the blue muse

and

listening

listening

listening

to everything

again

.

the empty spaces

speak the loudest

.

a lesson learned

repeated

and turned

into growth

or lack

of knowledge

.

listening

.

.

.

.

and the way everything seems dry

humor and hubris

skin and earth

scorched and longing

and the hours

drawn out on the gridlocked page

of a rather unyielding

july

.

.

.

.

.

and one small smile

on a too-cool morning

in a garden

already running wild

.

and i am happy to let it run this year,
accepting my lack of control as i’m busy learning new things
and embracing life and loving people.
but we have our moments and we both understand
that we are always here for each other,
even in the midst of so much chaos.

.

living

.

.

.

.

in the mishmash of life and survival and love

a delicate queen

holds court for a day

shy and

with the grace

of hidden

subject

.

.

.

Everything gets lost in the shuffle sometimes, but lately the shuffle has taken over. Writing has gone by the wayside, and I find myself longing for old habits, empty hours, blank pages.

Life keeps getting crazier or I keep getting slower, or a wild combination of both.

My mind races and there are days when I can’t keep up. I walk outside for brief moments to inhale the smell of autumn, a season I’ve missed in the name of busyness.

This morning the smell of frost on the horizon drew me into the yard, hundreds of geese honking herald to the sun, a clear sky marked only by the low-hanging upside-down crescent of moon.

Crisp is the color and bird is the song. Survival is the vein that runs ‘neath my feet.

Leaves crackle and I think again how I must find time for raking.

The bluejay calls his warning and another day begins.

.

.

.

Mostly, I forgot to look at my garden this month. Well, it wasn’t so much that I forgot, it was more that my nose was chained to the grindstone, and looking up wasn’t always an option. But the monkshood, planted right outside my studio window, has stood by me all month, shining in my favorite color, against a backdrop of gone-the-perfect-shade-of-orange hydrangea leaves.

The perfect slice of autumn—framed where I can’t possibly miss it.

Last night, the almost-full October moon went dancing through a shroud of cloud, and in my heart, I danced along with it. During busy days like these, sometimes the only time I spend outside is when I take the dog out, or walk to the road to get the mail. I hang onto those moments, breathing in the air that smells like my favorite season, crisp frost atop loamy leaves, smoky nights and apple-cheeked days.

The tall grasses I’d planned to cut down are still standing, mocking me with waves of pleasure in the wind. Oh well. Another year, perhaps. They’re still here, I’m still here and it’s raining again.

But look at that color, that life, that moon.

These cycles that keeps my life on track even when they become rote, even when I forget to notice.

This monkshood that waits for me every year, standing quietly by my side all summer, holding the garden’s last gift.

I am grateful, old friend, I am grateful.

.

.

.

and every year i
think of working harder
to force
the soil to produce
blue hydrangeas
but then i
think
how much these
so obviously
just want
to be pink

.

.

.

wishing you a weekend filled with color

.

The cardinals sit outside my window eating kisses.

Blue sky and autumn chill, anemone and silence.

We are all whispering this morning,

the flowers to each other,

and me to myself.

Trying not to wake

the afternoon.

.

.

.

and soft whispering scent

timed from dawn to dusk

on a nature-made

sundial

.

wishing you a weekend filled with kisses

.

.

.

.

That I always fall in love with.

How could I not?

.

Wishing you a week filled with beautiful messes.

.

.

.

.