"there was once a boy..."

"mother, what are these," I asked that afternoon
at the end of a long day of dust and faded memories
long-stored in trunks and crates just under the eaves
not even a week before they were to sell the house

the paper crepe-y and fragile as her mother's skin,
postage stamps from countries no longer found on maps
and mother's name from before she was my father's wife
all leave me trembling with something not familiar

her eyes, once fierce with parental conviction and certainty
now softer in the twilight of grandchildren and widowhood
spark and stir with memories I cannot see, but begin to feel
she is still passionate beneath the dusting of years
and I know, without her saying, that there was once a boy
who went away and never returned

"please," she begs with hands out-stretched
reaching for his voice folded in the onion-skin of yesterday
i hold them out to her, the holy grail of her girlhood
tied up in the pale blue ribbon that might have once held her hair
she does not stir, untie the soft knot or unfold a page
but lifts them to her face and breathes deeply a perfume lost

she lays them in her lap and gently fold her hands over his name
her wedding rings, now loose and heavy on her slender hands
are the only story I've ever known, and yet I glimpse
behind the wistful smile in her distant eyes there is a secret
she has held so tenderly that it has survived the decades of
responsibility, devotion, and a desire to live for us

and so I sit with her and hold the space for his return
the boy who held my mother when she was but a girl
the soldier who's letters waited until she was a widow
to remind her of the dreams she'd tied in ribbons on the day
she learned he always be a boy who went to war

"when you were twenty-three..."

when you asked me to tell you
all about "when you were twenty-three"
did you think that I would not remember
the way his kisses tasted or the rise of
the road through cornfields as we
flew home with wind-tangled hair and the
promise of ripe tomatoes we'd eat like apples

did you think I could forget the scent
of baby oil and iodine rising from
sun-hot skin, or the heady perfume of
night jasmine coming through the open
windows where threadbare curtains
ebbed and flowed like waves against
the threshold of my dreaming

did you wonder if I could still feel
the ache of his leaving and the
emptiness of not knowing if he would
ever return to keep his promises of
white lace and forever under a canopy
of stars that pulsed with magic

twenty-three was James Taylor and
Carly Simon stil together and singing
of Terra Nova and the thrill of
her smiling face. It was a restored barn
on the edge of nowhere and a copper
bathtub we filled with water from the
well and heated by wood fire, it was
air that pulsed with another tomorrow

twenty-three is as alive today as
it was when a lifeguard's sweatshirt
with frayed sleeves, hung long and loose
around my insecurities and I buried my
hopes in the arms of a man who would
leave me in September for another
coast, hoping I would not drown in the
that fathomless reservoir of heartache
he left behind only to return by Christmas
and find me gone

"a threshold to the heart..."

coming through the whispered songs of secrets never told
you find a door now hidden where dark-fingered branches
lift like bridal lace from the threshold of Love's promise

come near it beckons from beyond the veil, come nearer
still to where the softest touch of kind words and
holier views crown your head with dreams and your
hopes with something brighter than the dawning of
tomorrow through the fragile fall of winter's kiss

and so you draw close to where the virgin blue of a
summer sky is painted on the canvas of your dreaming
where the scent of honeysuckle wafts from within
and the sound of swallows carve the night sky into
tomorrow's morning calm upon an endless placid lake
while smoke curls you into hibernation for just another
day of waiting

"cream of wheat mornings..."

the mornings were cold in the small cottage
at the end of the lane, just beyond the circle drive
once a carriage house for carts and sleighs and
an old Jeep from just after the last great war

it now housed this family of eight children, our
parents, two cats, and a little dog named muffin
who liked to chase squirrels and watch cardinals
out beyond the picture window under the eaves

each morning it was my job to get up first and
start breakfast. yet, as many times as I did
I could never remember the proportion of water
to cream of wheat. I'd squint at the chart on the
box and multiply cups and teaspoons until
I was sure I'd have enough to feed all ten of us.

water at a rolling boil, just the right amount of
salt in the palm of my hand, thrown in with equal
parts -- style and carelessness. 

Then the grains of finely milled wheat 
sprinkled into a cauldron of steaming, bubbling 
water as slowly and evenly as those first soft 
flakes of snow now falling beyond the bird feeder

bring back to a boil, then reduce to a simmer
stirring constantly, pour into bowls -- a little milk,
a dab of butter, and as much brown sugar
as you could get away with...ten little blue bowls
of sweet warmth to carry us all the way to
school, and through the day

the youngest still making roads and valleys 
through her mush, as mother waves from the door 
and the bus pulls away from the end of the drive
a swath of dark frozen earth that quickly disappears
beneath a blanket of fresh fallen snow in February

"winter's kiss..."

the house was cold that morning as the snow fell
wrapping saturday in a mantle of stillness
filled with an unspoken promise, we held 
our breath, and crept beyond the threshold 
tiptoeing through the silence hoping the magic 
of it all would stretch beyond the dawn

armed with books, and cups of steaming tea, 
we crawl back in between pillows and quilts, 
to steep ourselves in poetry and prayer
crossword puzzles and the breathing
of old walls beneath the soft glow of lamplight 
slipping between the folds of vintage fabrics 
my grandmother once stitched for a son's 
first year at college or a niece's wedding night 
before he went to war

i will dream in stanza's as morning  
slips into a sunless day
and all that calls me towards tomorrow 
hibernates beneath a blanket of hushed demands 
and the stunned surprise of a silence unsought 
and as dusk arrives and snow still sifts
through a darkening sky like powdered sugar 
I'll whisper a sigh of gratitude 
serenely sweet 
for winter's kiss of suspended time

"a summoning to grace..."

"come" it calls, "come home to where my
arms are open and my heart is singing just for you
a song that beckons -- fly across the night
and chase the sun to reach me long before the dawn

hear me crying out  full voice, eyes closed
there is nothing I will not do to draw you closer
no indignity I will not suffer

to bring you here before the sun arrives  

we will watch the dawn of a new year
rise from the east in shades of blue more subtle
than the sea beneath a stormy sky or the eyes
of an infant following her mother's smile

come, it calls, come to where we may sift the
stillness through outstretched fingers spread
wide with wonder as the weightless gifts of grace
dance between us and draw us closer still
come, come, come

you are being summoned to the moment 

of your awakening on the crest 

of this new day, come sit with me 

and we will fix our gaze on the horizon 

of your hopes 

 as the daystar rises in your heart

"Christmas, 1943..."

it was so bitterly cold that winter of 1943
the snow fell heavy and icicles reached so near the
ground that father rose earlier than usual each morning
just to knock them free so we would be safe as we
left for school while the sky was still dark and
you could see your breath in the air that hovered
over the frozen days of waiting for word from the front

brothers, fathers, uncles, cousins were not coming in
from the cold each night with empty lunch pails after
a long day at the factory and a short stop by the pub
they were not stomping snow off of work boots and placing
icy fingers and chafed hands on mother's hot cheeks as
she stood over a steaming pot of something warm and savory

we tried to imagine the nights they faced, the color of
darkness over paris, berlin, places with names we couldn't
even find on maps in the encyclopedia or on globes
that once delighted and now only spin as children search
for clues about a brother's whereabouts, a father's postmark

they do not know that I too wait for word from a boy i met
on the train that day not long ago when the world felt mine
and lilacs bloomed and the air was sweet with promise of
letters from the front and a soldier's smile over coffee

i check the floor beneath the mail slot and wonder each night
if a letter came but slipped beneath the edge of mother's
chair or worked its way into the cracks between floorboards
I rise from bed and tiptoe down the stairs to where
the cold breathes through window casements and under doorjambs,

but there is no envelope, no return address that I cannot find
on map or globe no postmark from a place where I can dream of going to care for him in a field hospital or red cross
tent beneath a cold starless winter sky

and so i weep and my tears pool in the folds of my bed jacket
until I fall asleep bathed in hope that a boy named billy
is dreaming I am curled beneath the mail slot
waiting for a love letter filled with tomorrow's promises -- 
a letter from far away for a girl back home

"the forest is silent today..."

the forest is silent today under the hush of
last night's storm, trees sleep long beneath heavy
quilts of pillowed white stillness and the sigh of
winter breathing through the somber steel of mid-December

i tiptoe softly not to wake the slumbering, weary from
a night of arched branches straining against the
buffeting threat of wind and sleet and what could
not be seen between the silence just before another gust

beneath my feet are the footprints of other visitors
snowshoe hare and something smaller than a bear but
larger than a door mouse leaving nothing but the brush
of tail against an untouched drift of white along
a fallen log

and then i see it in the distance a glimmer of blue
woven through the shades of gray and white like ribbon
on a virgin's sleeping gown floating softly as she
breathes a sigh of wonder just above her hope-filled dreams

it is the remnants of a sparrow's nest lingering high above
the forest floor where leaves have fallen and the sounds
of summer sleep a cradle for nestlings now wintering far
from the silence of this place where their mother's
gathered treasures catch my eye and call me deep with
the stillness of the hundred acre woods

"She gathered gifts..."

She gathered modest gifts to lay 
beside his cradled head
a sparrow for a friend
to sing a song of sweetness 
and hold gently in his hand

Along the path she rested 
when weariness engulfed
and there she lay within 
the arms of moss 
soft as her mother's breast

a branch of willow 
smooth as silk like 
fingers cool and sweet 
would someday 
weave a thornless crown 
for boyhood games 
of kings

she brought her gifts 
when morning mist 
still blanketed the moor 
and thought of 
yet another lad 
born in winter's cold

his bird, a dove, 
his moss was hay
his branch of thorns 
to come
but still a babe 
and still a mum 
and still a winter's morn

"waiting to be chosen..."

It was dusk by the time we loaded
everyone into the old Jeep  
the sleeve of dad's red and black check
lumberman's shirt draped across the
back of the seat as he eased us out of
the long driveway in the gathering twilight

The boys were sugared up on candy canes
and the little ones were sleepy
in the failing light of early December
just after dinner, but before the winter solstice

We older girls sat in the cold waiting for
the magic of the season to reach our
teenage hearts and melt the cold indolence
of being beyond what we'd always loved
and secretly never forgotten

Sitting in the middle I could see the
reflection of my sister's face in the glass
of her coveted window, steamed over with
our hushed sighs of wonder as lights
sparkled from front yards and houses
along the way

old man Johnson's farm was half way between
town and nowhere, acres of trees waiting
to be chosen, branches still peppered with
the forgotten nests of a thousand hatchlings
now grown and making their first pilgrimage
towards the warmth of places they've never been

my sister and I would carry the saw between us
as we tromped through the ice-crusted remnants
of a late november storm that left us blanketed in
the promise of sledding and snow angels,
frozen fingers and crackling fires scented with pine
cones we'd collected in the mountains that fall

i saw her first and knew
I wondered if I could quickly suggest
we look away from where she stood -- elegant and
full of something sad, ready for this last winter
under a sky full of stars and her toes in the
icy darkness of a field in the middle of nowhere --
leaving her to grow another year of nestlings in
her arms

"when words became colors..."

I was twelve that Christmas
when all I needed
was the soft sable of brushes, the scent
of linseed oil, and the sound of a palette knife
slicing along rough canvas as it layered
colors -- warm and cool -- against one another

colors with names that danced across my tongue
lying heavy and comforting as grandfather's
quilt across my heart. i spoke them with
the reverence of a novitiate during vespers

These were my silent, willing companions
cerulean, ochre, burnt sienna, umber,
prussian blue, cadmium yellow, aquamarine --
I could bring them with me wherever I was taken
a different state, a different school,
with them I was no longer the stranger,
the new girl.

i tattooed myself with their essence, wore
them like badges against the emptiness of
not knowing who I was

in them, I knew, I was an artist, a painter an odd
and quiet girl with her head in the clouds and
smudges of cobalt along her cheek

I dreamed in an artist's smock and wore
eau de Cezanne in my hair -- words
became colors, shapes, shadows of what I
could not say, and colors lived in words...

"eyes the color of the sea.."

my daddy went to sea today
i watched him from the sand and when I could
no longer see his face I closed my eyes and held
him where his smile never fades but
lives warm and kind beneath my heart.

i will stand here while the tide lifts and
falls waiting for the first sign of his sail
as it rises above the horizon from the east
his coming more wonderful than the dawn

he is the sun in my day, and in his eyes I am
skipper of the strong ship that will carry my dreams
a sound vessel, deep-keeled and open to the stars
I pilot his heart with all the mastery of a
captain's daughter

fair days, or slated skies with lowering winds
my father's arms will lift me high above
the shoals of time, and in the shelter of a place
that never changes i am safe from all that shifts
around me

I wait for him to join me on the sand where I
have built a castle for the king he is, to the princess
I will always be...in his eyes the color of the sea

"the call of light..."

it beckons me, "come look, and see...
what lives beyond the rock-ribbed safety
of your certainty."

what river swells its banks while children
splash and lovers sleep on quilts of
whimsy beneath a cloudless sky

come see what leaves are dancing in the breeze while
horse flick their tails and whinny in pastures
green with summer

is this a home or a sepulcher,
a cottage or a cage filled with beautiful
playthings and delicious treats
that keep canaries drunk and sated

but the light is calling
it calls us forth beyond the cool
cavern of self, beyond the soft echoing of
what we have always thought was enough

come out and dip your toes in muddy water,
let the ripple of a child's laughter
disturb your entombed biases get messy in
get messy in the swirl of uncertainty

let the hem of your skirt lift and dance
around your shoulders in the wind
feel the tall grass play a string of kisses
against backs of your bare knees

open the window and take your stillness into
the pasture where it can run wild with horses
and sing into the hills a song of praise
a prayer of joy...


[photo credit: Jordan Jenkins 2012]

"the silent season..."

she stands within the clearing
a silent spectre of innocent peace
listening for the rustle of dry leaves
the brittle snap of winter's breath
her flesh quivers with a question

"who goes there,"
she asks, wide-eyed and on her mark
each frosted breath that sighs from
sleeping fox or quiet dove
stirs the air with uncertainty

the forest lies quiet beneath december
a convent for the weary seeking rest
curled ferns and snowshoe hares kneel
speechless in the snowy knave of
a loamy sanctuary where birch trees
bow before the stillness of the season

"devotion's sign..."

i waited there
beneath the tree,
a child and a tender plea.
my simple prayer
"please send to me
a sign that someday I'll be free..."

and there I waited all day through
the air was still
the sky was blue
i thought a cloud might give a sign
a shifting shape
to stir my mind

but clearer skies have never been
and ne'er a message sent from there
the grass beneath my fingers then
a ladybug, a singing wind
but nothing
not a single word
fell from the sky, or rose from earth

and then I felt her
soft as grace
cooing from her hidden place
a song of love profound, sublime
her downy prayer
devotion's sign

"november's garden..".

soft as dusk she comes
to lay her mantle
along the rows of what is left when all
that once gave color has been harvested
and all that remains lies dry and brittle
waiting for the last gasp of Indian summer

a silent "job well done"
the kiss she settles on each tired brow
gathered stalks now wheat-hued
with november's chill once held full
green husks heavy with summer corn
and sweet peas climbing to reach
the sun's promise.

"shh, shh," she whispers as cool fingertips
stroke weathered branches, ancient roots
and bark as veined, smooth, and spotted
as grandmother's hands

for some this will be their last dance
beneath a harvest moon,
for others just a an intermission before
the next season of spring green taffeta
and innocent firsts

"first shoots pushing through dark soil,
first buds along a supple vine,
first burst of red sun and warm seeds"
the lullaby she sings to them
 under a blanket of frost and fog....

   

it comes unbidden...

there is something behind the facade
beneath the tangled vines of yesterday
hidden between the pedestrian shades of
who they think you are...faded, tired, a paradox

there is the peeking through of something lovely
something you've forgotten in the day-to-day demands
of all it takes to keep pace with schedules and budgets
calendars and grocery lists filled with milk and eggs

it comes unbidden when moonlight falls across
the ancient stones of holy ruins -- the rise and fall of you
a sliver of light breaking through that space where
mortar held together what now becomes a window on your soul

behind the fretwork of sophistry -- the royalty of roles
a place between the pickets where a simple shade of blue
holds the promise of resurrection, innocence, purity...

"stillness..."

there is a stillness pulling me into the silence
of a mirrored dawn, it doesn't make a
sound as it gentles the edges of what I see.
  there is a stillness that holds me,
buoys me, laps around my heart and softens all
the harsh noises of the day...

there is a stillness so placid and motionless that
when I place my hand beneath the surface I am
not sure where it stops and I begin. even movement
doesn't inform fingers, palm, wrist...hands folded
in prayer...of the boundaries where one
begins and the other ends...

there is a stillness that says "this is you..." this is
your nature, this is what you look like when you
are all I have made you to be...be still, be still,
be still...and know.

there is a stillness that is ever itself, never
the less, consistently constant in its always-ness
a conscious capacity to know...just to know...and
then to observe the ebb and flow of that knowing...

there is a stillness that calls to me...in the blue
light that pushes forward the dawn and the
lavender-edged blush of a maiden as she
pulls in the twilight... a stillness that eddies in
a pool of sunlight...stretching, spilling, splaying
promise along the banks of our living....

there is a stillness that is as weightless as
dew, as heavy as an old quilt on a late November
morning, as languid as moonlight on the
Chesapeake beneath a canopy of stars....

there is a stillness I will dive deep within
myself to find at the center of His kingdom...
the place where He reigns...still

"to gaze into the distance..."

every year there is a new spoon to ponder
the perfect balance of slender neck, heavy handle 
and weighted bowl sitting on the fulcrum
of a day when thunderclouds...black and
lowering...seep across the sky like spilled ink
and we dodge into a musty shop avoiding
a downpour we know will eventually wash red
dust off the pediments and lazy stone griffons
that hold watch over a sleepy Colorado town...

later I will stare across the space between here
and there....an endless yawn of sunflowers and
stone posts scattered through the prairie and i
will imagine our laughter, ourwhispered secrets, and
the shared dreams of a couple of little old ladies that we will
someday be.  i will balance this spoon on my forefinger
and wonder if the William Penn Hotel knew its
silverware would keep a woman company long after
the aspens have turned to gold and Independence Pass
is closed for yet another winter....

I will sip my tea and see beyond the edge of the world
to where she sits in a valley of rivers and horses and
summers filled with her company...I will gaze into the
distance and imagine a stolen afternoon, this spoon, and
the elegant grace of her friendship...it will be a good
reminder, this spoon that carries the name of an old stranger...

"bringing me home..."

"why are you taking your linens to camp with you..."
my daughters asked as we packed the car for the
long drive across kansas towards the home of our
hearts...a place tucked high up in the arkansas valley
where we lived from june until august...

sheets and pillowslips, quilts and towels stacked on
top of jeans and boots, sweatshirts and bathing suits...

how do i tell them that taking these precious few things
of home with me is as much a part of the summer as
rodeos and swim tests, barbeques and bunkhouse night..

seeing my room draped in tiny white fairy lights, over-bleached
sheets and quilts folded at the end of the bed, makes me feel
like a child coming home to her mother's house...

I open the door to this place that has sheltered my heart and
mended its ragged edges when it shattered into a million shards
of tear-stained sorrow, and it is home...

so, i bring my old sheets, the quilts I have carried back and forth
across kansas like a pioneer wife, and strings of fairy lights, and
something in me is no longer a child without an address to call
her own...

i am home...if only for a few weeks each summer....i am home...

"cabbage roses in july..."

there were roses in her garden...
pale pink roses as full and heavy as
heads of cabbage in july...

she would walk the length of its
cobbled path with a secret smile
that held memories, and promises,
and dreams that all came true....

it was as if these roses were messengers
from a place where he had gone, and
she would one day follow...

as her open hand graced the head of
each bloom with the tenderness of a
mother's hand on her infant's cheek,

her wedding rings, now loose upon her
slender fingers...gave off a sound that
reminded us of distant sleigh bells from
a time when she was a girl and horses
stood tethered to hitching posts beyond the
garden gate...

she is remembering...the scent of
cabbage roses, summer evenings full
of lace, fireflies on the lawn,
and the sound of his voice asking
her to dance....

"blueberry memories..."

she weaves through the bramble of summer and
tangled vines of sweet smellling honeysuckle
fifty years of color isolation leaps into action...she
can spot the sugar-dusted dark purple of a blueberry
from the distance of a stones throw across the pond...

the sun-warmed smoothness of their taut skin,
with its tiny tuft at one end, takes her back to
girlhood days spent in this Maine cove where summer
afternoons stretched languidly like colorful beachtowels
along a clothesline of cotton rope tied between a pair of
birch trees outside her grandparents cottage...

plucking one after another she can almost feel the
lard and flour between her fingers while her mother's
voice echoes a reminder that only the coldest water
sprinkled in..only as needed... would make a pie crust flaky
enough to honor this most beloved fruit of summer

holding a single berry, fingers stained with juice the
color of a midnight sky, her hands are the hands of
a girl  again...as taut and full of promise as the first
blueberries of summer...

"they are, still..."

a table waits...two chairs, an old pitcher filled
with daisies and the kettle boiling while scones
bake and robins feather their nests in the
apple tree by the back gate...

she will arrive in the cloud of summer dust that
rises from the long drive leading to the farmhouse
where her memories of childhood stand sentry
like the talk stalks of sweet corn that line the
gravel lane...

she will know she is home by the slap of the
screen door, the whirr of a table fan, the feel
of warped porch steps beneath her bare feet,
the scent of her mother's perfume...her father's
voice as he rounds the barn to greet her...arms
open wide...

her mother will wait just inside the frame of
the back door...her tears too private and her
feelings too new...this daughter is not a little
girl who will rush into her arms...she trembles
with joy, and something un-named....a shyness in
the dawn of this new relationship...

that is until the woman-child crosses the lawn
and buries her tear-stained face in her mother's
hair and for a moment...they are, still...

"horse love..."

where are you looking from where you
stand with the sun on your flanks and
the fingers of your beloved woven through
your mane...

is there a place beyond the horizon that
calls to you, or do you just love the way
the pasture dips and rises to meet the sky

what is in the wind...

is there a scent inviting you to dance
along a distant ridge, to prance and leap,
to forge streams and soar over fallen
lodgepole pines scattered below an
avalanche chute

is there a girl with flazen hair that
urges you to fly...and remember days of
meadows filled with wildflowers...

what do you see beyond....

"notes in the margins..."

coming in from the shimmering heat of a
dusty summer day...the sidewalk hot enough
to fry an egg or penetrate the soles of our
sandals...we enter a world of dim memories
and the cool dry scent of old quilts and floral
tablecloths in shades of aqua, red and butter
yellow...

our voices lower as we call to one another from
corners filled with someone else's treasures...
sterling soup spoons with generous bowls,
wedding photos of nameless brides and grooms
that make us weep, and wonder: didn't anyone
care enough to save them, or at least write their
names on the back...

then I see it, a battered vintage copy of Julia
Child's "The Art of French Cooking," duct tape
holding its bindings together like something
used again, and again...and cherished long...

I tenderly lift the battered front cover,
and there, on the first page,  is this note:

December 25, 1981

Dear Mom -
I hope you enjoy this cookbook as much as
I enjoy your cooking...and contrary to
popular belief -- I do enjoy your cooking.

I hope you'll "share" some recipes with just
us -- your family.  And in years to come, I
hope that you'll share them with my family.

Thank you for always giving the best, and
trying your hardest to please all of us.

I love you mom,

katie
oooo
xxxx

I clutched it to my heart and shed a silent tear for
"mom" and "katie"...where are they now?  why
did anyone let this treasure, with its
vanilla-stained and flour-dusted  pages
filled with comments and notes, out of
their lives...

it is a question I can't stop asking, as I think
of all the cookbooks I have written little notes
in, for my girls..."I baked this cake for the twins'
fifth birthday party...delicious...added an extra
1/4 cup of chocolate powder...frosted it with
butter cream (recipe on page 44) "

"her fingers in the soil..."

she loves to sink her fingers into sun-warmed
rich brown soil...there is something so satisfying
about filling a window box, clear patch of sunlight,
or clay pot, first with something borrowed for drainage
small rocks, or broken shells, or even
the porcupine sweet gum seeds that seem so
pointedly useless when scattered across lawns and
driveways like something that will give birth to
an alien species...

then layers of soil and composted shards of egg shell
and tea leaves...a perfect environment for the tender
seedlings she will carefully nest in holes just deep
enough and wide to welcome young roots...then
ever so gently she tucks them in...pressing the deep
brown quilts and covers, firmly around their shoulders...

water rains like a soft lullaby coaxing them to rest and
grow...grow tall and prosper...grow full and fragrant with
a perfume so perfect it makes men weep...grow thick and
rich with color...gentian blues and the delicate petal pink
of a poppy, the chromium yellow of buttercups and the
lacquer red of a chinese treasure chest...

grow she sings as she kneels before them like a mother
by the side of her child's bed...reach for the sun, and
dig your toes deep in the soil...and grow...

"small pillows from sackcloth..."

my sister made small pillows from the
empty grain sacks our father left just
outside the barn on saturday mornings

she would sit with her feet dangling out
the hayloft door high above the world below...
cutting and stitching squares of rough cloth
the size of a gentleman's handkerchief

we'd find them tucked beneath the head of
a whelping setter, or lined up along the back
of a porchswing, sitting on a doll's cradle
or clutched in the arms of a weeping child

filled with rosemary, dried alfalfa, sprigs of
lavender, or "borrowed" handfulls of
seed from the songbird feeders by the summer
porch...my sister's pillows, the final seam closed
with her long, running stitches of pale pink
thread...were the perfect spot for weaving 
daydreams, watching clouds,  and hearing angels.... 

"watching her dream..."

from the time she was little her dreams
were mine...a dollhouse, a horse, her school
of choice, the dress she imagined...
diaphanous, white, simple and pure...
her dress...

we've walked and talked and window
shopped, always lingering in front of windows
filled with tulle and nothing more...no
sequins or beading, rhinestones or pearls
just acres of ephemera...a billowing cloud of
white on white...

she was the one who slowed her steps,
paused and sighed...I was the one who held
my breath...this was, is, always has been
her dream...dreams that shift and morph and
evolve...as she does...

.walking with her, pausing,
watching her, has always been mine...

"pale cousin..."

ahh, ranunculus, pale cousin of the vibrant
buttercup...you unfold yourself in delicate
layers, papery petals so barely there and
yet so breath-takingly present in your shyness...

such a brief spring and you are gone from
field and garden while your bold relative
languishes in open field and windswept
meadows full of hay and alfalfa drying in
the summer sun...

to capture you when you are neither young
nor old, but mindless of the dawning day or
setting sun, is to know the breath of morning
and feel the cool touch of dew upon the grass

wrap your stems in wide satin ribbon and
you are an honored guest at the wedding
an offering in the quaking hand of a bride,
the something that is both old and new...

your gentle beauty is the blush on a maiden's
cheeks, the first light beyond the dawn, the
rustle of taffeta, the song of a lark, the
whisper of toe shoes....the sound of a kiss....

"the years dropped away..."

It was 1952 she told me as she twirled the heavy
gold signet ring on her right hand...Budd Mitchell
was the President of his fraternity and he asked
me to the spring formal....as a freshman, i'd never been to
a fraternity dance and I didn't know any of the other
boys' girls, but i wanted to go anyway....

the years dropped away, her shoulders lifted, her
soft blue eyes brightened and twinkled with mischief
then she straightened her back a bit before she went on...

i didn't love him, but he was kind and strong and i
knew i would be safe...and then, i did love him
but that's another story...she blushes...

i was walking along lake street after working one saturday at
the bakery and i saw it.  it reminded me of the pale pink
frosting I'd been whipping, earlier in the day, for a baby
shower cake...and I knew it was the one.  a small bell tinkled
as i entered the shoppe and an older woman with straight pins
between her lips came into the room from behind a curtain

may i help you find something....no, i said, that is the one...and
i pointed to the dress in the window....it took her seamstress
magic to make it fit, and four paychecks to pay for it, but it was
it...i was...and now she blushed the same faded pink of the dress...
beautiful...yes, i know you may not be able to image it now, but
i was beautiful....

he said so...

"linens for her visit..."

but why would you give her these old things
my daughter asks me, as I lay the linens on
the chair beside the bed in the guest room...

why not the new sheets with two-tone stripes
in shades of cream, or the blue ones with
cabbage roses...you love those, don't you? 

yes, i love them...for you...but this is my friend
and like me, she loves the feel of time-softened
white cotton bearing the monogram of a long
forgotten bride, and pillow slips as delicate
as the cheek of a babe...

okay then, but at least give her the new down
comforter, it's filled with soft feathers, as light
as Colorado snow, and the chenille throw...
the color of the sea on a stormy march day
somewhere along the coast of Maine...

no, i will give her what I know she loves...a patchwork
quilt in the colors of yesterday...frayed in all the right
places and singing a story of favorite dresses saved for
patching, tea towels long-loved, and the remnants of
a baby's blanket oft-repaired and now a memory...

these are the linens she will love to smooth across
her lap as we sit, like girls, on her bed long after
you have gone to sleep, and the house is sighing...
these are the linens we will make up stories about
as we drink our tea, and fend off weariness and sleep,
because we don't want the day to end....

"a prairie wedding..."

dear annie....your father and i are well
and think of you hourly.  it is hard for us
to imagine the adventure you have been on
or the man you will find at the end of that
journey, but we pray for your safety and
happiness each and every moment.

to cross the unknown and begin your
life as the wife of a man you have never
seen is very brave and we hope your courage
is wisely vested.  reports of indian raids
and prairie winds return in letters from
those who have gone before you and write
to their parents...

since you were not able to take your wedding
dress, or your trousseau with you, I have sent
along this piece of the veil I've been tatting
since you were a girl.  I hope it makes you feel
special and that you will know that each stitch
was made with a mother's love.

please write and let us know that you are well
and that the conditions are not so harsh that
you cannot bear them...my friend Emma's
daughter wrote that she has a canary to keep
her company when her man is gone, and to
break the silence of the prairie when there
is no wind...

we love you...mother and father

"a core beauty within..."

she was such a tiny thing, all dark eyes and
hair like a papoose...black and straight....longer
than all the other babies I'd ever seen with
wispy blonde curls, or none at all...

she was so quiet, almost as quiet as a forest
creature, and she was mine...or so I thought...

she came home wrapped in a blue and
pink-striped flannel blanket and her first bed
was the box from our parents' new vacumn
cleaner...a Hoover...and the box was strong and
lined with a blush-colored satin pillowslip...in
it she was the most life-like baby doll I'd ever
seen...and she was mine..or so I thought...

at four, all things were mine...and this was the most
beautiful, delicate, mysteriously quiet gift my
mother had ever given me.  I wanted to hold her
all day and stroke her soft black tufts of silky hair
that lay across her pale alabaster forehead and above
her ebony eyes...

as she grew, it became clear that her delicacy and
quiet loveliness radiated from a core beauty within, and
behind her eyes, there was wisdom...and strength...
the strength to find her own path, defend her own
dreams, forge her own bonds of love, and soar on
the thermals of her own living...

today she is a mother herself....and she is lovely,
she is strong, patient, wise....and she is my sister...
as I always knew...

"her perfect shade of home..."

her kitchen was simple, filled with
simple things...ironware, jelly glasses
silver spoons, and red-striped linen
dish towels she draped over the
handle of the oven door and tucked
into the waistband of her apron...

rushing in from the car on our visits
to her home in the country, I would
bury my face in the scent of rising
yeast and cinnammon dust she'd used
her towel to wipe from the soapstone
counters where she kneaded loaves of
crusty bread we'd have with soup for
dinner...

long after she left the farmhouse for a
room where she could only bring a
few photos and her favortie quilt, I
found a cache of red-striped dish
towels at a flea market one summer day
and knew they were the perfect shade
of  home to match the memories
in her heart...and mine...

"midwest summer dreaming..."

it is a warm day in June and they are boys
boys without a mission, but with energy to spare
kansas boys, nebraska boys, boys who are as
familiar with seasons of growth and harvest as
others know goal posts from basketball hoops

they walk, run, mander three abreast
through fields of yellow grain and cornstalks as
tall as an elephants eye, and the talk of tractors
and girls and the price of sorghum

they dive naked into a watering hole surrounded
by cattle they have raised, and horses who's bodies...
strong flanks, long necks, silky manes....
are as familiar to the touch as their own....

the old door to the barn promises shade for dreaming,
and straw for napping before the evening chores give way to
clean shirts, sun-washed hair, and the
promise of  junebugs fluttering like angels over
their teenage dreams of a young girl's second glance,
outside  the tasty freeze on an oklahoma friday night....

"thy faith..."

he was waiting by the side of the highway,
just beyond Jericho's holy gates, that foolish
Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus...blind and
foolish, begging...always begging....what will
the master think?  a blind beggar his last
memory of our sacred walls...

Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on me...

"mercy," what is he thinking, he has gone too
far.  the Rabbi does not know his sins, or his
parents', that he can judge his failings and
mete out mercy...what insanity, what boldness...

i know what i know...that this is a beggar, that is
what I know...a beggar who bothers our visitors
and annoys our noble men...day after day he
sits on that bench, and asks for more...always more...
what mercy does he deserve...

but wait, he stops...the master stops, and calls him
to come to him...will his rebuke be fierce, will he
finally tell him to stop his begging....it is such an
embarassment to his family...a good family,
I know them well, they don't desrve this...

oh no... now, he is taking off his clothes and
running naked towards the teacher...

"what do you want me to do," the master asks with
such love in his eyes...that it takes my breath away...
"that I might receive my sight," he answers with
a heart full of hope and expectation and dignity...
standing naked...he has honor...and faith...oh, what faith...

and it is this faith, that the master sees beyond my
blindness,  it is this faith that opens my own eyes to the
blindness of my heart...it radiates from Bartimaeus
like the sun...he is whole...he is His...and he leaves
it all behind him...the blindness, the begging, the
darkness...and follows his faith...and opens my eyes
to the greatest light of all...

"to dream of transoms..."

i come from a long line of architects
a grandfather who saw the devastation of
north africa as a waiting canvas, a beautiful
jigsaw puzzle he would put together from
the broken pieces of minerets, and shards
of stained glass that lay in ruins on the
western front...

i grew up with an uncle who collected stories
of taliesen and falling waters, like an
architectural anthropologist...photographs
and artifacts from prairie style houses
that told the story of craftsmen and simplicity
and a man named frank lloyd wright
a mentor he would name his son after....

i grew up fed on their dreams of transom windows
and coffered ceilings made of quarter-sawn
oak, Stickley chairs and leaded glass in
geometric shapes so pure that to see
light pour through them...felt like a
prayer

i come from a long line of architects...who
dream of light and angles, the modest turn of
a spindled balustrade and a time-burnished
newel post carved by artisans, simple cornices
and crown molding,...the sound of
falling water over slate and stone...the way
sun turns wood to gold...

"perfect light..."

the light is perfect, she says to herself as
she gazes longingly toward the chair in the
corner...her favorite corner of the room
nearest the garden, where mourning doves
coo and the scent of jasmine floats through
an open window...

this is the time of day when there is nothing
but the stillness of this room, and the slow
music of a small mantle clock tapping out the
minutes without her...

and then there is the book of cummings she left
turned over on the table in a pool of sunlight,
filtered by curtains that billow inward with
each breath of midsummer, calling her to savour
one more verse, just another stanza, a sonnet
to feed her heart in this time of hunger

but there are dishes to rinse, and babies
waking from their naps, a quiche to start and
one more section of the garden that needs to
be weeded or they won't have basil when
the tomatoes ripen later in the season...

but the light is perfect and just one verse
will tend the fire of beauty that smolders
in her heart...."i carry your heart with me,
i carry it in my heart..." sated she returns
and rolls out a perfect crust for dinner...

"we agreed on this..."

we didn't always agree, she and I,
she wanted him to date others, I wanted
him to love me, and me alone.  she wanted
him to travel, I wanted him to stay nearby
and let me be his world.  She wanted him
to spread his wings, I wanted him to use
them to shelter me from all that frightened
me and made me feel vulnerable...

we were young, so much younger than we
knew at the time.  younger than springtime
in a lifetime measured by a year.  we were
moony-eyed optimists in frayed bell-bottoms
and sandals, with flowers in our hair...ideals
as gauzy as the peasant shirt she helped me
embroider with daisies, and peace signs and
the word "imagine" up one sleeve..

but we agreed on this...he was smart and good
and deserved to be loved, that raspberries
should be eaten warm from the vine, that
children were our future, and that nothing
beat a perfect baking soda biscuit as the foundation
for strawberry shortcake in early June....

she was feisty, and strong-hearted, and
never gave up...or in...she taught me how to
cut shortening into flour, sprinkle ice
water onto the pea-sized bits, and to
mix it altogether without toughening the dough
by too much handling...i think of her whenever
I bake biscuits and watch the juice from
fresh strawberries infuse a perfect shortcake
with summer...and wonder if she ever knew
how much i longed for her approval...
and acceptance...

"his feet in the sand..."

when he was just a little boy
my brother didn't like to have his
feet in the hot, dry sand of summer,
he would tiptoe across the beach like
a tiny sea cricket until he reached the
cool wet sand at the water's edge...

and then,
he would let the foamy, brackish surf
curl around his ankles and wash under
his toes and through his arches while
he steadied himself against the push and
pull of the the sea's ebb and flow...

gaze transfixed on the horzon, where
water blended into sky and light...he would
dig his toes in deeper and deeper until
the sand reached above his ankles and the
cold seawater splashed against his calves...

he was not a boy who ran in and out of the
waves, he did not build tall castles out of
sand, or bury his sister in a deep hole until
she wriggled herself free from the softly
smoothed hills and valleys above her small
frame that cracked like a sandy chrysalis...
he knew it could not hold the butterfy
she would become...

but my brother focused steadfastly on the horizon
with his feet in the sand, and his eye on the
edge of the sea, watching for the tallship
with brass fittings, teak decks,
and salt-bleached sheets that snapped in
the wind...  waiting patiently for the
life purpose, the dreams, he would sail one day...

"a painter in scent..."

a hint of tuberose and vanilla, with just
a touch of jasmine....his words more
fragrant than the scent upon my skin...

there is a top note of orange blossoms,
and then, he sighs, it deepens into
something full  of warm nights and
amber...Morroco, I think...mmm, not
that heavy, more like Savanna in June

listening to him describe fragrance
is like visiting a spa...warm word stones,
evocative scent-supported similes,
musky metaphors, large heady bouquets
of lilies and bowls of lavender beside
the bed....

close your eyes, he says, let the scent
unfold to you like scenes from an opera
and he is right, I take in puccini, and
exhale verdi...ahhh, I think, to breathe
the rare colors of venice on a summer's nightBlogThis!