that's mrs. mediocrity to you

.

with the wind in your hair

and a song in your heart

and love on the tips

of your fingers

.

Sometimes, life just gets away from you. And after a while, you stop fighting it and just let it flail away, knowing that at some point, things will settle down again, however briefly.

Time starts to feel like the enemy, and that’s just silly. It is, after all, just time, the caretaker of life, and it has no ulterior motives. We are always running after it, running out of it, trying to squeeze a little extra from it.

And time just sits there, grinning with a cheshire cat smile.

It’s only the moment, the one you’re in right now (the one that just passed while you read the word now) that matters.

And it is so easy to forget this while you race towards the finish line.

There is no prize for getting there first. No prize for failing to notice the sun streaming through the trees, the child’s smile, the kind word. Those are the gifts that keep you going.

It’s hard, sometimes, to look away from the goal and take in the small things. Or we simply forget in our hurry to get where we think we are going. (Which will just be a new version of now.)

All of this to say that the other night I sat outside for a few hours and did nothing. Absolutely nothing. On purpose. I just watched and listened and inhaled and exhaled and took it all in. Life.

I’ve accomplished many things in the last month. A long, long list of things that had to be done. But in another month, the only part I will remember will be those few hours.

And as I sat there, quite suddenly, it became the summer of small things.

It won’t be the summer I might wish for, filled with long, lazy afternoons on a quilt with a book. But I will carve out moments to remember, even in the tangled mess of life’s jungle.

I will seek out the heart. Because even time has one, if you know where to look.

Here. Now.

See it?

i need
no other canvas

no brush
but these birds

no paint
but this light

no mood
but these stars

space
to sit beneath

quiet
simple

exposed
and not afraid

rain down
upon this face

silence
i drink you

in

the fork
the curve
the crossroad

we are always there
walking on
breathing in

shade
sunlight
shade

my path
your path
beaten by
footprint
leaf
experience
rain

no one knows
what lies
around that bend

shade
sunlight
shade

sunlight

My favorite scrabble move of all time was making the word ethereal from the existing word on the board, there.

There is in ethereal, always. And we are always there. Which is the same as here. There, and everywhere.

Or something like that.

Life has kept me very busy lately, and I am missing my writing time, my garden time, my reading time. But it’s okay, because in a small sense I am always there, in one of those places.

At least in my mind, my heart, my dreams.

So there.

you can always get in
if you have the right key

but the sun glare might blind you
and the scent will intoxicate

and you will find yourself
asleep on the ground

in a field filled with poppies
red white and blue

flag waving
petal cloud sky

your wounds will change color
scars will form
bones will knit
holes and pain and fear
become distant memories

red and blue
will fade to violet

you might smell lavender
or the pepper of lupine

monkshood will tower over you
baptisia will offer shade

in the rose-filled secret garden
behind thorns and cold stone fences

if you have the right key
you can always get in

.

contains every shade

of beautiful

.

after a while, you get used to chaos

hunched up shoulders and a crick in your neck
become the norm

while time plays no tricks
but marches on around the corner

and then you start stealing moments
gathering them up on the sly for hoarding
in a crackled lightning bug jar

so you can see them after dark

the red cardinal feeding his mate
these roses spilling blooms like confetti
this mirror that is always too honest

languish becomes a lost word
a distant memory

the life you imagined becomes
the one you are living
in stolen snippets of illumination

your heart keeps right on beating
you dance beneath the same yellow moon
you fight your way through another nightmare
to see the sun split wide the horizon

you survive

and one afternoon
you hear yourself

singing

on a broken heartsick mandolin
behind this curtain of sunlight
some would call glare

her tears mix with dewdrops
her dress is mistaken
and the wind in her hair
makes her whimper
even as she nods in the breeze
at all sailors passing

just in case
just in case

beauty is meaningless
to a flower
folly prescribed by
obscure tradition
and those who destroyed
her ability to run

but she stands and she sings
and her heart is made
from one shade of golden

heavy ballast to keep her
grounded

ripe punishment
for hollow dreams
of dancing

.

.

.

.

Linking up with the fabulous dVerse poets for Open Link Night
– a celebration of 100 weeks – join us!

each frond