maintaining joy

I heard a wise woman say "Maintain Joy."

So, however many days I read the newspaper
real news not fake news
meeting intelligence, 
meeting idiocy,
meeting greed,

I maintain joy.



However many days I feel despair 
about our humanity and its relationship to water and the water protectors,
about our humanity and its lack of responsibility,
about greed in the corporate world visibly merging with our very own US president, 
((my president, not my leader))


I maintain joy.

However many times in a day my mind wanders to compare
this to that
then to now
now to then
her to him
me to her
me to him
me to them,


I maintain joy.


I have retrieved the golden ball
from inside the murk of my deep.
As I integrate this golden sphere into myself
I breathe through the dark
I see through the dark,

Maintaining joy.

where we sit

Writing

To express feeling

To celebrate that I am able to feel.

To let myself live in this natural way.

The human life is astonishing to witness.

Loving

To express feeling

To celebrate to feel so much love

For this one man and for so much of everything else.

I let myself live this love in a most natural way.

Listening

Oh, the birds in the morning

Singing through the light filled leaves.

Day after day

They do what is most natural, 

without witnessing.

Cooking

Oh, the beauty of that soup

summer green.

A touch of pesto

In a vegetable broth

whole new onions

basmati

and young zucchini.

I imagined I was sitting in a local restaurant in Italy.

He confirmed that where we sat certainly was not Italy,

it was in fact, our backyard.

We sit together

And it is astonishing

That we are what we want.

spring cleaning

I see all that has come my way, all the things, caught here in a tide pool, full of memories.

Given the chance to appreciate one thing, I can let go of more.

the touch of communion

I sit in the morning 

with the quiet and my man,

stirring into a new day.

Light streams on to the trees

Filling the shadows with warmth.

Birds breakfast on night’s silence.

The touch of communion is in the air.

The fast has been broken.

putting it in words

when my own words

- read a day
or days
later -

give me chills
i have to take note,
receive this response
and keep writing.

there is a particular listening quality in those whom i write to.
they are most often women
sometimes they are men who have listened to the mystery
and recognize the cadence,
the fragrance,
the hum.

i don't write for them,
that would be presumptuous.
i write for myself
to hear what is down there deep in the silence of this human heart.

oh,
what the heart holds....

we are all listening for it.
this i am sure of today.

we are listening for the heart to have its say.

mary oliver

to pay attention 

is our endless

and proper work.

mary oliver