Who

 Who 

by Jane Kenyon

These lines are written

by an animal, an angel,
a stranger sitting in my chair;
by someone who already knows
how to live without trouble
among books, and pots and pans…
Who is it who asks me to find
language for the sound
a sheep’s hoof makes when it strikes
a stone? And who speaks
the words which are my food?

In the End We Are All LIght

 At least once a year I have to post this poem! This one is one of my favorites.

In The End We Are All Light

I love how old men carry purses for their wives,

those stiff light beige or navy wedge-shaped bags

that match the women’s pumps,

with small gold clasps that click open and shut.

The men drowse off in medical center waiting rooms,

with bags perched in their laps like big tame birds

too worn to flap away. Within, the wives slowly undress,

put on the thin white robes, consult, come out

and wake the husbands dreaming openmouthed.

And when they both rise up

to take their constitutional,

walk up and down the block, her arms are free as air,

his right hand dangles down.

So I, desiring to shed this skin

for some light silken one,

will tell my husband, “Here, hold this,”

and watch him amble off into the mall among the shining

cans of motor oil, my leather bag

slung over his massive shoulder bone,

so prettily slender-waisted, so forgiving of the ways

we hold each other down, that watching him

I see how men love women, and women men,

and how the burden of the other comes to be

light as a feather blown, more quickly vanishing.

-Liz Rosenberg

A Jar of Buttons

A Jar of Buttons

This is a core sample
from the floor of the Sea of Mending,
a cylinder packed with shells
that over many years
sank through fathoms of shirts -
pearl buttons, blue buttons -
and settled together
beneath waves of perseverance,
an ocean upon which
generations of women set forth,
under the sails of gingham curtains,
and, seated side by side
on decks sometimes salted by tears,
made small but important repairs.
-Ted Kooser

Easter is Hope: Images of Garden Valley Community Church

"The great gift of Easter is hope - Christian hope which makes us have that confidence in God, in his ultimate triumph, and in his goodness and love, which nothing can shake."  Basil C. Hume

Today I wanted to catch the Easter spirit in photo images at church. Our little Garden Valley church was busting at the seams with 80 people praising today.

 Cute shoes!

 Lovely dress

 Pastor Shane

Celebration!

Amen!

A Garden Room

 In the winter when the weather is freezing and snow blankets the gardens I like to do decorating in the house. When the sun comes out like it did today I like to begin redoing garden rooms. My rooms may be in a corner between fences, a shady spot behind the greenhouse, or the middle of the wedding garden.

 Today I worked on the Lucy Garden. This garden is in memory of my dog Lucy. It is where she is buried. It is an area behind the gazebo that used to be empty. When we buried Lucy there we began to add plants.

Last summer we redid the Lucy Garden into a BBQ eating area. Today I added even more.

 Grayson was my assistant.

 We decided tonight as we rested and watched the sun go behind the trees that this could be one of our favorite spots around the place.

Happy Earth Day!

 The earth is what we all have in common.-- Wendell Berry