Great Gardener

My mind is like a field
Flowers of thoughts
I want to gather a bouquet
To place here on the table
There do not seem to be
Many thoughts for me
To pick from
The field isn’t blooming
So here’s a bundle of grass
And a fist full of dirt

I wrote that poem about two years ago.

Yesterday I went out into my yard and found a rose and a few dahlias and some cat mint, just a little of leftover summer to brighten my kitchen table on an overcast autumn day.

Progress. I didn’t settle for dried grass and dirt this year. I found flowers, even after a night where cold threatened to steal any remaining beauty.

There will always be beauty. I have gotten better at finding it. I have gotten better at cultivating it when the weather is good. I am not just rambling about the seasons of Ohio. I am articulating the seasons of the soul.

When the mornings greet me with sunshine and hope, I plant – fill my mind with whatever is true, lovely, right, pure, noble, admirable, excellent, praiseworthy (Philippians); I weed – taking every thought captive and making it obedient to Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5); I water what is growing in my soul with worship and praise and prayer. When the season changes, when it is harder to jump out of bed and greet the day; I see fruit that has grown and needs to be harvested and shared.

I beseech you. Do not settle for dried grass and dirt as I did. If you didn’t plant anything this year, there is grace for you. Here, let me share this fruit with you. Enjoy the nourishment and savor the sweet, then save the seeds and plant something beautiful for yourself and for others.

The best part. You don’t have to figure out how it will grow. It WILL. I know this because I share with you fruit that will last. The seed is the Word of God. The Son is the Light that makes it spring forth. Christ is the Living Water that keeps it fresh and fragrant.

Let your heart be good soil! When you feel the growth springing forth in your soul, take care of it. Protect it. And if you don’t know how, ask the One who does. He is a Great Gardener!

Bolder

The tears fell so hard and fast
It was like an avalanche
A landslide

Boulders of emotion
Breaking off the ridge of my soul
Tumbling down the mountain of my mind
Blocking the road of my will

Is this erosion
Or the natural shifting of my soulscape?

Where is my sign:

Beware of Falling Tears

(written October 2020)

23

In the valley of my breaths
I dodged so many deaths

To search for steady beat
And rest in field so sweet

Led by gentle story
Found in subtle glory

Wool and wonder are my lot
Staff and cup forget me not

Beside me in the water
I am a shepherd´s daughter

Face to Forever

Nashville, September 2022

This poem is dedicated to Grandaddy, also known as Greatest Grandad.

City
guitars and lights
Music and flights
Of fancy
For me is home 
To silver and gray
And slow and steady
Sit and stay
Strong

Yellow
Oh, I love the yellow
Clean and safe
Folded neatly
A towel to dry my hair
A napkin to wipe my face
A mat to mark my place
At a table of setting
Grace

Treasure
Polished and kept in glass
Spotless ware and shiny blade
Truest of all
Will never fade
Tall, right, straight
Your character given
For service and Sunday
Song

Voice
To celebrate every year 
Miss and Sugar 
called so dear
Singing birth, sighing death
You were there, you were here
Now you are
Face to Forever
Face

Trails

Sips of faithful care
Stirs of always there

Sweeps of stay a while
Folds of tender smile

Wonder cries a mystery
Under skies so blistery

Stitched anew by tearing
Hitched to you by wearing

Heart on a sleeve
Start to believe

Trails of salty bearing

Teem

Island Shore, July 2022

She will search the shore
For hints of distant moor
With ruins at her feet
A rule she cannot meet

In shells and vessels smoothed
By swells of nestled brood
To swim and fly in salt
Or brim and die at fault

Misty is the glass
Foggy is the past
Rarely will it last
A straight and standing mast

Water drinks the wood
Daughter thinks she could
Find a sea of meaning
In this ocean teeming

Waiting at the edge
Where ripple is the ledge
Postured for a sail
Wind will stir the vale

The key washes up
Waves fill her cup
Roaring through her voice
Gale and zephyr hoist

Deep has given gold
Woman measures bold
The islands will be tolled
And gather to the fold

Grounded Well

This morning I am thinking about being a tree and roots and branches and producing fruit.  In the times of emotional drought, my roots had to reach deep, deep, down beneath the surface to find water.  In my poetry in the winter, I would describe it like a flicker, a little light of lingering hope.  Today I think of it as an underground river and a few slight tendrils of my deepest roots finding my Living Water and slowly drawing it up through the roots and into my center, but just enough to keep me sustained.  When I think of my being this way, as a tree, purpose becomes clear.  A tree forced to send roots far into the earth will be strong and stable and withstand wind and storms and famine.  It will remain.  I will remain…In Christ.

So, I can declare, with confidence, there was great and beautiful purpose in all the pain.  Oh, how difficult it was to see then!  Oh, how I longed to feel streams of joy flowing around me!  How I craved a gentle rain or even a torrent!  I wanted relief from the relentless dry of nothingness.  I was sustained but not appeased. And I waited out the drought. And I watered my soul with my own tears, while my spirit was sending subtle subterranean branches to my Source, Christ alone.

Today, I will share with you a poem I wrote two years ago while I was experiencing a very difficult time of depression. In sharing these desperate words, it is my hope and prayer that you be encouraged to seek hope in the One who knows your pain; who, for the joy set before him…endured…the cross…for you.

Saint Simons Island, 2022

Willing tears to hold their place

Not yet time for dampened face

Sowing now a field of sorrow

Begging for a crop tomorrow

Waiting for the weight to lift

Feeling lost, a boat adrift

Sour belly, swollen eyes

Tired of fighting off the lies

Bitter taste and broken dreams

Falling apart at the seams

Till

2017 Santa Catarina, Brasil

If every day 
I till these lines
And sow my thoughts
in patterned rhymes

I will yield a field

Rows of prose
Trees of these
Herds of words
Bees of sees

Making sense of all my senses
Flinging verbs in all their tenses

Seeds are carried
To fertile souls
Sprouting hope
On nourished knolls
Inspired crops
Are filling bowls
With harvest wisdom
And fruitful scrolls

Here

Tears and laughter flow
In abundance
These days
On the mountain

The shore in the distance
The coast of surf and soul

Rain and rocks fall
With a fury
These days
In the valley

Solid core of resistance
The boast of cleanse and coal

Pitching a tent
Instead of a fit
One who is sent
Accepts the bit

Line is clear
Dawn is near
Gone is fear
Blade is sheer

Hope is here

Supreme

View from Alms Park, 2022

In the Name of Love
Mary cries
In the bed of ashes
Treasure lies

Arrows fly
As tensions grow
The Archer of the South

Truth protects
The justice flow
The Hunter of the North

Court the possibility
Of unborn nobility
Sailing the sea
Of Tranquility