Whenever Papa Larry tells of the lavender farm he and Nanny visited up in Maine, I stop to listen, because I can almost smell the sweetness of flowers and sea. And then he'll reminisce to when they met the Lupine Lady herself--- Mrs. Barabara Cooney, who wrote the book Miss Rumphius. This past Christmas, Joel … Continue reading Acres of Lupines
A New Creation Poem Remember that at one time you were a howling wilderness, the haunt of hyenas who cackled among the thistles under a ghost moon. But now in Christ Jesus you are a fresh spring, cooling the rocks and watering the hills that roll under a young sun.
I read the Cape Cod Times during breakfast Monday morning, and the story was about a man who got swallowed by a humpback whale on June 11, 2021. He was lobster diving off Herring Cove Beach at 8 A.M. when something like a freight train hammered him and everything went black. He felt himself surging … Continue reading Lord of the Seas
There's a time to plant and a time to pluck up what is planted, and in March, I do a little of both. Winter is on its last leg, and I’ve been repairing, repotting, replanting, and rethinking the best ways to keep deer out of the garden this year. I realize there was a lot … Continue reading A Time to Plant
The college theater was dim last Friday night, and the musicians played Brahms in andante, which means it was soft and low. I would’ve drifted to sleep it hadn’t been so beautiful. The concertmaster from the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra was visiting our little town, and I wasn’t about to miss watching him vibrato each … Continue reading The Concertmaster
I was surprised to meet Larry and Betty on my run yesterday, walking with their sticks down into the trees on Edgewood Road. Last winter, they hired me to fetch their mail and water their houseplants while they flew with the geese southward. Mrs. Betty is a gardener who does her best work in springtime, … Continue reading Bunnies & Birds
A Story of Christmas Yet To Come Race Point is the easternmost I’ve ever been— in fact, it’s just about as eastward as you can get in the States, at the fingertip of Massachusetts’s arm. It was a strange thing to stand with all North America behind me, to face the horizon of sea, to … Continue reading Look East
The Ozark Trail ambles down eastern Missouri, flanked by shortleaf pines and tracing the foothills, in places skipping over rocks and roots like a stony river. It’s a dream of mine to walk from its trailhead (just forty minutes from here) clear to the western edge of the Mark Twain National Forest— some 230 miles. … Continue reading Rocks Of Remembrance
May you wake to a cracked window and rain that started in the night. Before you get elbow-deep into your work, may you get ankle-deep in leaves. Poet or builder, pastor or mother—may you welcome the cooler air by being in it. May you take a walk and need a jacket, and hear the geese … Continue reading An October Blessing
In 2015, the International Dark Sky Association named the town of Westcliffe, Colorado a “Dark Sky Community.” In 2015, I was fourteen and had never heard of the International Dark Sky Association. I was slogging through the eighth grade, so I didn’t know that when I graduated high school, I’d take a trip to Westcliffe--- … Continue reading Dark Enough to See
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