I took a walk in the woods and came out taller. Henry David Thoreau

(Dedicated to my good friend, Mary Little, who inspired this poem) Loved ones going away, Be safe. Be well. We pray. Keep us close while you’re far Under that distant star. It hurts, it aches, pain reverberates. Can my heart bear this weight? Yearning, stretching, oh so far, To your distant star. But space is…

What color should I gift to you, A rose of red, A purple plum, Sky of blue or yellow mum? Nature saves her best for last, All her colors unsurpassed– Blended by a loving Lord, The sunset melds in sweet accord.

We are the seed let loose, flying on wings of hope.

Clippers and snippers, my garden tools Prepare the ground for Spring. Clearing old gnarly, tangled roots To tend the soil within. How tight their hold, those roots so bold With a fierce and mighty cling, When all I need, faith of a mustard seed To grow my garden within. Truly I tell you, if you…

The new dawn blooms as we free it. For there is always light. If only we’re brave enough to see it, If only we’re brave enough to be it. –Amanda Gorman, National Youth Poet Laureate

Illumination. It can come rushing in like a tornado. Or, it can arrive as though it has always been there, waiting against an inky backdrop, the darkest of times.

A mother’s love is unbounded by earthly dimensions. (This story is revived from a previous year. It is a true story, worth re-telling.) Connie was cleaning her mom’s house for the last time. It was the kind of cleaning that is an undoing, a systematic removal of physical evidence of a life lived. Since that…

Maybe it was time to share my heart. There were many years when my mom was still alive, that I would dread the arrival of Mother’s Day. I know how bad that sounds. I cringe even typing the words. But listen to my story. My mother devoted her life to her four children. If she…

The sky is my prayer, the birds are my prayer, the wind in the trees is my prayer, for God is in all. —Thomas Merton