Happiness

"How far away is your happiness?"

How close?

These are rich questions to ask ourself.

It might be good to add our own to the list.

How many meals prepared by you or others?

How many seeds planted, bushes pruned, trees grown?

How many walks along the river and through the forest?

How many friends discovered? 

How many trips taken?

How many books read and/or written?

How many hugs given and received?

"How much thread in the enormous 

sewing machine of the present moment?"

My favorite line.

Think how small those stitches are...

but what magic they can create...

what fine garments they produce...

to wrap around yourself and your dear ones.

 

 

It's Ok If You Crave

I love the gentle pace of this piece.

"expand into the world and then contract:

this is the way of everything soft: ..."

I can feel the rhythm of the ocean 

and match my breathing to the ebbing and flowing.

Sending goodness your way.

 

You'll Become Rain

"And nature says no matter how you love,

you will return back 

to this holy sacred thing.

One day, you'll become rain."

What a delight to have such an abundance of rain,

with more to come.

A beautiful way to end this dry spell

as we enter the last weekend of May.

I bow my head to all those returning as rain as we

commemorate Memorial Day.

 

The Things I Know

"Even a dead tree casts a shadow...leaves fall...branches break...

bark peels off slowly...trunk cracks...rain seeps in through the cracks...

trunk falls...moss covers it...[creatures} live safely inside..

I would say that the trunk decays providing food,

habitat, and atmosphere for countless creatures to thrive...

slowly dissolving into the earth where new trees and plants

are born and live because of its remains.

"So that nothing is wasted in nature or in love."

The trick for me is to translate 

even the hardest happenings into the language of love.

Even when it feels impossible...

love is never weak...it is the strongest power we have.

 

Lost

"Stand Still. The Forest knows where you are.

You must let it find you."

Everyone who loves the forest knows this in their bones.

A wordless connection happens.

"The forest breathes.  Listen. It answers,

'I have made this place around you. 

If you leave, you may come back again, 

saying Here.'"

This is why it is heart breaking when

forests are removed.  

Stand still...is the strongest message I hear.

Letting the forest find me...knowing I am not lost...

I am Here, with the trees and bushes 

and creatures of the forest.  

It's subtle and powerful.

On a recent trip in and out of Asheville, I had a window seat.  

Watching out the window on my return

I was dazzled by the vista of nothing but trees

below me.  As far as I could see appeared to 

be unbroken forest.  It was so breathtaking,

I felt like crying from the wonder of it. 

"If you leave, you may come back again, 

saying Here."

I'm so grateful to be here.

 

Walking In The Woods

We had a maple go down nearby recently 

while it was winter bare.

The parts of it left lying on the road

began leafing out many days after it fell.

There was something hauntingly sad

and remarkable about witnessing this.

How valiant the reach for light

and for life is in all of us. 

This poem reminded me of the maple.

It inspires me to keep reaching for life

and for light regardless of bleak circumstances.

It also reminds me there is life after death...

cuttings could have been taken and grown into new trees.

Perhaps tiny saplings are already growing in spots 

where seeds met the soil underneath?

PS:  I so want to add punctuation to this piece.

I'm not doing so in respect to the poet.

 

I Remember Redwoods

"I don't want a heavenly body but a body of dung and dirt."

In a way, this is the body we all will inherit eventually, isn't it?

The dirt part for certain.  

"Any form the shape of yearn."

I've had to pause every time I read this line.

(At first I "hear" your'n like yours with a heavy accent.)

And then it sinks in...again...and pauses me...again 

in a totally different way.

May our broken hearts be mended 

and their loving parts be made more resilient...

letting us carry the agony and the ecstasy,

the mundane and the marvelous,

and everything in-between with grace and gratitude.