She follows me upstairs, after we return from some festive errand, and we drop our bags on the floor.  She touches my shoulder, gripping me lightly, catching my gaze. “Will you do something for me?” She asks, as though the possibility exists that I will say “no,” though we both know I never would. “Sure,” […]

Early morning and the coffee steams.  I wrap my fingers tightly over ceramic, breathing in the morning, stopping hungrily beside a window to gather up the light breaking in the sky, the emerging lines of trees, the faint colors of gold and orange and emerald. I feel desperate for a few moments of quiet waking. “NO, […]

This week, a departure for Kevin and me, a Sabbath rest: Tucked away, pulled back from the busy road and held–but lightly–by the trees, we hide beneath the fog.  Sound is magnified here, somehow, or perhaps it is that other noise removed leaves room for hearing birdsong, the cheeky chatter of squirrels, the deep-throated gurgle […]

From a grassy field roadside, I gather up the picture of a broken barn with history clear tumbling from it’s splintered walls, the jagged boards dark, like the trunks of trees.  These planks, hewn from deadwood dragged, shaped over sawdust piles, sanded, treated, painted; nailed sharp, clean, with a satisfied whack—these planks caught the sweat […]

Sometimes life strips us clean of words, and we sit together, quiet.  And maybe it’s that way so we’ll stop to listen. We walk through the rain and into the funeral chapel, gathering damp hugs on our way through the door.  We sit first, and then we stand, winding in long lines past photographs and […]

She could not have known about the day, its prickly criticism and thick heat, its challenge and pursed lips and ungracious attitude.  She could not have absorbed its unkind words.  She could not have known how it all felt gray, in spite of the sun, or how many times I wondered why am I doing this […]

In the car at night and I can’t see her face, just the blur of headlights and the jostle of cars weaving in and out of lanes, just the green-lit signs labeling exits.  From behind me, she speaks, and the tentative way she shapes her words tells me that she chooses this time for the […]

Adam stands beside me and his voice climbs, higher and higher toward the sky, pushing, pressing, growing. Sing like never before, oh my soul. Like everyone else, Adam has different voices for different kinds of experience.  This voice with which he sings is his voice for joy, for love, for comfort.  It’s the same voice […]

Beside the pool in the late morning, he suddenly kneels, leaning out over the water.  Majestic clouds move across an unfathomable sky, changing the clear light as it travels down and washes over his bent body, the rustling trees, the white plastic chairs in orderly, framing lines.   From my chair, I pause, gathering him […]

Afternoon, and the beach becomes another elegant art, a mosaic of striking contrasts.  I love the seascape for the way she changes, for the intensity of her perspectives.  Across the water I see rain, a blue black bruise on the horizon blurring the line God made between the deep sea and the boundless sky.  I […]