“Even a wounded world is feeding us. Even a wounded world holds us, giving us moments of wonder and joy. I choose joy over despair. Not because I have my head in the sand, but because joy is what the earth gives me daily and I must return the gift.” (1)

Robin Wall Kimmerer

Shortly after the fall equinox, on the last day of September, I took myself for a walk in the woods — a two-mile loop around a small lake named “Heart” that I return to regularly and have grown to love. I meandered along the trail, taking…

“To dream of the universe is to know that we are small and brief as insects, born in a flash of rain and gone a moment later. We are delicate and our world is fragile.”

~Linda Hogan

In June of 2019, I went with my family to New York City. (Remember when we could travel to other cities and visit museums?) While there, I spent a couple of hours in the American Museum of Natural History and found myself lingering in the Hall of Biodiversity which presents the abundance of life on earth and the factors that threaten it. …

When You Cannot See the Horizon

1. Wake up in full darkness. Do not turn on a light, let your eyes adjust, and trust. Pull on woolly socks and a warm sweatshirt for the predawn chill. A blanket might be a nice addition.

2. Make your coffee in the dark. You know the way and it is worth it. You will be glad of the warmth of the mug held in your hands, or pressed gently against your cheek and forehead, and the roasty fragrance as you awaken.

3. Go out to the porch and sit in your chair with…

A poetic portrait of my city

I.
Green is rising up
wherever you rest your eyes.
Maple saplings wave
from yawning windows,
the shattered glass now long buried,
sparkling hints in the dirt,
on the dark, cracked pavement.

A poem for Thelma, 1933–2013*

I.
A visitor, found in the sun
early on the morning
after the day you would have turned 82
— a Polyphemus moth,
gently resting torn wings
on the front lawn.

Its wings were burnished tan,
each soft quadrant held a bright porthole,
darkly bounded by graded colors
like a western horizon,
well after sunset, over great waters.

Four small windows
of fine transparent membrane
revealed dewy grass
in four unique perspectives,
all the lit greens
and varied geometry.

The night before,
your son and I had gone
to hear a talk offered
by a very real…

A true story

The title of this story is a little misleading, but it is literally true. This is a real story. There is a cemetery called, “Mouth” in the woods behind my friend’s house near the coast of Lake Michigan.

The Mouth Cemetery is a very old graveyard in terms of Michigan colonizer history. The oldest marked grave is dated 1851, but evidence has been found of several much older, unmarked graves. It is likely that the location had been used for a very long time to bury the dead, before white settlers established a shipping port and town.

In my spot on this round earth, our sun, poised to head south, balanced its illusory stillness at 11:32 pm, in darkness, amidst powerful storms, which had gathered all evening, unleashed their fury at nearly that moment of stasis.

Storms coalesced, raged, spent their wrath. We cranked the windows closed, rocked through the shortest night with several thundered awakenings: short night, short sleeps.

Early morning, cusp of dawn, tired but grateful for wakefulness at that very moment when rain quieted and stopped for birdsong crescendo outside my study window: melodies rich, dynamic, sweeter than usual, a few jubilant solo voices…

A poem of opening to love

I shroud in thick wool,
even as I yearn
to be shorn

when love encircles,
brightens the attenuated places,
a translucence, and I am touched

born out again . . .
a gradual unfurling
from woolly sheath,

and shame’s heavy robe,
slowly falls away, dispelled,
as I am seen, found.

You don’t leave,
though I muffle,
curl in cloudy wrappings,

I fear I am left;
and there you are, warm,
gathering, ground

and a brightness,
deep within, rises
to meet a shining world.

Thank you,
Thank you,
Thank full.

Many of us fear abandonment…