I remember a time when I started the day seizing on the news cycle or my to-do list for work. However, exploring what’s behind anxiety and depression, I shifted my before-dawn routine to quiet time. Settling into a meditative practice has taken years. I discovered the loving-kindness approach and never looked back.
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When I Found Joy in the Morning: “Swimming After Trout”
The exuberance of diving into a mountain lake inspired this poem, which opens the third section (Summer) of my poetry collection, The Tears of Things: Poems. It was a ritual that announced days of soaking up sun and swimming in pristine waters.
Memorial Day: Cherishing Life in the Brutality of War
He scooped up a few gentle creatures and stowed them in shoeboxes below. The typhoon raged, battering most birds to death against the ship. When the seas calmed, Dad slipped below and gathered the shoeboxes. Then he ran topside, releasing the birds to soar. Life, after all, in the madness of death.
Mom’s Gift: Taking a Nature Pause in Early Morning
In recent years, I relearned a lesson from my mother: there’s beauty in common scenes unfolding before you if you stop to see them. When I lived in Atlanta, walking along the Chattahoochee River offered this daily gift and the chance to turn passing moments into poetry.
Poem: Before Dogwood Winter
I love plants that herald early spring before Dogwood Winter, the cold snap that occurs in mid-April when dogwood trees start blooming. This poem notes the painterly strokes I’d give these blooms if wielding a palette knife (page 25 from The Tears of Things: Poems (Madville Publishing).