A month ago, I wrote of gathering the strength of the wilds to prevail in a vote for the future of Democracy and life on Earth. Now? We can celebrate the record high turnout, and President-elect Joe Biden who will be a president for all, a healer, and uniter. As we know, our journey is far far from over. What better way to begin the challenging path ahead than with gratitude that is the heart of Thanksgiving?

My gratitude extends to every person wearing a mask and practicing social distancing for the health and well-being of others. Generosity. Goodness. Kindness. Please. In this time of forgoing customary Thanksgiving feasts in person with family and friends, let us show our gratitude to doctors, nurses, and healthcare workers. Let us extend our solace and sympathy to all who have suffered or have lost loved ones in this pandemic. Let us find ways for our love of neighbor, country, and all living beings to prevail.

And…let us find lightness, too. Let our creative expressions come forward in writing, song, dance, art, culinary, or any way that invites a foray. In that spirit, I will share a few ponderings and poems from morning journals of October and November.

Aphorisms, Questions, & Other One Sentence Ponderings

Be kind for we are all of a kind, kin and kindred.

Winter storm calls for tending to birds, to firewood, and to words.

When rain falls after the long drought, can we hear the sounds of plants drinking?

Where sunlight filters through an ancient forest and backlights a spider web, know that all is circular, returning, and woven.

If I lived to be 500-years-old, would I, too, sprout huckleberry bushes from my high branches?

One thistle pulled is never enough, but to never pull is to give up hope.

Blessings for the season of generosity, for gleanings of harvest, and quail scurrying below our window at dawn.

The tree that knew lightning fell in a windstorm.

Celebrate the tree that lives and dies and nurses the soil and never meets the chainsaw.

I am not afraid that the geese will not return, though there is much to fear.

Touch the moon ray with a sleepy hand.

When verbs reverberate, will we awaken?

POEMS

Normalcy
Grating carrots
Carrots dug
from organic
soils

Chopping garlic
Garlic grown
and tended in our
home garden

Watching Pine Siskins
awhirl upon a
column bird feeder
outside our kitchen window

Hum of home
Of whole
Of kindness
Of gratitude
For
This

North Umpqua River

Invite the rollicking wave
Free flow
Slap of salmon
Dipper curtsy
Kingfisher swerve
Flash of Golden-crowned Kinglet
Sigh of cedar
Journey
Arrival
Here

Game Over

Chess pieces
In disarray.
Black pawns
Lined up.
White king
Knocked over.

Dream Time
For Nancy Seiler (a story to go with her painting)

Lovers entwine upon
fresh, pressed spring grass
gazing up to shimmer
of aspen leaves on a
tingled breeze

White leaning trunks
waft and wander
like desire
of midday sky
Singing bluebird
Swashing penstemon
Pasteling robin’s egg

Meadow flows uphill
Green wave scatters
bodacious buttercups
Meadowlark arias
float upon
tender clouds
swanning away

Memory
sifts sweet
golden pollen
glistening upon
bumblebee wings
Dreamy as Monet
in Montana

Painting by Nancy Seiler

Play Date

Dawn seesaws
between night and day
Leapfrogs into sunlight
Sunlight cartwheels
across the pine
Pine swings
into a crooked step
Buoyed by balmy winds
Winds that monkey rope
up the Cascades
Cascades tag cumulus cloud
You’re it!

Exploring Spanish Shadorma Form

Kingfisher
Bold crested angler
Hovering
Light and quick
Above the sparkled river
Wingbeats tuning hearts
Before the swift dive

Kernels: Fall River Trail

Pine needles tessellate
a smoky sky

Fallen tree above
clarity of cool blue river

Beaver-gnawed lodgepole
dam that nourishes

Maroon leaves papering
trail of ashy sands

Elder pine perfumes
in lavish vanilla

Blackened trunks
oversee new life

Lullaby

Rock me on the
forest branch
High high in
a hemlock

Feathers all
a ruffle
in salty, zesty
sea wind

Clasp this perch
of twinkling song
Kiltering kinglets
Star the day

Blink my spotted owl eyes
Dazed in the dawn
One soft hoot
before the snooze

Three Herons in Drake Park

A trio of herons
Assembles in Drake Park
Their landing in the
Shallows of Mirror Pond
A lumber of wings
Close to the two
Young men in suits
Clasping hands and smiling
For the camera

What do we know
Of heronry?
Of brothers & lovers?
Only the
Reflection
Of fall flaming trees
And
Acts of
Relationship

Quail Time

Sylvan dawn
Awaits the
California Quail
Topknotting
Among
Snowy toeprints
Bunched and bundled
Chuckling chums
Scruffing and scrunching
Peck peck …scatter!