The end of the year is auspicious.

The end of the year signals the beginning of the next and almost always involves a window.  Liquid art.  What frames intentions better than a window.  If you be lucky, a cat, too.  Also, a  piece of proper toast with olive oil will do nicely and coordinates well with any poem which may appear.   Ring a bell for good measure.

The center is ever forming

No gesture can quite capture (nor should it) a center.  Nor what flows from it.  Mystery is just this
-- small as a sky, large as a pebble, and the source of each haiku.  Think of this tonight, as you pour your best friend a glass of wine.

Some flowers can only be appreciated in the abstract

Some can only be named in the abstract and yet names & details are sources of beauty. Something to consider as you eat breakfast, as you place the next gesture to paper.

Silver, red & gold

for this time of lights.  For the time of moving inward. Now, you are ready to give up the waiting, the stillness.  Your feet have never given up on their love of imbalance which leads to the great dance.  Put on that silver bracelet with the garnet chip.  Savor a spoonful of pomegranate seeds.  Read a favorite poem before leaving the house.

Persimmons gladden the sky

There's something about trees in winter.  Leafless.  Vulnerable.  Raw beauty.  And yet, and yet, here are winter persimmons for the picking.  And for the birds.  Persimmon bread & cookies.  An haiku unfolds in the highest branches.  

Time to make time

Soon, it will be Winter Solstice.  That time to make time to center inward.  Then, time to move outward.  Much like a spoon does for soup.  A pen to poem.  Nothing happens before a still moment.  Perhaps, beauty.  Perhaps, grace.  Yes, to both.

Winter is taking over

Bark reflects the seasons as dramatically as new buds, as snow.  Holds both tenderly in balance. Much like simmering red sauce does with steaming pasta.  And always like that pristine black notebook waiting for the first gestures of a poem -- bark & all.

Not falling stars

but fallen stars.  How they illuminate a sidewalk.  Miraculous.  Miraculous as a shared meal.  Miraculous as one word joins another.  

Be and/or Become

whatever you wish it to be and/or become, it will.  You can feel it unfolding.  Like tasting a favorite sauce after taking-in its delicious smell.   Like seeing words coalesce on the page into meaning that surprises, that delights.  The fresh dance of what is and what will become.

Looking down & not knowing

what you are seeing but knowing that is enough to go no deeper.  It's akin to know when to stop adding spices to a dish.  It's akin to knowing when to stop editing a poem before it becomes muck.

Use your imagination or stand on your head.

Is there any difference?  The distinction between red radishes is putting a fine point to finger food, don't you think?  Perhaps this is a reintegration of a red fox?  Or the first line of a poem that you will edit well into the morning?  Only the red fox knows, and she's moved on out of rain's hearing.  And furthermore, has no interest in haiku.

Sometimes the name comes later

It's enough to simply like something.  To stop, look, smile.  Or in any order you wish.  Don't fret, the name will come as surely as your hand will reach for the perfect spice to season the dish.  Yes, just as a pen trusts ink.  Now, I remember, the name is "persimmon."  

Raku as supernova

Sometimes it's looking down between your feet that inspires, that tosses you into the cosmos.  And you are gleeful & grateful.  Tomorrow is the Day of Gratitude.  The turkeys are strutting unafraid, oblivious.  And that's another blessing.

I've always been drawn to red.

Have you considered, with red leather gloves the world is slightly more positive, hopeful, navigable?  Also consider, wood spoons made from bloodwood, cherry, and especially cocobolo stirring a soup which you accompany with a seasonal salad of field greens, radishes, Persian cucumbers, feta  & pomegranates.  Life is good.  Life is colorful. Read a fews poems with friend over a glass of red wine.  Life is complete.

Soon the grid itself will glisten

Something magical about the first rains, especially when it's drought conditions in the midst of wildfires season.  Something magical, too,  about the foods of this holiday time.  Tomorrow is the Day of Gratitude and there will feasts for the fortunate with seats at the table.  The mashed potatoes will be whipped & airy.  Each word a celebration.  And smiles verdant.

Have you noticed, trees can be seen

as pens.  And clouds as ink.  At the same time, trees can be knives slicing through a yellow heirloom tomato.  Right now, I am missing heirloom tomatoes, are you?

Last harvest

everywhere, somewhere.  In focus & sometimes slightly to the left of clarity.  Reminds me a meal that didn't quite soar, didn't have the requested pizzaz.  Or a line of a poem that only called in dried leaves and the withered.  And yet, I have with relish  harvested dried magnolia leaves this late harvest while remembering lush roses.

Faint but legible

a life, a story splayed upon hard surface.  I think of the hard surface of raw buttercup squash and a knife as its equal.  I think of a fountain pen etching into fine rag paper.  I think; I walk; I cook.  I write.

Blue Me Away

blue/violet Mid Season bearded iris.  Unexpected this late in November.  The unexpected brings beauty.  I remember last night's citrus pie.  Unexpectedly, light & fresh.  I hope to be caught up in an unexpected word frenzy later this evening.  

Once on the tree

and now in the heart of a tree from which it fell.  True for families, too -- 2-footed and 4-footed.
True of words edited out of poem.  For ingredients tasted yet unseen in a dish.  Simply put, layers of memory and meaning.

Blur

is a swipe into beauty.  Like the taste of unseen pepper in potato soup.  Like the precision of just the right word in a sentence, in conversation, in the imagination.  Complemented flowers in a treasured vase.

Not your usual walk around the neighborhood

Dream-scapes.  Where poems are found and left.  Where the mouth remembers a favorite taste.  The nose, a rose.

Reflection is the narrative,

always has been.  Shadows, too, have gravitas.  Palpable as a fork & knife.  As a pen spilling shadows on a page.

From the inconvenience of an empty bowl to the sadness of an empty bench...

Absences of all kind fascinate me.  I think of it as kin to convex and concave. Two sides of a spoon. A pen writing; a pen resting on a desk.  Do you think benches hold the imprint of people?  Is the same true of a pen, a keyboard?

Look. Look some more.

That's the reason for walking.  Seeing things at eye level.  Sometimes stooping is required.  Pretend you are a pretzel but stop short of pain.  When I walk, I pass into and through light.  Not a shabby place to be.  Much like cooking; always like writing a line or two.  Here's the irony, I go outside to be inside.

No worries

Cats are purring wisdom.  To be content in being swaddled and then give ourselves completely to sleep.  No to-do list.  No shoulds.

Grains of all kinds

those we eat & those from whom we build a bench.  We sit and are given the opportunity to marvel at the simple, the organic.  Who can explain the physics of why a simple wood grain can spark memories of family or can be the catalyst for the title of a poem?

Deities

in the irregularities of a marble floor
in the root system of trees
in the tango of spoon and soup
in the verb of a smile

Leafy and leathery

Imagine walking in fond shoes, wearing a leather jacket with giant magnolia buttons or simply emptying your mind in something so otherworldly, it stops you in your tracks.  What will you make for dinner?  Which words become the next familiars?

Withered and beautiful

intrinsically delicate
fragile for our times
our appetites, our intentions
the downpouring of words

Every object is a landscape

especially a refrigerator.  Stainless steel -- ah! the stories it can tell.  Consider, the refrigerator as an alphabet.  So tell me, what's for dinner?  Are you editing in or editing out the carrot in that petite poem?

A glass ceiling

is a canvas for interesting bric brac, for the unassimilated.  For nouns of all sorts.  Memories, too, including favorite recipes & phrases.  All the disparate can be pulled together in a sentence, in a recipe. To be shared.  To be served up.

Time is best seen at daybreak

What else has dawned on me this morning?
The intrinsic beauty in what I see and say "lovely."
Playfulness of word order.
Joy in the non sequitur.
That persimmons have arrived.  And are not at their best.  But will be.

Seen in normal light

above ground.  Calligraphy.  What is being written is open to interpretation -- gnarled or gone underground.  Reminds me to edit that poem -- again.  Reminds me it's time to roast root vegetables.
Serve on a plate in evening light.

Pumpkin time

Autumn is time's hinge.  At it's center, you can see the moon working out the arithmetic -- necessary & beautiful.  No different than baking squash.  No different than editing a poem.  In all instances, look toward the moon; herein lies wisdom.  A tad of mischief, too.

When pens become triangles

what is being measured?  Do nouns and verbs understand equidistant in a poem?  How would a wooden spoon related to these conditions?  The air is shifting; time, falling.  Pens might just be the corral to hold us together.

Where is this going?

from northeast to southwest?  Or southwest to northeast.  Which way will it be swiped?  How does time influence this movement?  Is weather involved?  The advent of persimmons?  The lessons of plums and pluots?  How many poems will be read this morning?

Never forget the edges,

the margins.  Or the shadows.  This is true with cooking.  You taste what you don't see.  This is true with a poem -- you taste what has been editing away.  Fragrant, not fragile.

Glass, light

 & ink.  Delicious trio.  I've never been one to favor squid ink.  Are you?  For me gestures in black ink inspire.  Much like a  favorite wooden spoon darkened by use stirring a favorite stew.  Or those black rimmed appetizer-sized plates.

Imagine this pond

from the goldfish's perspective.  Or the rocks's.  Or the flowering lilies.  At home, consider the meal from a fork's perspective.  Tell me, is a poem under the surface of a blank page and the pen needs only to sculpt away until all which is left is essence?

Grain & face

We see the tangible in clouds, too.  Or in the landscape of food on a plate we remember where we've lived.  We read the fingerprint of the author in a poem.  Makes me smile.  How about you?

There is light in everything

& at the same time, dark.  Not 50-50, perhaps.  Why am I thinking of salt dissolving in soup?  Why am I remembered words removed from a poem?  Yup, light & dark.

Some bells ring to a different timbre

Silence is a blessed parcel of time.  A gift of the journey inward.  Like the meditation of cooking.  Or writing one word then the next not knowing when a period might manifest.  

Not what but whom

If we padlock the cooks...
If we padlock the artists...

Subtly in drama

Something are meant to be vibrant and some with a softer lens.  Flowers are prime examples as they speak with light.  When cooking, consider the light each ingredient offers.  When writing, consider releasing the light on the page.  Of course, reflections are a library in-and-of themselves.

Autocorrect "blogging"

to "belonging."  Computer programs aren't soulless, are they?  Think of a feather about to embark on another leg (or leaf) of its journey.  Now consider the pit of a peach as a heart.  Or consider a blank page as the canvas for conversing.  FYI:  the nickname for this bush is "the breath of heaven."

Everything wants

to be touched.  To make contact.  Even at the points.  So whole cloth is spun even by its parts. Look, too, for the beginning of stars.  Others may see fields of crops with water sources within reach.  Does it matter.  Know this:  there can be food & words enough to share for all.

A signal to stop

to brake can bring you closer.  An invitation for a deeper reflection.  When you were first learning to read, you knew this.  Reminders along the way are to be encouraged.  Consider, a favorite family dish.  Or the first poet who spoke to you personally.  Go ahead, make that dish; read that poet.  Out loud, of course.

Unadorned

exquisitely
vibrant
quivers
quickens
startles
the breath
& gives it
back

the beauty
the eyes
take in
feed us
give us
words
for a life