Cycles

The days are getting longer.

The neighbor just parked in front of my house to put his canoe on top of his car.

Just returned from walking the dogs and noticed the crocus and heather in bloom, the buds on the trees, and the how far the bulbs have pushed their way through the earth.

It is 57 and the bright sun sets in a little over an hour.

It is a waning crescent moon.

Cycles of the day, of the month, of the year......cycles of our lives.....nature teaching us to dig deep, care for ourselves, then blossom with new life once again.

"Everything flowers from within.....of self-blessing"


Saint Francis and the sow

The bud

stands for all things,

even for those things that don't flower,

for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;

though sometimes it is necessary

to reteach a thing its loveliness,

to put a hand on its brow

of the flower

and retell it in words and in touch

it is lovely

until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing;

as Saint Francis

put his hand on the creased forehead

of the sow, and told her in words and in touch

blessings of earth on the sow, and the sow

began remembering all down her thick length,

from the earthen snout all the way

through the fodder and slops to the spiritual curl of the tail,

from the hard spininess spiked out from the spine

down through the great broken heart

to the blue milken dreaminess spurting and shuddering

from the fourteen teats into the fourteen mouths sucking and

blowing beneath them:

the long, perfect loveliness of sow.

(Galway Kinell)