O God - Life has come for me.
You gave me it's promise, set it
on a hill far away that I might 
chase it through the dim lights of day
and into the chill dark of holy nights.

I thought it was sanctuary I would find
in the green groves or the wild rivers, 
in the golden fields of tall grass swept 
by summer's warm air. Yet winter has come
and the grass is blowing brown and cold.

Now another night has come -
enchanted, quiet, dark, and still.
Is this the sanctuary I sought all the years
in this house, rain on the windows
trickling in the gutters, puddling in the drive?

Let it be. I have been called to life
in its many broken and raggedy forms.
I will try to live them all as they come
and chase them to the very end
and pray I may find my way at last.
__________________________________________

Portland, Oregon - December 26, 2022

The leaves have all fallen now, 
feathered moon is on the wane.
Gray skies are cold, gloom cold
waiting for rain, for snow, for wind.

To spite all the colored lights
the sky's gray withering stare
beats down on the day in silence
thinking that, at last, it has won.

Hardly! The lights I hung on a lovely tree
glow in color determined to reveal
what the gray and dark try to conceal -
the hidden life of the mysterious world.

Trees with fallen leaves have not died.
Birds in the shrubberies have not lost their way.
We sit in our silent homes and watch
as night unfolds into its flower of day.
__________________________________________
Portland, Oregon - December 13, 2022

Each day I look for signs
to know which way to go.
I believe they are all around me, yet,
they are written in letters I cannot read
like curious scripts from foreign lands.

How do I learn the language of signs
when I've missed so many before?
What stumbling steps have I taken
on weedy paths into frightening woods
when all I wanted was a simple life?

There is a child I once knew
who laid on the summer grass
looking up into the clouds above
wondering that they could be so far away -
unreachable, forever floating as in dreams.

I have thought, in all the years since,
that I could catch those clouds
and they would show me the way.
But I did not know the clouds at all
and still I lie, and still I lie.
__________________________________________
Portland, Oregon - December 7, 2022