waiting

How good to have this time of year

designated for waiting in eager anticipation.

We know how it all will end -- the barn, the baby, the guiding light.

But for now, I want to pretend that I do not know,

that nothing is definite or predictable.

Let's pretend that I am on the advent of something new.

That my life is coming, arriving, about to begin.

Because, really, that's what is happening. For me. For you.

Here I sit, a fat, weary 47 year old,

with some inclination that I know how it will all turn out.

And there you are too. Alone. Not alone.

Prepared. Stocks bonded and bonds stacked.

With a baby on your hip. A father in ICU.

Cells dividing toward life or death. Who knows.

Tomorrow, I will talk to someone I have never met.

Tomorrow, I will see something I have never seen.

Tomorrow, I will feel something I have never felt,

reminiscent, perhaps, all of it, but still new.

This is advent. A time of waiting,

a time of watchful preparation.

I know what I want and need, but

I do not know what is coming,

I do not know when it will arrive.

And for that, this night, I give

my restless and hopeful thanks.

when the bread runs out

I could tell you why I have taken communion

three times in 6 days (how un-presbyterian),

but it does not really matter.

Nor does it matter that the first time

a man named Paul held my elbow,

and looked me smiling,

knowing that between 10 and 10:43,

some kind of spirit scraper had entered me

and ground the black tar off my heart.

He knew it, I knew it, and communion

was a celebration of sorts.

Nor does it matter that the second time

the bread and wine came with an

optional anointing of oil.

That I had no idea that the holy cross

would smell so fresh, better than any

Aveda shampoo and that I wanted

to rub the oil into my hair and then

my very brain, making my mind

more sacred than what it has been,

scared or scarred.

What matters is this last time,

the third time. At the Covenant Network,

a gathering of people working to make ordination

possible for all of God's children.

Nearly everyone in the large church

had already taken the cup,

but the instant I approached,

the server ran out of small strips of pita.

Ten years ago I would

have taken it as a sign:

see I do not belong.

But what happened was this,

the elder ran to the communion table,

and picked up the whole loaf of bread,

the one that the minister had raised above his head,

and blessed saying, "On the night of His death,

Jesus took this bread and said,

'This is my body broken for you,

eat this and remember me.'"

She picked up the loaf of bread that was passed

2000 years ago, the loaf that sat on the table,

the loaf that the disciples shared,

the loaf that Jesus ate.

And she ran back down the aisle,

as I stood there, more than 300 people watching,

and tore a hunk off of that loaf,

then gave it to me.

The real loaf.

The Jesus loaf, the loaf that was lifted up.

That's the piece of bread I got.

And, yes, I know I might be reading too much into it,

but, I know that that bread was meant for me.

On that day, in that place.

That piece shouted at me,

that piece ordain me,

consecrated me worthy.

Absolutely, completely,

someone who belongs.

starving

I am 52 pounds heavier than I was 52 weeks ago,

and I wonder what that weight is.

Beyond the Hot Tamales and pounds of cheese, of course,

beyond the discovery of "Mad Men" and "Bones,"

all of those new hours laying on the couch.

On this Sunday, a year ago, I was in the Houston airport,

flying back from a seminary visit in Austin.

I had on an "I vote for Obama" t-shirt

that received more than a few Bushian glares

in that hot Texan hub.

I had a new curve to my heart,

a tilt toward some green path,

and I really wish, tonight, I had listened

to the twenty people who said yes,

instead of the one man who

so adamantly warned no.

These November streets are gray,

and my heart has a flat thrum.

The only new thing in my life has caused

me great strain and burden,

and I am, once again, pressing myself

into the mold I built of my life:

prove your worth, show how smart you are,

be the best among the many good.

I am not smarter about God, one year later.

I still wonder who the mother-in-law is:

Naomi or Ruth. Perhaps, if I were in Austin tonight,

I would know how to spell Isaiah

without having to think so hard about the vowels.

But I do believe, seminary or not,

that what matters

about the Naomi and Ruth story

is that one pledged this: "where you go,

I will follow, your people will be my people,

your God will be my God."

And that, perhaps is what I have been eating up,

the words: you, go, I, follow,

your, people, my, people,

not knowing where to focus my love,

as it wanders, searching,

so hungry from day to day.

sometimes

...it's just good to remember

that we are here sharing a magnificent planet,

and that if we are still and quiet,

we will be visited by beauty

and be seen as beauty.

Eye to eye and curious,

instead of dominating,

feared and fearful as we usually are.

telling stories

I was heading to buy cheese, pushing the cart

past the frozen chicken wings, when Ruth found me

and started talking about her life, then her husband's.

His father dying at ten, a mother filled with resentment,

commanding naval ships, med-evac missions in Vietnam,

a spinal injury, his lifetime stuck away in storage.

I did not really have a choice as I leaned

against the edge of the cooler.I settled into the story.

At some point I started worrying about my milk,

how it was growing warmer and warmer.

But then she said that Arthur was now in so much pain

that sometimes he just asks her to hold him.

I could could picture her crawling into bed with him,

just as I can picture you crawling into bed with whoever calls for you.

It's times like that I realize that a quart of 1 % costs $1.79

and even though love costs more than anyone will ever be able to pay,

it's free, absolutely free, at the very same moment.

Yesterday I got an email from a new friend who

told me her husband was hospitalized for depression.

Last week, my father and I talked about photographs

hanging on the wall. How we have to decide what to pack away,

and what we hold onto in the place we call home.

Betty told me about what

it is like to buy a furnace all by herself,

now that her husband has died.

I know a man who knows the man who discovered Ardi,

our oldest relative. My father's ancient mother,

and your mother too. Her bones were found with 36 others,

our first brothers and sister so long ago.

I do not know where this poem is heading,

only sure that it has to do with being on this planet,

drinking my mother's milk. How milk turns into cheese,

and cheese is not what feeds us. I am sure that

it starts with a word that is part of a story

that began in the Afar desert and will never end.

With its dust and bone. And the sense that we are always

waiting and wanting to be discovered.

Always talking, telling our stories,

unable to stop trying to make sense.

When the hypothetical takes over

In the middle of the conference call

about my father's financial future,

after the annuity options

and tax advantages were discussed,

my brother, asked "What if I die before my father?"

And the financial planner said,

"And your wife marries another man?"

It hit me like a brick in my belly.

Hypothetically, my brother was dead,

my father was old and dying,

my sister-in-law was with a strange man.

Time shrunk like a 100% cotton t-shirt,

and I felt squeezed by the day

not too far in the future, when I would

be tended to by a paid hospice worker.

Or placed in a state-funded home.

Hypothetically, for a fast and terrifying second,

I was alone today. All alone.

Mark gone, dad gone,

mom already released to her potato chip heaven.

But this is the truth of the 40's and 50's.

Not only can parents die,

but so can siblings, so can friends.

Women with lumps, men with tumors,

staph infections and sudden demise.

So, after the call was ended and as my brother and father

were saying good-bye to good man Wade,

I fled my house, determined to buy something living.

The Heights Garden Center

did not have hanging baskets,

but they had a big ceramic orange ball.

I scooped it up and bought it.

And even though my neighbor Bear thinks

it looks like a basketball

and Tavish wanted to flip it over

and roll it around my yard,

even though it could easily be perceived

as a tacky fake pumpkin in a quick drive by,

I think I like it. I think I need it.

What other color screams "Awake" than orange?

What other hue shouts "Now" than orange?

Can you think of a better way to stay

right here, and not crash into conjecture?

I placed an orange ball in my front garden today,

and no one is dead, no one is dying,

there is no inheritance to tax,

no IRA balance to divide.

There is just a ball. A bright orange ball.

Last night

Last night I dreamed of dead fish,

heads of decapitated ducks, flailing dolphins.

They were strewn all over Washington Road,

the main street in my childhood town.

No one else was on the road but me.

I wonder if my life will be a ghost town,

rotting remnants of careless decisions,

sinking ships and lost treasures.

Even the street names make me sad today:

Meadowbrook, Essex, Scarborough.

As if we live in a pleasant English village.

We do not. The window to the right is smudged.

The table is wobbling. The floor slants.

The sidewalks are hard, the road is hard.

My feet need to walk mile upon mile

over slow rising hills.

And yet, there is always an "and yet,"

the woman who just came through

the door smiled at me,

the man who clears the tables

just smiled at me,

a kid outside -- more pants and t-shirt than body-

just stopped listening to his friends

and met my gaze through the window.

As if we were the keepers of a small

old flame and, only through us,

the spark of compassion stays kindled.

Planting seeds

My mother knew every plant in the garden,

her mother knew even more still,

never guessing or approximating names.

I never saw her, Grammy,

in her seersucker skirt,

walking among the tall phlox,

nursing a withering columbine,

leaning down to touch

the earlobe leaves of the nasturtium.

I just know that what my mother knew

her mother knew before her.

Some knowledge multiplied in the transfer,

some divided, some slipped away

like other warm chested bourbon assurances.

Some snaked away like cigarette ash.

How do we chose what parts

of love we'll carry on?

When do we decide what gnat details

are worth preserving?

I am a woman without a mother,

a woman without her mother's mother.

A woman without a daughter.

But I have a garden on the side of my house

that I share with my neighbors and their children,

and this spring, the pincushion flowers sprouted,

in June, Asiatic lilies were added,

miniature snapdragons popped out July,

and now, in August, it's all in full bloom.

It's a messy garden, some tall plants in front of short,

a jungle of wildflowers lipping over the stone edge,

stretches where nothing has grown,

and the dirt lies fallow and hardening.

But I am there most afternoons,

and Sheridan finds me.

Then she crouches over the green, pointing.

I say zinnia, she says zinnia.

I say sunflower, she says sunflower.

I say weed, she says weed.

Then she lifts her head to mine and smiles,

just as I did to my mother when I was two,

and she did to her mother when she was two,

and she did to her mother and mother's mother

all the way back

to lands across the sea,

to plots of Scottish heather,

to hills of green upon green,

three hundred summers ago.

I want to be the kind of woman who

...wears this kind of boots

on a long lean body.

I want to have tattoos on my arms,

sharp glasses on a boyish face.

I want to be someone who turns heads,

twists the belly of the belly.

Dark skinned confidence.

I want to be the kind of woman

who rides an orange scooter,

with a worn backpack slung over her back

down a street lined with weeping oaks.

Home to another who is waiting,

twitching in a rolled armed chair,

listening for the whine of the bike.

And as soon as the front light sweeps

a dull white dot through the living room curtains,

jumps up and opens the door,

saying hello, hello, hello with her lips,

while never speaking a word.

hey cupcake

I know that I am supposed to be in Austin learning how to include more inquiry experiences in my classroom for IB, but my favorite part of the three days has been visiting new and old favorite places around town. Nothing beats Hey Cupcake, one of the trailers on South Congress. You can buy 5 or 6 different kinds of cupcakes (last night we got a red velvet with cream cheese frosting) and milk (which, it turns out, is pretty important after having a Hey Cupcake cupcake). This trailer is one of six. You can get a full trailer meal wandering from one place to another. Brisket, hamburger sliders, plantain chips, ice cream cones, peach cobbler, or shaved ice. Trailer row leans a bit heavy in the dessert area -- but I kind of think that that's the way Austin is. The whole city tilts toward pleasure. Drinking beer, eating good food, listening to music, wearing comfortable clothes, riding scooters, having your hair hang on your head any which way you want. The longer I live, the more that seems important. Being happy, making happy, recognizing happy. Especially if it includes sitting down right off the edge of the street licking the frosting off your fingers.

making a chair

I decided today, after helping my father make parts of a windsor chair, that I like sitting in chairs more than I like making them. Actually, that's a lie. I liked making certain parts of the chair very much. We used a tool like this one to pull strips of soft wood off rectangular blocks of red oak so that they slowly became rounded spindles. Pull, pull, pull. Check the guidelines, pull and pull some more then finally trim the last slivers-- not fighting the wood, but culling it to you curl by curl.

I've had some changes in my life, and the easiest ones to take were the ones where a drawing knife was used. Thin shaves of reality taken from me. Never too deep, just as far as the green wood in me could survive. The craftsman pulling the changes out of me by pulling the changes towards her. Not fighting my grain, but working with it. Then the last final trimmed slivers removed only after I had gotten used to the process.

This is the gentle work of relationships. This is the way to love someone, leave someone, or help someone move into her next self. Not the loud grinding of a band saw, or the high-pitched whine of the drill. Effective, yes, but the wood barely understands what is happening to it. So don't grab the shiny Ryobi router from Home Depot. Instead, take your drawing knife, lean your hip into the table, set the angle straight then pull. Pull the blade toward your heart. Then watch the tendril changes skim off the person you love and float tenderly to the ground.

flipping the omelette

It's been more than a year since I tried to make an omelette.

It's not really the kind of meal you make for one.

It's more of a meal made for another.

Sunday morning, with a side of bacon,

and some fresh squeezed orange juice.

It's a loving meal, food tendered up as a gift.

But today I wanted one. Mushrooms and cheese.

And, as I whipped the eggs with a bit of milk,

and put the butter into the warm pan,

I wondered if I should just make a scramble,

a fancy scramble. That would be good enough.

Then, a sure resolute "no" came over me.

I would make myself an omelette,

I could offer myself a good and loving meal.

The mushrooms sauteed, the eggs poured in,

the bubbling and pulling from edge to center,

edge to center. Creating the hard cooked bottom.

Then I was faced with the problem of flipping.

Not something I have done with much success,

and certainly without any practice

in a long, long time.

Again, a sure and resolute "yes" came over me.

I rocked the pan, felt the ease, the slippery tide of the eggs.

With an unwavering certainty,

I pushed the pan out and caught the omelette

on the other side.

It takes a certain amount of confidence

to flip an omelette. Just as it takes

a certain amount of confidence to flip your life.

To finally say, sure some parts of me

are still a bit loose, but I am solid underneath,

I am ready for what will happen.

See the way I can slide back and forth

against my life, see how I am about to teeter over,

see how I can take the push.

Push me, I dare you, push me.

See how I'll turn one end over the other,

see how I'll fly, then land, just right.

cairn

Onto this pile, I stack:

the things I need to give away

the things I need to give up

the things that have taught me well 

and are now not enough

the need to know

the need to be sure

the need to have answers

the knowledge that is no longer true 

the knowledge that may have never been true

the knowledge that escapes me still

the truth that is fixed

the truth that they claim

the truth that was once solid 

and now is silty liquid slipping away

the fixed parts of me 

the fixed parts of the past

the fixing of things that will never be fixed

the parts that may never heal

the parts that may never even scab over

the parts of me that they did not wait long enough to see

Onto this cairn, I lay down my boulder fears and aches.

See how beautifully the sun dances upon them --

the light stronger than the weight upon which it shines. 

But I have

I am homesick for a place I have never been, 

a place I have never seen. 

Yet, as I wander on the thin map of my life, 

there are places where home finds me, 

there are ways I make it home. 

I remember a table at Stone Oven -

the old Stone Oven -

a pad of paper, a smooth pen, 

her whole self  listening. 

I remember a song sung in a simple church.  

A man, a guitar, three hundred

eyes looking at me as I spoke from 

the second beat of my heart, 

the one that pushes out truth. 

I remember the first time 

I kissed her in the spring outside.

Her lips warm, her face warm, 

her smell like the garden she was planting. 

I remember a day in the pouring rain, 

I remember a toddler wobbling toward me, 

I remember a bridge over a small creek. 

I remember a catch, a car, a star dotted sky. 

I remember six women appearing to circle the bed, 

I remember the last tear I saw on my mother's face. 

I do not have your silent husband, 

I will never have your daughter, your grown son, 

your baby Maya, your new parish to pastor. 

I will never know the still face of a younger sister, 

the vibration of a cello beneath my fingertips. 

But I have a home out there 

that keeps trying to find me, 

who keeps extending her soft hand, 

that faithfully remains, 

so familiar, so patient, 

so willing to wait for me. 

sign language

When I go outside, my 18 month old neighbor shouts, 

"Jeen, Jeen, Jeen."  Then she waddles over to me, 

extends her arms for a hug.  Even though it does not last long, 

she rests her head on my shoulder and pats my back. 

She points out flowers, she overturns rocks to look for bugs, 

she pours water into a cup, then dumps the water out.

Then she may look over at me, mowing or planting, 

point and say my name again.  I like that assurance, 

someone noticing me as I do completely ordinary things. 

And, even though there is a woman 13 miles from here 

who may never see me again who loved me once, 

fiercely and fully, and another woman seven states over

who would hold my aching back without me needing to ask, 

and one, about an hour away, who has not decided

what she will do with me yet, I have this:

The sun, the sky, a vegetable lasagna delivered to my door,  

a man crushing my spring debris into a lawn bag.  

Laughter tipped into giggling near midnight, 

a long drive past a lake, an email from my minister, 

strawberries dipped in sour cream and brown sugar, 

purple myrtle flowers, a cat sitting under my deck table, 

a song that I must turn up every time, a thank you card, 

warm socks, a rearview mirror wave, 

a boy planting seeds in squat position, 

the sound of pennies hitting a nearly full piggy bank, 

and her pressing her tiny fingers together when I head inside, 

as she shouts, "Jeen, more Jeen, more Jeen."

friday the 13th

 

Friday the 13th was the day I fell down the stairs at school and had to be taken to the hospital.  It also was a day, years ago, that I was rejected by my golf team.  So, the day and I have some history.  And, always, I wonder what might happen when it rolls around. 

Yesterday, though, should have been called whatever is opposite from Friday the 13th, maybe Friday the millionth.  Friday the great.  None of this was expected or planned, and that makes it all feel so much more solid and symbolic. 

I received assurances from every possible relationship I have.  A former student, from 12 years ago, came to visit.  Full of vigor and youth.  And athlete, a scholar, in the Army to work out his propensity for risk and action. I was able to support one of my closest working friends with a care package for a big comprehensive exam  and I knew exactly what to get her and why she would like each item.  A friend came over with a birthday present, perfect for me.  So perfect that I know he knows me well and deep and wide.  My neighbors called for help, something broken in their house.  A paramour from the past wrote with stories bridging the gap from when we knew each other to now.  And a friend called to ask if I could help her.  Help her in a way that no one had ever been asked.  Entrusted, I would be entrusted with a really honorable task.

A new acquaintance asked me what about my life surprises me, and after yesterday, it would probably be this: I am known and trusted in a way that my shy and nerdy seventh grade self never imagined would be possible. That there is a web of humanity and I am part of it.  Lucky to be part of it. 

75 reasons

1. He still wears those big glasses

2. He loves his baseball hats

3. He's younger than he is

4. Works hard

5. Always worked hard

6. Will always work hard

7. Has a good sense of order 

8. Listens well

9. Talks softly, never carries a big stick 

10. Meticulous 

11. Held my mom's hand

12. Provided even when stressed

13. Sacrificed even when stressed

14. Made a change 

15. Stuck with the change

16. Is gracious and giving

17. Can kick any crossword puzzle's ass

18. Listens to music

19. Good music

20. Appreciates the most important meal of the day

21. Can grill up some good stuff

22. Remembers to eat fruit

23. Honored his mother and father

24. Didn't give up when giving up would be easy

25. Dignified, but not in a pompous way

26. Cheers loudly for his favorites teams

27. Envelope gifts 

28. Two Christmas trees, every year

29. Made sure to drive us around to look at the lights

30. Coach

31. Timer

32. HORSE companion 

33. Devotes time to the things that matter to him

34. Let my mom get the attention she needed

35. Even if it meant sacrificing some that he may get

36. Bloody Mary recipe (though I do not personally know)

37. Taking us to baseball games 

38. Sharing Amelia Island 

39. Golf (even though he rolls the ball over)

40.  Wears pink shirts proudly 

41. And way before it was popular

42. Loved his dogs

43. Fed them ice cream 

44. Plans ahead

45. Years ahead

46. Is fiscally prepared 

47. Had convertibles 

48. Still wants a convertible

49. Knows how to keep the faith

50. Introduced me to pistachios

51. Permits me to be myself 

52. Defends me for who I am 

53. Smiles really big when he sees his grandchildren

54. Saves his change

55. Then counts and rolls it by hand

56. Can say a really good improvisational prayer

57. Comes when invited

58. Comes when needed

59. Writes in a beautiful way 

60. Organized

61. Open to where the spirit is moving

62. Protective

63. Always brought a gift home after traveling

64. Likes Chik-fil-a

65. Knows what is important and what is not

66. Let me be there when he could not

67. Kind, nice -- two overused words-- 

that in this case are true

68. Voted for Barack 

69. Does not need to be the center of attention

70. Is forgiving

71. Has gone from a pessimist to an optimist

72. But would never admit it 

73. Enjoys the morning sun 

74. Knows the value of sitting on the porch

75. Is trustworthy, reliable

Happy birthday, Dad. 

I finally got it

It came 4 minutes and 32 second ago 

when I was typing my last blog. 

I know why there has been a year of pain.  

Why the aftershocks continue to rumble.  

Where my phases of fleeting hatred well up from. 

We both decided that we were 

the kind of people who returned the cart. 

Metaphorically.  We put things back where they belong.  

We tended to the world carefully. 

And for years, we did that for each other too.  

Finding the fulcrum after any difficulty. 

Going through cycles of challenge, 

but always finding a newer, higher, deeper place. 

We put each other's heart back. 

Except in the end.  You left me out in the parking lot. 

No where near the warmth.  

No where to a safe home. Rain raining, 

snow falling, my wheels rusting in place. 

And I rolled around, wind gusts pushing me, 

bashing into cars and through the traffic. 

I made of wreck of it. 

You did not put the cart back. 

I'd never seen you do that before. 

I'd never known you not to clean up a mess. 

You did not put the cart back. 

Even if it was empty, the food and nourishment 

gone for you.  You did not push the cart back, 

though it would have been so easy to do. 

there was a woman

There was a woman walking down the central aisle of Zagara's,

the kind of woman that turns heads.  

Men's heads, women's heads. 

Her long shiny hair floating behind her, 

her chocolate coat like wings too. 

Her face was perfect, her skin had a warm undertone.

Ebullient eyes, long arms swinging.  

She was my age, maybe even older.  

Leaning toward fifty like her life would last forever.

I could not not look and look again. 

She had a four pack of pudding in her hand, 

golden butterscotch I think. (Odd I know).  

I watched her turn down the pasta aisle. 

She squatted down to inspect the items on the lower shelves. 

Who do you know that looks good down on their haunches?

No one, right?  But she did. 

I started dreaming of meeting her at some Chagrin Falls event, 

I would -- in this imaginary future intersection -- tell her

that I had seen her before and dreamed this friendship 

before she had ever spoken a word.  

It was her hair, her coat, her floating. 

She would laugh, touch my forearm, 

and some deep seed in me would shiver. 

There I was, deep into illusion, when she did it. 

Did the thing that defined her. 

She picked up a whole wheat pasta box, 

then turned and placed her pudding in a sauce display.

Shoved it way in the back where some 

minimum wage teenager would find it hours or days later. 

My hypothetical admiration, 

my loving peasant adoration, 

shrunk away to nothing.  

Everything beautiful about her

dissolved by that one act.

Beauty is more than skin deep. 

Beauty involves butterscotch pudding. 

Where it ends up when you are in a rush. 

Beauty involves carts, if they get walked 

all the way back into the building. 

Beauty involves turn signals, 

if they flutter in plenty of time. 

Beauty's not how well you take care of yourself;

it's how well you take care of others. 

in one year

The sadness has turned into a soft spot, 

more tender bruise than beating. 

My heart is larger, porous, 

more seeping in and out. 

My eyes are darker, my hair more gray.

My skin a little thicker, a little thinner, 

it all depends on the day. 

I have known the kind of pain 

that can recognize all pain. 

(And this is a gift).

I can sit in a cold dark well, 

and not wither, not wrinkle. 

I can play with the water, 

and somehow cleanse the fear. 

I am smarter.  I am smaller. 

I walk lightly on a thin mountain path. 

I am learning to release questions, 

as the trees finally know to drop brown leaves. 

I have traveled long distances in tight spaces, 

and arrived here, where I was, 

on the night it happened, 

but tonight, I am living. 

I am living.  I am living. 

Small Insurrection

5976 miles away, John tucked my prayer into the Wailing Wall. 

If I really believed in God's omnipresence, 

I would not have handed him the scroll.

I would know that my prayer is heard here, 

in my soggy front yard, in the tiled hallways of my school, 

walking down to Stone Oven, sitting by the huge oak tree, 

in my bed  each night before I go to sleep.

But, honestly, I feel better knowing where it is, 

who has held it --as if John's ordained hand 

tucking it into the holy hole will somehow summon 

some greater power than God, 

the higher power that God leans into when God is sad, 

alone, lost as I know He must sometimes be. 

I feel better knowing that it is on the man's side of the wall, 

not because men have more pull or say, but because now 

it is a rebel prayer.  The pink paper, the twine, 

the feminine print in that strong wall 

where men have rocked and worried. 

The words ask for my love to find me, so that I can 

know love again, feel love again, learn through love again, 

fulfilling what God asks us to do, living as God lives. 

A woman asking for a woman, 

delivered by a preacher to the men's side of wall. 

There is something radical about that.  

Something that I beg gets noticed, answered. 

I think spring is approaching

...not because the ice is dripping from my roof, 

or the sky has opened up its pupils blue. 

It's because of the crushes, the rushes, 

the instant tripping over my puppy tail. 

The woman at CVS waiting to check out, 

her mocha skin and long fingers. 

The way she turned and smiled, 

the way she called the pharmacist by name. 

The woman at Stone Oven, too young, 

way too young, and yet old somehow, 

like a Mill Valley redwood, 

like a piece of blue glass not yet thrown upon the shore.

The man in black, the weight of responsibility

on his thin runner's shoulders.  

The unexpected stubble, 

the wringing of his careful hands. 

The woman I have known forever, 

her hair crisp against her scalp, 

the way it makes me want to reach out

and rub the back of her head. 

The woman I last rested with, 

thinking of her thin waist, 

the way my legs looped so easily in hers, 

the way we looked up under a star soup sky. 

The woman so far away 

who must know in some way, 

that I have always loved the way her words

ting against the true bell. 

The tall man fumbling for his keys, 

the old woman pushing flowers in her cart, 

the man who smiled before opening the door.

Everyday, someone new falls 

into the lap of my heart

and that must mean something, 

doesn't it?  The racing, 

the needing, the wanting?

After so many months of staring 

at the cement path one step ahead of me, 

it is good to lift my head 

and see -- simply see -- 

how many people there are, 

as I circling the notion of love. 

some things run deep

...like Santonio Holmes, 

like an allegiance to a team, 

Steeler black and gold. 

Number 6.  Can you believe it? 

because she knew

...how to play,

to lean down on her honches then skitter in fun.

Because she knew how to run from one room to another,

carrying her squirrel, just shedding off some extra energy.

Because of her one small crooked eye,

because she could lick the bowl clean.

Because she knew how to sit, always along side of you,

a willing companion, a constant companion.

Because she always came to welcome you home,

and ease you to sleep.

Because she gave love when love was easy

and when love was gone.

Because maybe she's in heaven now too,

if one believes in that kind of thing,

eating chips handed down from someone

so surprised, yet happy, to see her.

We give thanks.

what are you looking for?

We gathered in a circle, read the text and then scattered. 

Off into cubbies, every nook and cranny of the church. 

Outside into the woods, down the walking trails, 

In the library, by the window alcove. 

What are you looking for, what are you looking for?

I knew my answer quickly and made circles within circles, 

all leaning into one idea that holds every idea: radical peace. 

A full uncompromised knowing that I am loved, 

I am known, I am cared for.  My life has meaning. 

Because, in that fearlessness, I know I will be free 

to love, know and fully care for others.  

When it was time to share, Scott spoke 

of hiking to an outcropping over the river

where he knew -- realized-- that only he and God where there 

at that time, in that place.  What an amazing idea that is:

God and I are the only ones writing this poem.  

God and you, whoever you are are, are the only ones reading it. 

God is somewhere fishing with a man on a wide river in Texas, 

God is folding laundry in Peoria, Illinois. 

God and child have just drifted off to sleep on Dellwood Road. 

Scott said that when he came back inside to write, 

it was more like a dialogue.  Him asking a question, 

and then, without explanation, a holy response. 

There were tears in his eyes when he spoke of this. 

Others shared.  Not really what they were looking for, 

but how it felt to think and write about the question. 

When we were done, I went straight over to Scott

and asked, "What did God say back?  What did he tell you?" 

Then Scott turned his body, and I turned mine 

as we made our own little circle apart from the others.

He read what he had written.  He whispered God's response, 

his hands shaking, the paper twitching. 

Round drops falling on the page. 

And it was beautiful what Scott wrote, 

and how God answered -- I can't tell you, 

I won't tell you as much as I want to -- 

that is Scott's poem to write.  All I know is this:  

that Scott and I and God were the only ones there, 

in the Sycamore Room of the River's Edge Retreat Center, 

in that moment, in that place, with and for each other, 

under our own tent of radical peace. 

It's freezing outside.

yet the sun is shining. 

A lone sparrow has been chirping

in the bush next to my front porch. 

I heard her as I awakened, 

and all through the morning. 

So much to say to no one.

So much to sing about. 

In a few hours I will fly 

across the country. 

Working on the long weekend, 

in a hotel by the airport. 

I am not excited to go, 

to be surrounded by people. 

But I will go, say more than I should, 

flirt with someone I will never see again. 

I will find a spot in the light, 

and soak in the California heat. 

There is something assuring 

about my new bird friend.

How she is self-sufficient, beckoning, 

willing to spout off, 

work through it, 

sing her way back to herself. 

It is freezing outside, 

yet the sun is shining. 

She knows it, and 

does not let it go to waste. 

Happy new year

It was icy last night,
Cleveland seems to be in a freeze thaw cycle,
and so a friend asked me to drive her home.
We looped around the block
so that I could get as close to her apartment as I could,
and as I slowly slid to a stop,
she said, "Thanks for the ride, Lisa."
Hmmm. Lisa? My name isn't Lisa.
So maybe this year, instead of being Jean,
a name that women over 65 have,
I will be Lisa. Lisa Jane maybe.

And, just because the calendar has flipped
from an even year into an odd year,
I will stretch my limits and be odd,
not divisible by two. Not a multiple of two.
I will be prime, a bit off.
Lisa the 7th, Lisa the 13th,
Lisa the 19th, queen of a new world order.

And I will do these things with intention and purpose:
be aggressive hospitable,
selfishly giving, quietly bold.
I will fish for details, listen with my eyes open,
get more than cement under my feet.
I will be an agent of insistent certainty,
not letting my heart and mind waver and dip.
I will love where I sit, do what I can, be who I am,
trusting in the soft grace of graciousness

to shine a new way home.