Category Archives: family

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A Day of Giving Thanks

Trees yawn. Outdoor colors fade.
Wind cools short days.
Leaves skip and dance, filling corners
with secrets.
A gust sends them tittering
like giggling school girls excited
about tomorrow night’s party.

Family and friends gather.
Hands join, heads bow
around sacrificial bird stuffed
with hopes and dreams for another year.

Thanks are given for food on plates
and warm homes.
Thanks for nature’s bounty.
Thanks for peace in our country.
Thanks for a day to remember love
that surrounds us.
Thanks, simply, for the magical gift of life.

Winter prepares to blanket sleepy earth.
Cold fingers nudge into night.

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The Journey by Mary Oliver

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice – –
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried,
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do – –
determined to save
the only life you could save.

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Blue Mountains

When family gathers we disappear.
Your little hand guides me away.

Favorite stories, mixed with
salad bites and crunchy sandwiches,
are shared at the table we
leave behind.

Bug eyed fish gulp surface treats
bubbling past us on our way to
climb blue mountains.

Today the story of you and I
is written on the highest peak,
and carved amongst jewels in
a golden crown drawn in the sand.

Rumbling tummy and thirsty lips
dive us back to our tribe.
Chewing and chatting relatives
toss us a drink and a few
morsels.

Hand in hand,
we walk away again, to explore
enchanted lands on the other
side of the blue mountains.

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Manners

devonian play park
(internet photo)

Little monkey limbs
grasp and hold and climb.
Blue plastic mountains
rise over colorful, recycled
rubber land.

Yellow, green and orange footsteps
sink and rise, spongy elastic
imprints rebound.

Mommas wear flowered tops.
Some have brought books
to the indoor babysitter.
Hands hold Styrofoam cups,
sip drinks from sidelines.

Droopy eyed adults dart in and out
of the romp fest.
Tsks and clucks can be heard
as playtime manners
are taught.

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Canyon Hike

Johnston-Canyon-Upper-Falls

(photo credit: Graeme Pole. Johnston Canyon)

We stepped with purpose, a marching band of old and young.
We dodge other hikers as we ascend the canyon.

Water rushes in bubbling, white torrents, foaming and splashing
as it forces its way through narrow gorge walls that squeeze
and open and narrow again.

Glacier blue liquid leaps and spins, pole vaulting over boulders,
hurdling fallen trees, and diving into swirling eddy pools.

The sun’s rays find their way into the canyon beaming heat onto
our backs and shoulders and the tops of our heads. Faces redden
and our pace slows.

A surge from the river skips over wooden boards, flying above the
rocky path. It startles flesh with a icy smack, then drops to thirsty ground.

We mount staircases built into cliff sides. We zigzag upward along wire
mesh catwalks that cling to the canyon walls.

At last we bask in the mist and spray of water cascading down the deep ravine.
We admire moonholes and caves, and smooth sensuous, curving stonework
sculpted by water

rushing
rushing
rushing
doing exactly what it is supposed to do.

We descend into hordes of people all wanting to see what we just saw. It feels
like we are on a broken escalator. Elbows and shoulders bump as we jostle and
scramble past each other.

At last we sit and lick soft ice cream in gentle circular strokes from
crunchy cones, as we savour the thrill of completing our hike.