raindrops.  And I liked that I saw this bird while I was reading the psalm for today… Be my rock of refuge,a stronghold to give me safety.You are my rock and my fortress;for…

What happens when…

Someone asked me recently what happens inside of me when I work on written translations. I share here my response. Murmurations on the Page When I read through the original for the first time, it begins. A glorious murmuration of language alive,  alive with flight and pitch, tone, resonance, and meaning. If I let go…

Easter Grace, 2016

Easter Grace, 2016 I know what rises from an acorn or bulb: Beauty and a strength that parts the earth in a need to reveal itself, to offer itself, in the midst of the chaos, violence, and political uncertainty of our world; Beauty and strength that trumpets Glory! and Alleluia! because it must. What then,…

Holy Thursday, 2016

Holy Thursday Only in the first whispered imaginings has the world as a whole been at peace: When the Word came forth and the great lights parted into day and night and it was Good. With humanity came the chaos of ego and pride; power and fear; and the grace of knowing, feeling, bone-deep and…

Mid-Lent

Mid-Lent 2016 Gossamer filaments of experience  weave a shimmer of quiet within me, a life-lived knowing of seeming contradictions and grace. Is this peace, I wonder… the settling of my soulinto its shape, into its beauty,I wonder… As to whether it will last or what it will meanto the grand eternal scheme, I can but give thanks…

Lenten Promise

  I find myself looking at Lent his year in terms of an awareness of promise along the journey. The sort of promise I am thinking of is the assurance of various realities… realities that can console, challenge, call forth, remind, etc. There is the promise of awe and wonder– The delight God takes in…

Five Years’ Thanksgiving

On January 30th, 2011, the 13 RSCJ from the probation group “Vivir y Amar con Alegria Profunda” (Live and Love with Deep Joy) professed final vows. The poem below is my way of marking this year’s anniversary. Five Years’ Thanksgiving I am surrounded by journey and love; Love that is forever freeing and coming round…

Snapshot of a Sigh

Preparing dinner tonight was such a simple joy. I brought in music I enjoy and chopped away to a favorite playlist that includes Carrie Newcomer, Anonymous 4’s folk aspect, and Natalie Merchant. I reveled in the warm swath of alto voices and the sometimes harmonies that inclined my ear toward a nearness of sweet noted…

Things Recalled Anew, Things not Forgotten

We had spring weather for Christmas… 10+ C. and sun, sun, sun.  Two days later my mouth was frozen into an “O!” and my Facebook post confessed that “My face had forgotten what winter feels like!” The mountains of snow created by the ‘shovel-off’ from the 2ndfloor deck have begun on the first floor entryway/porch. …