Spring began...
young
and grew
and grew tired
and grew old
so that
a breath
could
begin Spring
new.
All week she called to me,
but I was too afraid
I'd be intruding if I
stepped across our new street
with my camera in hand to
take her color home with me.
But Saturday morning won, and
I walked over with zoom
and trepidation,
and I captured her.
and I met a new neighbor who knew
stories of our street
once-lined with live oaks -
before Hugo pillaged them
twenty years ago. His shed
used to be in the middle
of his yard; Hugo moved
it to the fence, and his wife
had left him, but
it was amicable. a-MIC-able.
AM-ic-able. He didn't know, but
it was "okay."
The color belonged to
another neighbor, who couldn't
come to her door because she
was diabetic and had
only one leg.
And our other neighbors were quiet - except
the bigger little one, who
asks lots of questions and
scares me a little because
I don't know all the answers, and
I used to think
it didn't hurt to ask
but now I know better, so
I wish him away.
She offered me beauty
and stories
and a spring breeze I would have missed if
I had stayed inside.
My friend Emily at Chatting at the Sky hosts a weekly "noticing" party - giving us a chance to unwrap and share the little gifts (and the big ones!) God gives to us in the midst of our dailiness. 
a rather battered white,-----------------------------
our once-replaced CRV begs replacement again,
chattering,
chugging,
chirping.
the chirping, I think, cannot be a good thing.
but away we go,
chirping along to pick up fresh vegetables,
babies in back,
camera in hand,
limping along
in our tired CRV, and we watch
out the window to see a good thing.
and we find it - we do, but
we're going so fast as to almost miss it, the
light on glass,
silver on green,
sky on ground-water.
but we don't quite; camera shutter is fast
and the good thing chirps home with us.
long after the car stops its chirping, I think
I hear it still in my soul, perched
with feathers
and yellow
and hope
to open my eyes to grace-captured good things.
my fast-paced two months gone,
life spinning on and passing my eye-lens
too fast
too slow
too something
and now I feel older than I was, older than I have been,
and sometimes I forget the good things
but for the chirping drive-by.
Un-Conversation-----------------------------
The "first deep pangs"
left me shaking aware
I wasn't who I had been or
who I had become or
who I would be
she spoke
the first deep words
that defined the feeling
and I answer back,
"yes, it is change, it is
this inside-hurt
so many have felt
and shared
with me." There is
no conversation required
among us who have been
changed, just
pensive waiting in
community
communion as we ache for
joy
grown from
tears, and
strength in trembling labor when
who we are
emerges into Life that makes us
who we are meant to be.
I want to grow old-------------------------------
as October eases into November into
December and back again into Spring,
gracious in gray, clad in winter's first
white
as a bride wears a dream on her wedding day.
....
I want to find beauty
in windswept snow-ridges
on hands that were smooth and smile
at mirror-face
with unchanged eyes
the same soul peering out,
a little wise
a little joyful
a little seasoned with
some Christmas spice and a bit of blizzard passion
invigorated
like peppermint meeting brisk winter wind in the new year.
....
I want not to die
before breath slows - and stops,
leaving flesh wrapped in allspice,
red earth-petals peeled, hibiscus layer of
fallen dust lingering sweet as kisses for
those I have loved alive, while in death
I live anew in
April fullness, in
summer glory, in
autumn memory, my spirit rising on spring
life-breezes
like a kite in a scented wind embraces the whole sky.
....
I want finally to dwell full alive
in I AM who is
Beginning
and
End
and
Eternal,
passing like the seasons at winter's end
from shade-limitation into full exposure,
bathed in new God-glory,
beginning
as a wizened babe breathes first breath on its birth-day.
....
for this I was born, for this
I live.