Stars

I have one last wish for the day.

As the sun diminishes

into the vast unknown.

I wish for stars

tonight,

When the world begins again.

When I promise compassion.

Despite everything I gave

and everything I could not give.

When I know the beauty

of looking forward and backward

at the same time.

When I see what has remained

and I love it anyway.

All I need is something small.

A tiny glimmer,

Something way up high

that will lead me

where I cannot see.

Yes, I wish for stars

tonight,

When the world begins again.

Week 46. Faith.

During the last week of year I always feel like I’m looking forward and backward at the same time. I’m contemplating what I achieved through out the year and at the same time I’m reaching ahead for what I can take on, for challenges and for ways to grow. I await the New Year with promise even though there is so much unknown. I define Faith as our ability to allow ourselves to accept what that which we can't see. So I guess that’s what I wish for next year, to continue to discover small lessons of faith each day. I figure if nature can makes sense of this complex world so can I.

Christmas

Christmas is not far off in the distance.

I can see it.

In the houses illuminated with lights.

Outlining every bit

of their existence.

In the evergreen.

Standing tall yet swaying,

when the snow weighs upon it’s branches.

In the cardinals.

As they magically appear,

and then are gone again.

In belief.

Belief that what can not be seen

is greater than anything that can.

Week 45. Symbols of hope.

This Christmas I got to thinking about symbols, but not the images we normally associate with Christmas, the symbols you can’t see. The things that remind me of what I feel inside during this season. One word that comes to mind is “hope”. Hope is believing that there will always be lightness somewhere, even in the darkest of times. Hope is seeing the beauty in small everyday things. Hope is like a tiny little gift. Not the kind we plan for on December 25^th but the kind that shows up when you least expect it. Just when you think you’re too tired to keep looking for it, somehow, it’s there, right where you left it.

Frozen earth

I step out into December this morning

and the frozen puddles crack like shards of glass.

Frost blurs.

Sounds reverberate.

Dirt hardens to rock.

Branches snap.

It all echoes loudly.

As the wind whips through,

the edges of nature brace themselves for a long hard winter.

Then something shifts.

Something small.

The wind blows east

ever so slightly.

And for a brief moment,

There is a kind of clarity

that may just be enough.

Week 44. Refuge moments.

Some weeks I find myself focusing more on where I want to be rather than where I am. The past few days I have been questioning this, wondering why must I always do this. Why must I torture myself like that? Then there is a rare day when I can see what I have. I can slow it down just enough to stop this cycle. On those days, I’m not so overwhelmed by it all. I take a snapshot in my mind because these moments seem so few and far between. At this time of year, when we are faced with the harsh cold, I feel as though I am looking for a warm places to settle into, a kind of refuge. A moment where I don’t have to fight the elements and I can just be.

Brown leaves

Brown has come.

In the piles of leaves that crumble beneath my feet,

as I walk up stone paths with you.

So much is here, as the sun sets on us.

So much proof that you are here too.

As we walk through the park at dusk,

I pick through all the fallen leaves.

Somewhere among all this I know there is color,

even in the dark.

Somehow you have fought the winter,

even before the first frost has arrived.

Week 43. The Witness

My brother and I went walking through a park in the early evening, when the sun had just set. I could see that the leaves had all turned brown but I was still trying to find some colors in the piles on the ground. That evening I was amazed at how much stronger my brother seemed. He had finished his last round of radiation treatment days earlier and seeing him still so vibrant and inspired comforted me. Slowly he was finding his passion for life again. Even in his frail state we talked like we always had before, about new ideas and funny things we had noticed about people. This was a new life I was seeing immerge and I felt as though I was a witness to a miraculous event.