whispers to lace ~

21 Tuesday Jul 2015

Tags

acceptance, age, blessings, conscious consciousness, divine this, forgiveness, gravel roads, home, knowing, life, love, truth, will

of moments
I’ve known
a path through
the tears
a faint recollection
of days unto years
poetry carved
as rings to
the wood
of seasons and reasons
tethered to place
come as a lover
of longing embrace
as nights without
slumber
whispers
to lace

silence the same
as forgetting

some other
another
of dreaming I knew
the weight of remember
was passing me
through
noonday and were you
to hold me
like this
as a moment of always
burned to a kiss
lest living
come easy
as light on the morn
as wake to the keeping
was love
to discern

. . .

nights between ~

20 Monday Jul 2015

Posted by tornadoday in Poetry

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

becoming, blessings, distance, divine, forgiveness, grace, gravel roads, home, life, love, poetry, sacred intimacy, seasons, tenderness, time, truth, value

what name
was once you called to me
echoes o’er the storm
a distant light
unshaken by these memories
of home
a part of all that mattered
is forgiveness settled round
in tireless waves
the ways we were
before again abound
the sweetest blossoms
scattered
as breath in silence still
remains of wishes
traded
another place to fill
a lullaby forgotten
though not for comfort lent
as days I lost
ten thousand more between
counted from a distance
roads and stars
the same
paths converge
within the fault
of dreams

. . .

bucket list ~

17 Friday Jul 2015

Posted by tornadoday in a time for telling

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

grace, living, love, seasons, spirit, time, truth, value

The exercise seemed cathartic, meant to pull something far deeper than dreams from the participants. Create a bucket list. Easy enough I suppose, although not as easy as it might be to those with less distance left of the road.

But there was nothing I could think of, nothing worthy of such a contract with the universe. Surely, in putting words to paper, there becomes an invisible thread (a map) connecting now to the future, this to another.

There was nothing I needed to do.

Subsequent discussions debated the matter – a half empty bucket or a bucket half full.

Mine, admittedly, is a bucket overflowing – not big enough to hold what I already have, what I have already known. Even of my sorrows, I would not sacrifice a one for the preceding joy, negating a moment of anguish, loss or indecision.

It is the nothing (everything) variable of love. To love; to be loved. What else could there be? If I climbed Everest, what value those words on stone? Would that be the thing for which I would linger? A memory of sorts that speaks more to my endurance than to my endearing.

Nothing.

Nothing more than to love – to be loved. To empty the bucket time and again until there is no time….

Leaving behind only a bucket never (ever) quite emptied.

. . .

where yesterday the moon ~

11 Saturday Jul 2015

Posted by tornadoday in Poetry

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

angels, assurance, dreams, faith, grace, gravel roads, home, light, living, love, nature, silence, trust

of mornings
every one
is still a mystery
to me
breaking from
the shadows
where yesterday
the moon
perched outside
my window
in stoic reverie
a confidante
deserving
of a wish
reserved for stars
a voyeur
unaccustomed
to my shame
confessed in shades
of lavender
sheets where warmed
the dawn
awakened by
the memory
of dreams

. . .

sometimes (waiting to be) ~

01 Wednesday Jul 2015

Posted by tornadoday in Poetry

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

acceptance, comfort, destiny, divine this, forgiveness, grace, gravel roads, healing, home, intimacy, living, love, sometimes, soul, truth

I’ll stay
here beside
if you start the fire
from pieces remembered
the same
another so cold
you thought I was leaving
back through the days
undecided
I came

led by a dream
fearful of nothing
but the loss
of your warmth
in the night
the feel of your whisper
echoed in silence
returned from the edges
I waited your light

to save me
from something
darker than death
deeper than sorrows
I’ve known
the way your smile shines
when you wrap me
around
a moment of tender
willing me home

where love is made
welcome
by a hand holding mine
promise
waiting to be
forever surrendered
just before dawn –
a kiss
then another
remembering
me

. . .

known by love ~

27 Saturday Jun 2015

Posted by tornadoday in Poetry

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

everything, faith, forgiveness, grace, gravel roads, hope, life, life well lived, love, prayer, seasons, soul, time, to places we are known, truth, will

sweeter now
the ache forgiving
of moments past –
surround me here
an ancient quilt
of almost whispers –
words of living
folded near

page to page
as wish to wanting
lives beyond the ones
we live
songs forgotten
yield in singing
love resounds
in all we give

let with grace
these truths repeated
til prayer becomes
a place of rest
warmed by faith’s
eternal season
known by love –
as love
confessed

. . .

heartbeats aligned ~

25 Thursday Jun 2015

Posted by tornadoday in a time for telling, Poetry

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

grace, gravel roads, home, knowing, light, love, sacred intimacy, seeing in the dark

is the measure of grace
a verse without rhyme
a solitude born
of the staying

a path I remembered
would bring me to here
held by a breath
to your memory

a life before this
was love unaware
the weaving of dreams
into moments
one day

we sat in the still
at the edge of goodbye
sharing the truth
of how the stars shine
and where the wind goes
taking pieces of us

unafraid of the keeping
allowing for love
as heartbeats
aligned
to the passing of days

as birth unto light
a heaven intended
to look for us here
in the fold
of always –

a reason
we came
released in the letting –
as verse without
rhyme

. . .

rememories ~

16 Tuesday Jun 2015

Posted by tornadoday in Poetry, Storytelling

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

acceptance, divine this, family, fearless, grace, gravel roads, home, inheritance, knowing, love, postmark, rural traces, sacred intimacy, sometimes, story, time, truth, value

Over the weekend, I had a moment – an epiphany of sorts. Perhaps it was just a fleeting view through an almost empty glass, but it was good.

I was standing in the market browsing maple syrup options. I love maple syrup, and am somewhat of a snob when it comes to pancakes, waffles, butter, and syrup.

Anyway, back to the telling. There between the maple leaf shaped bottles and the plastic options for fat free, sugar free, and tasteless, was a bottle of Karo syrup.

My fingers lingered over the label, while my heart was racing backwards to a clapboard kitchen where my granny sat in a straight back chair not far from the woodstove. With the practiced hands of a chemist, she poured Karo syrup in a bowl and then a stab of butter.

With her tiny hands, she gripped the bowl and beat the concoction until it was the color of summer wheat. Then she would dip one piece of bread at a time (referred to as light bread by we southerners) into the sweet batter.

And one piece at a time, we would wait patiently for a piece to be passed to us. Our little bit of heaven – our divine sacrament for living a life swelled up with blessing.

But the ‘aha’ moment was in realizing that I hadn’t told that story, and it’s also quite possible that the memory is folded just as sweetly away by my sisters and brother – in a place where treasure needs not space or name. And the thought that I hadn’t shared made me a bit sad, for surely it is a felony against creation to hoard away the best parts of us, the stories of our becoming.

Bet you know what I had for dinner Sunday evening……..

Let us speak kindly of our beginnings, memorizing anew the parts where love made us at home.

. . .

reclassified ~

11 Thursday Jun 2015

Posted by tornadoday in a time for telling, Poetry, Rambling

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

acceptance, as easy as breathing, beauty, blessings, divine this, family, forgiveness, gravel roads, home, knowing, lessons, letting go, life, love, nothing is ever lost, only, sacred intimacy, simply, truth, understanding

Try as I might, from time to time I need reminding (or, as my Ma Hutch would have said, ‘a skillet to the head’). I can get so caught up in the drama that I forget the bottom line. I neglect the one thing that matters most.

If there’s a rule by which my daddy lives, it’s simply this. “Don’t ever let a problem become bigger than a person to love.” He makes it seem easy, to be honest.

And sometimes, it is easy. Like when everyone agrees or we’re all focused on that single one brilliant thing that takes our collective breath away.

But most of the time, opinions get caught in the middle. Egos stand in the way. Perceptions about things that no one even witnessed – well, a lot of things get in the way. And before you know it, we’re arguing about whether it’s too early to plant watermelon or too late to start a movie.

And the thing (love) that was absolutely the most important thing is somehow ‘managed over’, reclassified into the ‘not so important’ file in error.

That’s not to say that love is forgotten (I love you; it’s the liking that hangs me up). It isn’t. It’s just a second thought, something taken for granted that never should be. It’s the lone footnote that should have been the title.

My mother meddles in things that aren’t her business. My sister struggles with demons almost 30 years old. My children and grandchildren have lives of their own, plans of their own. The moon turns a jealous eye, and before we notice, another season is passed – another time not to come again.

But if we’re lucky (so blessed), that thing that mattered (love) – it remains. When the voices are lost in argument, opinions have burned away, and the quiet settles soft like the snore of a sleeping child – it is there (still).

So, today, before I respond too quickly to an email or a text, I remind myself that nothing is bigger than my love for these. Nothing I will allow.

in fields
where yesterday
forgotten
petals crush the ground
with the memory
of every winter
frost

bring me round
one more time
before the blossom fades
let me breathe
the sweet perfume
of love –
was never
lost

. . .