If life gives you chard, potatoes, onions, fresh sausage and eggs, and a few cherry tomatoes... you better eat it.

Its my Pop's birthday today. He may not be turning ten, but he has the spirit of a ten year old, which I am glad to say he has passed on to me. This is him paddling on Slide Lake when he came to visit just under a week ago. He is a lover of the sun, and the sun was our friend that week. Happy Birthday Pop! I love you.



On Turning Ten

The whole idea of it makes me feel
like I'm coming down with something,
something worse than any stomach ache
or the headaches I get from reading in bad light--
a kind of measles of the spirit,
a mumps of the psyche,
a disfiguring chicken pox of the soul.

You tell me it is too early to be looking back,
but that is because you have forgotten
the perfect simplicity of being one
and the beautiful complexity introduced by two.
But I can lie on my bed and remember every digit.
At four I was an Arabian wizard.
I could make myself invisible
by drinking a glass of milk a certain way.
At seven I was a soldier, at nine a prince.

But now I am mostly at the window
watching the late afternoon light.
Back then it never fell so solemnly
against the side of my tree house,
and my bicycle never leaned against the garage
as it does today,
all the dark blue speed drained out of it.

This is the beginning of sadness, I say to myself,
as I walk through the universe in my sneakers.
It is time to say good-bye to my imaginary friends,
time to turn the first big number.

It seems only yesterday I used to believe
there was nothing under my skin but light.
If you cut me I could shine.
But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life,
I skin my knees. I bleed.

Billy Collings

What we need is here.

Geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye,
clear. What we need is here.

Looking forward to hearing Wendell Berry speak tomorrow here in Jackson!

Questions about Angels

I sent this poem to my mother on her 61st birthday. Here she is making her delicious string bean potato and cherry tomato salad on my brother's 30th birthday. She is my guardian angel incarnate: continuing to grow our family with good food and an abundance of love.

Questions About Angels

Of all the questions you might want to ask
about angels, the only one you ever hear
is how many can dance on the head of a pin.

No curiosity about how they pass the eternal time
besides circling the Throne chanting in Latin
or delivering a crust of bread to a hermit on earth
or guiding a boy and girl across a rickety wooden bridge.

Do they fly through God's body and come out singing?
Do they swing like children from the hinges
of the spirit world saying their names backwards and forwards?
Do they sit alone in little gardens changing colors?

What about their sleeping habits, the fabric of their robes,
their diet of unfiltered divine light?
What goes on inside their luminous heads? Is there a wall
these tall presences can look over and see hell?

If an angel fell off a cloud, would he leave a hole
in a river and would the hole float along endlessly
filled with the silent letters of every angelic word?

If an angel delivered the mail, would he arrive
in a blinding rush of wings or would he just assume
the appearance of the regular mailman and
whistle up the driveway reading the postcards?

No, the medieval theologians control the court.
The only question you ever hear is about
the little dance floor on the head of a pin
where halos are meant to converge and drift invisibly.

It is designed to make us think in millions,
billions, to make us run out of numbers and collapse
into infinity, but perhaps the answer is simply one:
one female angel dancing alone in her stocking feet,
a small jazz combo working in the background.

She sways like a branch in the wind, her beautiful
eyes closed, and the tall thin bassist leans over
to glance at his watch because she has been dancing
forever, and now it is very late, even for musicians.

-Billy Collins

Walking Home From Oak Head

There is something
about the snow laden sky
in winter
in the late afternoon

that brings the heart elation
and the lovely meaninglessness
if time
Whenever I get home---whenever---

somebody loves me there.
Meanwhile
I stand in the same dark peace
as any pine tree,

or wander on slowly
like the still unhurried wind,
waiting,
as for a gift,

for the snow to begin
which is does
at first casually,
then, irrepressibly.

Whereever else I live---
in music, in words,
in the fires of the heart,
I abide just as deeply

in this nameless indivisible place,
this world,
which is falling apart now,
which is white and wild,

which is faithful beyond all our expressions of faith,
our deepdest prayers.
Don't worry, sooner or later I'll be home.
Red cheeked from the roused wind,

I'll stand in the doorway
stamping my boots and slapping my hands,
my shoulders
covered with stars.

I Salute you!
There is nothing I can give you which you have no;
but there is much, that, while I cannot give, you can take.

No heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest in it today. Take Heaven.

No peace lies in the future that is not hidden in the present instant. Take Peace.

The gloom of the world is but a shadow, behind it, yet, within our reach is joy. Take Joy.

And so, at this Christmas time, I greet you with the prayer that for you, now and forever, the day breaks and the shadows flee away.
Fra Giovanni, A.D. 1513

This is our Christmas tree with its sparkling pine cones and shining lights. We found it after making many circles in the woods out past the science school. The poem is one from my childhood. My big bro Nate used to read it each Sunday of advent. Many wishes of joy and peace to all from the currently snow-less west.