Not Absent

So many hues, shapes, textures, and designs. Mountain clouds and runways for cloud planes to takeoff. The earthbound mountains like a stadium filled to watch the spectacle unfold.

Oh if you could but have been there to see and feel the morn and hear the gentle music playing as the sky danced. And then a sweet smile of knowing....close your eyes and breathe softly. You were. You are.

I heard her whisper

A simple bookmarked thread, so I will remember.

To remember sitting upon the earth with my feet dancing in the lake's water

And a bubble asked a leaf if she could come out and play.

And a shell, appeared, a treasured gift to remind me of those I used to collect, while walking with the sand and waves along the precious Gulf.

With the shell upon my heart, I laid upon the earth and felt her warmth caress my back. Looking up the sun was playing hide and seek with the clouds and trees.

I am a simple woman who sees such simple things. I have nothing profound to say, just a simple afternoon when the little child in me, like the bubble, just wanted to play.

Showers of choice

As the rain fell, I retreated inside. I shut the house windows, checked the car windows and told my little dog she would have to wait to go outside.  As the rain fell I watched the birds, absent during the heat of the day, gather around the feeders, and yes, even the sassy squirrel. I laughed to watch them bathing in asphalt pot holes and tiny little pools of water on the driveway.  A robin was having a particularly grand time.  They squiggled and fluttered and I wondered if birds giggle.


One creature of nature closing up the house.  Other creatures of nature gathering, bathing and maybe even giggling.  Both living beneath the same rain that fell. And I pondered the difference.  Is it because there are "things" in the house, like carpet and painted window ledges?  Outside, well, outside there are "things" but they know the fall of rain and drought, that one follows the other and so worry not. I am not so wise.  I only know the same rain created a need to close up and a need to play and giggle. Or perhaps not the rain, but choice.


Maybe I will go and buy a bird bath, a hose and figure out how to turn the water on for the outside faucets.  And, who knows, if I am successful, after the bird bath is filled, the hose might accidentally point to the sky and the channeled water can rain down upon me.  Then, maybe, wet and to the neighbors even odder than I am, I might learn as I sit, if robins giggle when they bathe.

A different earth

They were playing catch in a small stretch near the road. Not much space to throw the ball. A big brother and his much younger sister.  Outside the window I saw the yard that tries to defeat my body's strength and mocks my will to tend. Grass. Space.  I walked outside and offered the yard.  Now, as I sit, laughter fills the air. The snap sound of ball in glove.  The older sister has joined.  Play. Laughter. Joy. The earth will be different now, when I go to mow. My feet will feel laughter. As I push the mower up the hill my knees will soar like a well thrown ball of freedom. 

The Place I Want to Get Back To

is where
in the pinewoods
in the moments between
the darkness

and first light
two deer
came walking down the hill
and when they saw me

they said to each other, okay,
this one is okay,
let's see who she is
and why she is sitting

on the ground, like that,
so quiet, as if
asleep, or in a dream,
but, anyway, harmless;

and so they come
on their slender legs
and gazed upon me
not unlike the way

I go out to the dunes and look
and look and look
into the faces of the flowers;
and then one of them leaned forward

and nuzzled my hand, and what can my life
bring me that could exceed
that brief moment?
For twenty years

I have gone every day to the same woods,
not waiting, exactly, just lingering.
Such gifts, bestowed,
can't be repeated.

If you want to talk about this
come to visit.  I live in the house
near the corner, which I have named
Gratitude.

~ Mary Oliver ~