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.