from “Messenger” by Mary Oliver Are my boots old? Is my coat torn? Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect? Let me keep my mind on what matters, which is my work, which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished. (Happy Sunday, everyone.)

Time to remind myself of this, and thought perhaps you’d like a reminder, too.  Blessings on your weekend, friends. The Red Bowl Taking the dog for a walk after work, you smell wild grapes. (Always the question: What more could you want?) It is the second day of fall. You see the dog’s breath and ...
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Can we be grateful for the hard pieces of our life, as well as the beautiful? Can we accept that there is growth to be found, that there is a lesson we are learning, even if we don’t know what it is yet? * * * “All art …” by Carl Phillips Routinely the sea, ...
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Shekinah, grant me this grace: let these hands shape dough once more, let me be the one to light the morning fire, to stir the pot of soup with the big silver ladle. Let me seek the blessings you have hidden all around us in plain sight. Let me bend down once more to lift ...
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(First, thank you for all your kind comments and wishes – if I were here more, I would say thank you individually, but for now – a big collective thank you and a hug!) Grandmothers, please come back.  I need you now that you are vanished. Please bring fried chicken and pickles, mashed potatoes with ...
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Conception The week you enter our lives, it rains and rains. The rooster shakes his tail feathers in the drizzle and crows for the first time. I had wanted a life ready for you – sheep grazing in the orchard, every room painted the right color. We knew already the ways we would fail you. ...
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This poem is so appropriate, I couldn’t resist sharing it with you. It’s from the book Ten Poems to Set You Free that I mentioned in Yarn Along. (And yes, we’re using soil blocks to start our seeds, just like last year – we love them!)  Those of you who know me, know that I’m ...
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(photo by Ben on New Year’s Day) Taking Joy Twenty seven now, I am ready. I gather all the old depression journals, the teenage collages and melancholic cds, and I put them out on the curb.  Don’t leave us, they cry, you need us, we are part of you. I turned my back, I forgave ...
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(Joining Ginny and many other for Yarn Along). This is clearly going to be known as the winter of mittens.  With Ben and Ella both mittened up, and my hands getting numb from cold as I type and knit in the computer room while listening to archived Beacon shows, I cast on these Toasties with ...
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If this be the world If this be the world, let us continue as we are today-clean pants and green sweaters, the river pounding below us, buttery light coming through tall windows onto worn wooden floors. If the truth cannot be known, if this be the world, let it go on.  Where leaves have fallen, ...
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