Childhood Still Life Gravel crunches under foot, with cotton, corn, and tombstones all tended in rows. The sharp-sweet smell of pine resin dripping down the trunks of trees like sweat in the hot sun. I press the thick golden sap, leaving small fingerprints on distant generations’ gems. Windchimes sing across the yard as a Summer... Continue Reading →

CarnelianI hold the stone in my hand,solid and smooth and old as time,pale red, the color of faded bloodand rust, the swirl of cream in coffee,formed of fire and waterand a precipitation of chalcedony–or so the books say–tinged with a kiss of iron.When I squeeze it hard enoughI can see my own bonesand sinew beneath... Continue Reading →

A Blessing for the Turning: A poem for the Equinox This morning I walked, whispering prayers for awareness, gathering the remaining flowers on the cusp of the Equinox. This is what I began to hear: Your roots now stretching deep below in earth embraced by longer night, as leaves release and now let go and... Continue Reading →

We have not lost our soul It is just that our hands are full, and we needed to set something down to hold all we felt we needed to hold. We made a choice as to what we would worship, and our knees have bent to the idols we thought would satisfy our yearning. Our... Continue Reading →

A darkness more beautiful In the deepest room of my heart you live, unknown and untouched by my mind’s brittle grip. There is freedom in that space of sweet darkness, where my soul blooms in silence and waits for the slightest touch of your breath. Yes, within my heart there is a great sea, stretching... Continue Reading →

In the dream, I am in a house of some kind, near an open doorway whose threshold is made of red brick. An old man comes from the outside and places a pile of mixed feathers on the threshold and walks away. I run over and kneel next to them. My first impulse is to... Continue Reading →

I know this comes on the heels of yesterday’s piece on the Transfiguration, but these images came in—especially after Brandon sent me a playlist with songs that all orbited the image of fire. He, Meg McPeek, and I all share reflections about what makes us us, so to speak, with my life being full of... Continue Reading →

What the soul isOne day I set outto find my soul,to hold it in my handsand gently touch itto the soft hollowof my cheek.I opened every bookin my mind, shaking the pagesand searching every traceof long-forgotten ideas.I looked through each glass orbof memory, straining to findsome mark my soul had left,a bent twig on a... Continue Reading →

The wound and the chalice Last night I dreamed there was a wound on my left leg that would not heal. It lay open for me to see it. I looked closely and reached within it with three fingers pulling out a cup, a chalice made out of something like alabaster. It glowed in the... Continue Reading →