Three thoughts

I'm a weird bird with no pretty plumage

and hard to love

But you do. 

And every time you say I love you

I'm surprised anew.

Why is it so hard to believe

We are loved?

In my believing moments

I want to tell my children

God is like a mother.

Because love I have learned.

Love surpasses.

But I am a child

with fears inside,

and many moments

when I hide.

The heart is small,

with achy bits,

but the heart has power

that goes beyond

the fear and pain,

and always returns

to Love again.

What's the point in walking around

Keeping in shape

Taking care of myself 

-I'll do it for the ones I love!

But you will lose them

-I'll never forget how I loved them!

But you may grow old and forget.

-But this one thing will be true forever:

I LOVED I LOVED I LOVED

I am confused

But it's holy confusion

Because I am trying to find in it God.

I see that letting go

may send me spinning but

That's where the leading has led.

If I say I can't say

If I know I can't know more
Than a child who knew mother,

A mother who loved children more

Than the deepest sea farthest world highest of mountains?

I cling to the hope of love,

Let go of me.

Old Woman's Thoughts on Valentine's Day

To my ex young man,

Young lover from the past

When we were smiles

And our hearts beat fast

From what we felt:

Now we're slowing down

And it's stairs make us pant

More than sexy nightgown.

What I want to say,

It's what it always was:

Only, the decades passing

Multiply the buzz;

Though mirrors surprise

Us with aging parts,

The years touched, but increased

The love that fills out hearts.

Look AT the clouds

Look AT the treetops

Look AT the snow covered broad flat fields

And see the beauty, constant, unnoticed

As you pass on your spinning wheels.

The world is here with signs and wonders.
Look AT it, see how looking feels.

Manitoba Winter Love

My dear friend winter comes to me and says woooo woooo woooo.

Calm down I say with a welcoming smile, putting poplar firewood on.

But winter moans and mopes all around my house; I calmly sit and read.

I know she'll stay for a while, and that's cool, I'm used to her restless ways.

I love her voice as she sings all night when the stars are crisp and clear,

And I put on more wood and listen to her; woooo woooo in a long lament.

Then comes a night when she shakes my door with her fury, and the windows rattle.

But I, I don't take it personally, just enjoy her passionate storming,

And know that soon I will miss her and wish I had listened more when she sang.

If it wasn't for flash

Of sun on wing feather

I wouldn't have seen that bird.

I wouldn't have thought

It even existed;

Not a sound to be heard.

The snowy woods round me,

So silent and white,

Seem empty. I walk alone.

How many birds

Wing silently past

Unseen by the seeker, unknown.

Early January

Snow

Christmas is about death

and how we want it gone.

Christmas is about beautiful things

we want, and hold to ourselves,

and then we pass them on.

Christmas is about sparkle and warmth

and a whispery wing of a dove;

Christmas is meeting with God

and to our surprise, God is love.

Three Thoughts One Day

My prison is in a city of the living.

I was sentenced to life.

Everyone else is on the outside.

People I know go on and live lives,

have children who thrive,

and marry and achieve.

Even my family come home with their love

and I step outside my secret cell,

to greet like a free woman and smile.

When they return to their homes,

my house returns to silence;

I step back behind bars.

There.

I hugged everybody I could.

And I hugged 'em good.

A mother can do that; a mother should.

My mother died when I was a child

so I didn't learn hugging from her.

And didn't know hugs were something I wanted

to give, so I used to demur.

Now older and wiser I don't hold back

from hugging if I feel the call.

My grandmotherly wish extends to the world,

and I say, "God hug us all."

******

I awoke one morning in Christmas week with such a yearning to be alone with God, my God, my protector and cherisher and sanctuary. Away from my life, alone with just God and silence. To be held, and to hold to, the First Cause and Final Rest which is surely (though I am not always sure) Love.

Was it just another escapist symptom of grief and depression? Maybe. But still, it gifted me with hope. Maybe some day or some how this union or reconciliation with the Loving Father, or the Great Mother, will be realized. Don't we all have the primal urge or instinct for protection of ourselves, for security in some final and lasting sense? Or even better, the ultimate dream, where not only do we escape our failures and losses, but they are actually resolved and restored? What a thought, and so full of hope that my failing self can hardly hold on to it. An occasional fleeting grasp is all I can expect.

Waiting For Advent

Speak gently to my wounded broken heart;

On my crushed spirit lay your healing balm.

There is in me a wailing wind of storm

That only gentle hands divine can calm.

This constant pain, this weariness always,

Need something more than this world can provide.

I yearn for rest, for peace from troubled thoughts,

Some sanctuary for my soul to hide.

Or as I walk along my life's set road,

Some sign at least that there will be a time

When pain will end, when wrongs will be made right,

Though this life be a constant labouring climb.

Speak gently, say you will gather all our tears

And heal and heal life's broken weeping years.

Solidarity in the Dying Days

The Samaritan, when he kneeled in assistance to the wounded and suffering victim of a violent assault, could reasonably have had a moment (or more) of thought: by stopping to help, he might be in danger from the attacker, the enemy. By compassionately showing concern for the victim, he was in effect placing himself in an oppositional position to the attacker. He was taking sides. And when we take sides we take a risk that the side we oppose may strike us. There may be a cost.

By helping those in need, we oppose suffering. By standing by those who are dying, we oppose death.

I cannot win

But I will not sit back down.