the blue muse

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today is

sunshine on my shoulders

or

let’s get lost

.

you decide

.

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with birdsong and beginnings

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i sit and listen

palms open

ready to catch

whatever falls

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Lately, I feel silent. Not blocked or repressed or even melancholy, just silent.

So I sit with the quiet—watching life race by—with the patience of a flower waiting for dawn. It is the year of listening, after all, the word that found me back in January, the word that hovers over my left shoulder wherever I go. Maybe it’s age or grief or that other word, grace. Maybe it’s acceptance. Maybe it’s exhaustion. Not the bone-tired version, the depleted one.

Maybe I’m tired of trying on hats and never finding one that fits. Which makes perfect sense, because I don’t look good in hats. Some people do. My sister does. My grandmother did. I do not. But that’s okay. I kind of like the wind in my hair.

The sun is shining this morning and I know that I will find a way to get outside and feel it on my face. My freckles are tired of hiding in the background. It’s the season of renewal and I am tired of winter’s layers. March, the ever-steady soldier, marches on… eyes forward, almost there, almost there. In just a day or two, all will be surrendered to April.

The grackles and blackbirds croak and beep at a sky not ready to embrace them. No leaves yet for camouflage, no deep pools of shade. Perhaps we’re all feeling just a bit overexposed.

I think of all the mornings just like this one and wonder at the dust they’ve collected. Even so, I choose to leave them undisturbed. It’s not time for spring cleaning, yet.

I always sing when I clean and lately, I feel silent.

.

.

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because this is sunshine turned into smile

cheap grocery store flowers bringing joy
in a way that never occurs in august

this clear blue sky and i

pretending

we hear robin song and bloom

unfold

.

.

.

blushing with the memory

of sun on skin and

layers of blue sky blanket

tiny stars of optimism

in a kitchen filled with

mittens and boots

and the slight refusal

of dormancy

.

.

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the sun makes the world sparkle this morning

a simple reminder of the beauty that runs through each day

crisp and cold, tiny leaves peaking up through hard earth

.

we change we grow we turn our face to the sun

grateful for the warmth of it

glad to be alive

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wishing you a thanksgiving filled with warmth

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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.

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november skies and leaves in flight

life that swirls and words that wait

this dance i do through autumn’s gate

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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.

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endings and beginnings

journeys and returns

heart and soul

seeking

comfort and light

in the cold grey sweater

of autumn’s embrace

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