For all its beauty, nature can play a joke, as in the time I once passed beneath a stately magnolia and spotted a nest with a tag likely torn from a pillow. It was a laugh-out-loud moment: a bird recycling human trash.
Category: Poetry
Starting the Day with an Offer of Loving-kindness
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.
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.
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).