Because Winter is Finally Over

Photo by S. Auberle

Because winter is finally over and because we came upon these marsh marigolds and just because we all miss you:  

"Joy in the work completed.  Another expression in the termination of a winter's obsession with words and stories.  To say, to speak to the new green life in fields, the tiniest of leaves upon the earth, the hawks wheeling, kettling overhead in this ending of a story, in this way too am I new as the marsh marigold, as certain as its place and time, as real/unreal as its color on the water."  ~Norbert Blei

SWEPT AWAY

Photo by S. Auberle

I don't know what sweeping has to do with grieving--maybe because dirt is something we can control--rather than this black-winged death-angel who has visited today.  And so this morning  I sweep and sweep again.  Sand and hair and the faded shells of ladybug bodies gather obediently beneath my broom, to be put in their proper place--the trash-- instead of in my life where they are gritty beneath my feet and sad. 

Making soup is good too, for the upcoming rainy days.  I gather onions and peppers, corn, black beans, some broth and herbs, throw it in the pot as clouds gather, then pass.  The good smell says comfort, says home, say's everything's gonna be allright. 

I don't believe it.

While the soup simmers, I sit in brief sunshine, among orioles and rose-breasted birds, dazzling in their fancy nuptial plumage.  For a while the clouds are parting, rain is holding off another hour or day.  The world is bright, shining with spring.  How could anyone leave on such a day as this?  How could anyone make us leave?  Why why must we too soon?

A flock of pelicans wheels above, ahead of a thick bank of clouds.  The birds' wings glow with an unearthly light and the shadows of them fall on one daffodil blooming at the edge of the pines. 

From my porch chair I spot old winter dirt and, as rain begins, pick up my broom once more…

RIP:  Michael Marshall ~1941-2014

A POEM JUST HAPPENED BY

photo by S. Auberle

There's a blaze of light in every word

it doesn't matter which you heard

the holy or the broken Hallelujah…

                 ~  Leonard Cohen

on this still leafless

May morning

boy on a bike

riding down the road

no hands     Hallelujah

blazing forth

his voice fracturing

like first brave

blossom shattering

it's heart seed

to break through

toward morning light

MAYDAY

Digitalized photo by S. Auberle

"It is necessary for me to see the first point of light that begins to be dawn.  It is necessary to be present alone at the resurrection of Day in solemn silence at which the sun appears, for at this moment all the affairs of cities, of governments, of war departments, are seen to be the bickering of mice.  I receive from the eastern woods, the tall oaks, the one word DAY.  It is never the same.  It is always in a totally new language.   
 ~  Thomas Merton