Pasta Night

Eating a plate of spaghetti,
I think of Dad
on pasta night,
wearing one of his plaid button-ups
with the small holes
from cigar ash,
spinning the spaghetti
onto his fork,
holding the sauce
that had simmered slowly
throughout the afternoon.
To block splatters
I place my hand flat
along the table edge,
open toward my chest,
like he would,
because at 45,
I still want to be like him,
so I can remember him.

(Jan 2026)

To Create with Color

It’s a slow morning,
foggy outside,
I’m nursing a little cold,
still in pjs.
Worry-mind
finds some little thing
to engage with,
I counter by moving about
my home, tidying
and arranging objects,
feeling a small measure of control,
and come to ponder,
is this worry based on doubt?—
Doubt in myself,
doubt in the universe?
There must be, here, a different way—
for sometimes I fall into life’s little art studio,
where imagination and belief and dreams
are primary colors,
and I feel, with them,
I can paint something beautiful.

(December 19, 2025)

Into the Sun

This sunny morning,
puffy clouds
float above a blanket of fluffy snow.

As a wind moves through the trees,
snowflakes drop
away from the branches,
into the sun,
moving like a sparkly curtain
dancing with the breeze.

Did the flakes have any idea,
as they fell through
yesterday’s gray sky,
that they’d also feel
the touch of light?

(December 3, 2025)

I Found Hope Shining

I found hope shining
from the corner of my mind,
like a sliver of moon
hanging from the top
of the morning sky.

(November 21, 2025)

As the Day Folds Up

Crows fly down
an eggshell-blue sky,
and a couple clouds burn golden
with the last of the day’s sun.

My day is also wrapping up,
I’m glad for what I got done.
Soon I’ll brew a cup
of tea and page through
a couple new library books.

(December 12, 2025)

An Old Friend Comes By

Yesterday my solitary home
opened to the visit of an old friend.
We drank tea together
and compared notes on life,
until, with an embrace,
he headed out into nightfall.

Today I noticed that the visit
seems to have smoothed out
some crinkles in my mind.
The wind outside is bitter,
kicking up swirls of snow
that glitter in the sun;
inside my home it is comfortable
and bright with afternoon light.

(December 8, 2025)

Plain Cool Days

A layer of frost for our mornings.
I can see the river in the distance
glimmering in the early sun.

Books I move through the days with
become gently worn, and relax
with familiarity as I set them down.

I’m learning to craft slower movements,
and drop out of rushed rigidity.

Sometimes progress feels
like a quiet answer from Spirit
to a past prayer
I can’t put my finger on.

(November 28, 2025)

Sunlight Feels Like Everything to Us

Diffused light filters in the windows
on a gray November morning.
Smoke puffs out of a chimney—
the trees are bare,
except for the evergreens.
Sunlight feels like everything to us
in these first few weeks of cold days.
May divine love find us,
whether the sky is blue, or not.

(November 25, 2025)

Crafting Something Simple

I’m meandering on my path around my living room, with a cup of tea, thinking of Dad, remembering his big belly laughs.
I set an intention before starting to drink this tea: for gratitude through good.
The tea is decaf black, steeped in a teapot that I found at a thrift shop. Been experimenting with proportions and steep time, and with this brew,
I got it right. I sip from one of the pinch pot cups I made in a pottery class: simple, modest, with a thick creamy glaze. Now that I know my teapot,
I’m ready to have a fellow tea drinker over—I’ll put out a pinch pot cup for each of us . . .
I’m meandering around the living room with my pinch pot tea. “The thing to life,” Dad would say, “is to be content.”

November 9, 2025

Where Sun Does Land

-Now that the trees have dropped their leafy robe, I can see the distant river, glimmering in the morning light.
-The sun’s shallow path in autumn lets its rays stretch deep into my dwelling, and I feel blessed for this home.
-An invisible bird calls out, but I know not its name.
-Now, clouds block the sun for a beat, until drawing aside and letting the light through; this, like my moods as I move through these colder days.

(November 6, 2025)

How the Seasons Are Clothed

These three trees, along the path here,
Are clothed according to the time of year:
Plump with white petal in spring,
Then through summer days, sporting green;
Autumn comes, and brings a yellow shroud… 
Now they hold sky and wispy cloud.
Thinking ahead to winter’s inward days—
I’d adjust some life stuff, in a couple ways.

(October 26, 2025)

Cobbling Together a Morning

-Stumbling through morning’s mind, late October, it’s still dark when I get up.
-Eventually a blue glow begins to gather about the blinds and drapes.
-I’m doing my best, drinking a mug of early coffee and reading.
-The light does lift but cloud cover collects the rays before they can drop into my living room.
-As the morning evolves, I put on some tempeh and rice. I have some tea and I write some.
-I’m working my way through this grey morning. Yesterday, I got my mended guitar back and falling leaves glimmered in the autumn sky . . . The thought comes, How do I lift my head to today’s grace?

(October 30, 2025)

This Book Is Mine to Mend

This book is mine to mend;
With tape I fixed it up.
But truly, life did lend
The ink and paper pulp;
For now it’s in this form,
For now it’s in my hand . . .
With time it will be borne
To future’s varied land.

(September 25, 2025)

When Given to Time

Some mistakes in the moments
after being made
are a river of coarse current

but now this one
a mild stream crossed
without much effort or thought
while carrying in a pouch
the lesson it gave
imprinted by the pain once felt.

(September 24, 2022)

As We Are

I find myself in autumn’s open room,
inside a sun-dappled forest.

Many a leaf, released into the air,
drifts from the canopy,
meandering down through the trees.

I feel like the forest 
accepts us as we are,
like leaves finding support
as they come to the ground.

(September 29, 2025)

Life’s Terrain

It may not be
the landscape you expected,

but there will be birds
and the ever-different sky.

(September 16, 2025)

Reading Chu Shu Chen

It is evening. Sunlight
still touches the treetops.
Why am I drawn
to her anguish,
her loneliness? She is
wrapped in it. What am I
wrapped in? Perhaps
my busyness beguiles me.
My own loneliness, unacknowledged.
A cricket’s song rings out.

(Summer 2014)

This Morning Light

Early morning, 
eggshell blue, pours in
through the gauze curtain.
I prepare a cup of coffee.
I put out a couple books.
This, my routine. 
My mind is like a leaf, 
on a brook, drifting toward the day.

written September 9, 2025

When Nothing Is Perfect, Still You Try

I admit, it’s hard to hold it right
but I would say you’re doing alright.
You’re fascinated by a little spill
when your cup is some sort of full.

written August 25, 2025

Denim in Autumn

Love the cozy feeling
of slipping on
a pair of jeans
for the first time
after a hot summer.

written September 2, 2025