Cinnamon Rolls

                 Let there be work, bread, water and salt for all. 

Nelson Mandela

                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

                                                                              

Licky, sticky,

Warm and delicious,

Sweet and swathed in icing

Spicy, sugary

Soft and superb

Nutty and never enough 

Buttery, beautiful

Fresh baked cinnamon rolls

On a cold day

Wonderful! 

Does the Hawk

Does the hawk fly by your wisdom, 

and stretch her wings toward the south? 

Job 39:26

Perched on the pasture gate

He sits staring,

Watching for who knows what?

He looks past me

Looks beyond

Waiting, watching

Hawk

Delightful

A merry heart does good like a medicine.

Proverbs 17:22

Sadly enough, 

I think if this set had been mine,

I would have painted it black.

I am glad—so glad, that someone else 

Chose red and yellow!

The Blue Bowl

Abundance is finding extra family.

It wasn't greeted as cheerily this year

It reminded us that our Margaret wasn't here

Her favorite food to bring for Thanksgiving,

Red Jello with bananas on top, showed up without her

In her blue bowl that I saved from her kitchen shelf.

She wasn't much of a cook,

Living with no family for many years,

But she counted us her family;

 All holidays she came to our house;

So the blue bowl with red cherry dessert

Came year after year. We remembered Margaret

As in her honor I mixed it and as we passed it around

The table we spoke her name.

Budded Branch

For in the true nature of things, if we rightly consider, 

every green tree is far more glorious 

than if it were made of gold or silver.

Martin Luther

Winter has come and the trees

Already have begun to form next year's leaves;

At every place where a leaf has loosened and 

Flown on the blustery wind

A new bud, hard and dark, takes shape.

All winter they sleep and grow 

Strong through the cold, storms, and snows

When the first rains and warm sunny days arrive

The bud will swell and burst with new green.

If we will stop and look close 

We'll  learn that things are never as

Hopeless as they seem.

Party Time

Truth exists for the wise, beauty for the feeling heart. 

~Johann Von Schiller

Break out the streamers, 

The banners, the flags!

Blow the balloons

Strike up the bands!

The world is decorated for autumn!

Celebrate! Celebrate!

It's party time all over town

The trees are painted with happiness

Red, orange, yellow, and golden brown!

Beautiful We

"Everybody's beautiful in their own way"

Ray Stevens

Our eyes are all different 

As different as our fingerprints

So many billions of us yet God created each of us

Unique.

Who are you? Who am I?

When I begin to find the person God made 

Me to be

 I can be happy and beautiful,

My own

Kind of beautiful 

And see the beauty in others,

Their own

Kind of beautiful,

Unique.

Window Pain

Then Jesus said, "Father, forgive them,

 for they do not know what they do."

John 23:34

Sunlight streams through 

Colored glass

Window pane—I see your cross.

His pain to ease my pain

Beautiful cross—through you light

Came into the world and found me

Beautiful pain, beautiful pane

Beautiful.

Windswept Doorway

You have set the borders of the earth; 

You have made summer and winter. 

Psalm 74:17

Leaves when they fall

Miss the company they knew

Waving to each other on summer mornings,

Chatting together on airless afternoons,

Clinging together shaking during thunderstorms,

Whispering secrets on sultry summer nights.

They fall tumbling, bumbling, fumbling

To the ground where they re-congregate happily

Along fences and against country barns and houses.

They are swept down alleys and across sidewalks

They meet and greet each other with 

Lengthy sincere hugs—camaraderie    
Sweet fellowship!

Amaryllis

Lord, let me keep my rejoicing current.
As fresh as eggs, as new as the morning paper; 
as bright as my children's faces 
or sunlight dancing at the door.

Marjorie Holmes

Like a miracle during the cold days of winter

A bright spring beauty makes her debut into the world;

Nothing sheepish about this girl. 

She has confidence galore.

She's the star of the week with room to spare,

Not even one rival or runner-up in this pageant

Six petals—three ruffled and three trim

What a great gown and how well she wears it!

She's the winner—hands down

But wait—who's this behind her? a twin? triplets?

Identical to the last detail, oh my!

You never know what a day in November will bring!

Holidaze

God always gives us strength enough, 
and sense enough, 
for everything he wants us to do.

John Ruskin 

                                        

Basket of Pecans,
Ready for shelling for

Thanksgiving pies,

Christmas candies,

New Year's cookies.
Basket of goodness!

Downtown Gallery

One of the most important—and most neglected—elements 
in the beginnings of the interior life is the ability 
to respond to reality, see the value and the beauty
 in ordinary things.
~Thomas Merton~

White picture frames
With

Sky blue mats

Hold Picassos of the

Brown brick building 

Across the street

Warbled in old glass

Things are not always 

What they appear

To be.

Sycamore Autumn

Art is the demonstration that the ordinary is extraordinary.

~Amedee Ozenfant~

Sun on browning sycamore 

leaves—leaves

me

in awe—in autumn.

How can such tones,

Colors of sunrises and sunsets,

be held so surely

in thin dried

paper shapes?

Round yellow seed balls

pop out on stage 

to join the show

to dance—the dance.

Chimes

Enjoy the music of the world—crickets, wind, children and all the sounds that make life here on earth so rich.

~Candy Paull~

Wind sings a song of its own;

There is the percussion shimmer of dry leaves,

The whoosh of pine like the swoosh of cymbals,

I hear the clarinet hum—wind wuthering around the walls

The flutey note when a gust crosses the chimney pipe!

Wind clatters and shatters the silence with a rat-a-tat-tat 

A snare drum playing a branch against the roof.

Wind cries like a soprano in pitches our ears can barely find

Washes over grasses with deep tones of bass.

Wind, sing, but still play this little set of chimes for me

I love the music you help them make.

Fall Berries

Happiness is a thing to be practiced, like the violin.

John Lubbock

Gathered along gray stems like family

Clustered together waiting for Thanksgiving dinner,

Like groups of homeless in hodgepodge wraps standing 

In the prickly cold cheerfully awaiting a festive meal,

Like swarms of school children crowding excitedly in lunch line,

Like knots of friends chatting and laughing

Assembled in a church hall for a special meal together.

Fall berries keep company, busy, buzzing, raising the sound

Of happy soon-to-be coming get-togethers

Stop at the fenceline and gather for your heart's sake

Some of these berry boughs

To brighten those days ahead.

And to welcome the holidays home.

Sweetgum Tree

Autumn is a celebration of nature, 
its rarefied air tugging at our senses, 
begging for praise for the Creator. 

June Masters Bacher

Purple, orange, green, 

Yellow and red

All the colors in one tree

Singing to the autumn sky

A host of shiny star shapes

Shaking and shimmering in the 

Sun and wind

Like so many frolicking children

Costumed and excited

 On a school stage.

Let the show begin!

Camp Table

A sunny afternoon
Camp coffee long since gone
Pot still blackened by
This morning's fire
Blue enamelware cups sit
Like ornaments against the brown table and a
Bread trough of
Oranges bright with sunlight
Full of sweetness
Like decorations too
Make a happy campsite on
A sunny afternoon.

Firewood

No matter where I am, no matter what obstacles I'm facing, 
I will seek the laughter in my winter.
Debra Klingsporn

Stacked out in the sunshine

Along the porch

Firewood waits for wind winging in cold days

Waits for a frosty frigid night to warm us

Waits for sleet and freezing rain

For snowfall and  grey-sky days

Waits for its final work as a tree,

Comforting—protecting

 A family on bitter wintry days,

But no, still the ashes enrich the soil

And new trees sprout and grow

Wood, an earthy treasure fine as gold. 

Nut Case

Each one sees what he carries in his heart

Goethe

Atop the fence's
Corner post

A squirrel or maybe a crow 

Took lunch of a tasty pecan,

Snapped the nut meat neatly

From its wooden casing,
Left behind for us

The still green husk.

For interest's sake 

Not a poor trade on 
My day.

Letters

The telescope makes the world smaller, 

it is only the microscope that makes it larger.

G. K. Chesterton

In the waning afternoon light

I find fallen leaves across my path

 Like letters from summer

I read these notes

Every word 

I try to read what is written

Between the lines

Wisdom must come from life 

Lived so short a time

Yet, so gloriously well.

Fruit Bowl

Abundance is food enough to share and spare.

Fruit in a bowl 

Sight for the eye and the soul

One day oranges or peaches

Another day I find pears and figs

Bananas, grapefruit, tangerines

Bounty of the fruit bowl

Today tomatoes and yellow/green

Red blushed apples.

Canada geese

There is the music of heaven in all things.

~Hildegard of Bingen~

I heard honking in the dark clouded sky

Voices trumpeting, voices moving last night

Over and gone, I thought, and my heart was sad

Today I see you feeding on the lake

Are you here to spend a winter with me

Or are you heading further south?

Will you stay? Please stay!

Golden Days

Write in your heart that each day is the best day of the year.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Priceless days of November

When trees wear golden hair

We see gold on the water

We breathe gold in the air.

Gone is the green of summer,

The browns of winter yet rare;

Springing from pathway and arbor

Gold is everywhere.

Who needs gold that can't be spent?

For such  the fool doesn't care;

Yet this gold is gold that suits my soul

I'll treasure up my share.

Food for the Soul

Happiness lies in the absorption in some vocation

which satisfies the soul.

 Henry Ward Beecher

 Applesauce for winter suppers, 

Spring lunches and summer breakfasts

Preserved for days without plenty

A piece of harvest goodness stowed away to enjoy later.

A loaf of bread warm and spicy from the oven

These are pleasures not only in the eating of them,

Also in the preparing of them.

 I hold the bounty of summer again

 I feel the sunlight and the sweetness of the breeze again

Experience the joys of friendship, family, 

The goodness of God's provision

I find satisfaction.

White and Cobalt Blue

The earth laughs in flowers

Ralph Waldo Emerson

A tiny November blossom 

Laughs from my windowsill;

Brightens the kitchen

With its honey-sweet voice.

The Stone Cottages

Only one life will soon be past

Only what's done for Christ will last

C.T. Studd

Long they stood

Walls and arches over doorways

Baked by Oklahoma Augusts

Cured again and again, like bricks in kilns,

Like pottery that holds a story

Long they stood

Beaten by wind and weather.

Shifting foundations left cracks

Boys with rocks broke out windows

Birds and squirrels stayed

Replacing summer tourists

Vines crept up the stones

Trees sprouted and struggled to grow

Until roofs caved in

Rain helped the sprouts push skyward.

The earth reclaims the land

Yet long the old walls stood.

October Day

Ho, a chilly day!

Fall at her best

Summer’s been squeezed

Through a cider press.

On with your sweater

Come on—Let’s run

Till we’re finally warmed

By the autumn sun!

We’ll climb the pear tree

Gather them in

Baskets and buckets,

Boxes and bin.

Gather those pumpkins.

Carve us a “Jack”.

Cut golden sunflowers

Hang ‘em on the rack.

There’s soup for supper

With fresh hot bread.

Watch the orange moon rise

Then scurry off to bed.

Empty Nest

 I've often said that the most important thing you 

can give your children is wings.

Elizabeth Edwards

Woven of grasses,

Sweet with summer

Under the pear tree—

Forsaken in November,

She found a little bird's nest

"Where is the bird, Grandma?"

She wants to know

"Flown, and how soon flown. 

Yes, how soon."

Napping Grandpa

Napping Grandpa

By Elece Hollis

Age does not make us childish, as some say; 

it finds us true children. 

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Sunlight streaming in on him

Makes the couch the best napping spot.

Grandpa rests, sleeps his "spoon nap,"

Tired of the day early on

He snuggles his hands warm

Under his neck and face,

 He breathes deep,

Plays a game of Hide and No Seek

With his world and his work.

Mama's Face

I love the deep quiet in which I live and grow against 
 the world and harvest what they cannot
 take from me with fire or sword.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

There are secrets hidden in this smile,

Stories in this face. Life and

Years have etched memories—

Times that will not tell

Days not to be recalled.

Tears have fallen from these eyes

Joy tears and pain tears that now

Merge into a quiet acceptance of time

Sorrow lurks here in her features

And pensive poetry tries to escape

A dream wishing to be begotten

Of places now almost forgotten.

A song emanates through this skin

Singing she has loved and is loved

Mother, white capped with wisdom,

Longs for missing days, looks for empty spots

Where no light can reach,

I wish I knew the words that 

Are still inside.