Certainly Not a Dog!

Muffin is buried under a pine tree in the back yard; it was a good week before I could stop crying -- had nightmares, too or just could not sleep except for a wink and a nod .... and then I'd startle myself wide awake with the image of soft spaniel brown eyes in front of me. Sixteen years old, she was -- never wanted another dog.

Three years later I flinched and in bounced SugarPlum: Hyperactive, chew- everything-in-sight(including $400 glasses), attacking-you-when-you're-asleep, you-don't-go-to-the-bathroom-outside-so-why-should-I ...... SugarPlum! And I don't think we could live witout her! She yawns "I love you," howls Happy Birthday with the family, washes herself like a cat, is ferocious with children (especially the more dangerous pre-schoolers) and is terrified of plastic bags and soda bottles.

Muffin was totally black; you couldn't tell her from a shiney piece of coal. SugarPlum is tri colored, mostly white with big black patches and honey brown eyebrows. And yes, sometimes, "Muffin!" does slip out. But more often now it's "Damn it, Sugar!" So, life does go on, and it is good. Smile: Sugar owns the house and the family...and she loves all unconditionally -- including her sweet self!

End of the Rainbow

I catch the doubled rainbow in my mystic cross palm

and

flinging prisms back at you -- entwined, the couplets arc and rhyme

lending honey-suckled hues to Time --

nectar blending.

I wait inside the curve of interstellar me,

interlaced fingertips

templed in prayer

pulsing inside soul cupped beats,

goblets of gold.

Sunday in the Park

It wasn't the refrigerator cold tupperware box of freshly sliced cucumbers or the napkins sailing like miniature paper kites in the breeze that made Sunday at the baseball field crisp and fresh; instead,it was the sheaves of fairy feathered lashes flashing laughter over blue and hazel, and green and brown -- eyes of God winking through the open skies of grandchildren -- mana from heaven.

D-I-V-O-R-C-E

Yesterday the dual birthday party was disastrous fun. Batteries did not come with a truck for one and a memory stick was needed for the camera of another, but both siblings had immediate gratification from ice cream cake, pizza, and family; giggles and happy shrieks of friends added to the flavor of the day at the blowing out of candles -- a safely familiar touchstone time for children living their new normal inside the turbulence of divorce.

Today is both the same and a completely a different Monday for the stepping stair four: The three girls wriggled out of beds, brushed teeth and hair, snuggled into clothes while eating breakfast and flew to the school bus, after kissing their little brother and their Dad goodbye....then Daddy left the house so Mommy could go back to the house until Tuesday when Daddy comes back again -- until Wednesday until Mommy comes back until Friday when Daddy comes back until next Monday when Mommy comes back...until....

So next weekend for our son and grandkids is Hannah Montana weekend. With our family circling around them, we will try to help the smiles go further than skin deep. "Suffer the little children...for such is the kingdom of heaven."

A House Divided

Every spring there are these fresh, hyacinth-tipped days, always beckoning me forward toward joy -- anticipated delights -- like the sounds of a million winter-hard hibernations awakening with delighted yawns and laughing trills, or of energies breaking free in bursts of color waiting to dazzle --of Life yearning to Be.
I know those things are outside -- outside right this very second within the yellow sun-slant of the afternoon and the boisterously happy barking of the dog. She tracks birth-prints with oxymoronic serious abandon -- innocent in her hapless hunting.
But I am still tired, a stretched thin tired. I saw the nest you see and I thought, oh, well...it will pass...I should not make too much of it. I am probably being too harsh. It was a stupid mistake, but I was tired;last year was hard and the winter long and barren. And of course, there's the part about peace and not being judgmental. Sad justifications all: Now the snake is loose and its plots are hatched, and for people I love...there will be hell to pay. Spring will have to wait.

Transition

The crackly switches and piles of wintered brown round my yard scatter into jigsaw puzzled heaps,break into haphazard flight with the wind and tumble down as birch and elm and maple pick-up-sticks -- finding rest at the lake -- caught inside the participled now. The ice thaws and my earth swells;little sprigs of spring wink green. God winks back: Time to paint.

Saturday, the Wait of Time

This day before Easter Sunday is waning. There was a buzz about its meaning in the blogosphere today. I think it's fair to say the upshot is that these hours, this life of mankind measured in years and months and days, was changed in one last breath after Jesus said "It is finished." And then the waiting, the Saturday of mankind began. Always drawn toward the morning star, we stumble and search for sight to find our way out of the collective darkness.

Tomorrow with the Light once again there will be a rising and inside all creation there will be joyous noise from bird and bee and man for the fulfillment of the great I AM, and the great I AM THAT, and the great I AM THAT I AM -- the Alpha and the Omega --death and the weight of Time defeated, trinity complete and eternal love offered by the Son. It's gonna' be a good day.