Yard Work

Grass clippings, the smell-green,
sticky skin and clinging t-shirt,
crepe myrtle snow drifts 
across the porch,
ants in army rows 
file back and forth from yard to column
searching dryer ground,
an unknown song bird trills,
a hushed mourning dove coos,
purple, pink and yellow flowers
sway to the cicada hot rise and fall,
My tea glass sits empty,
and my toasted, sock feet resting on a stool,
emit steam, a by product of old, silver tennis shoes
and yard work,
an infinitesimal slide in the universal show,
but significant 
to me.

 "See what love the father has bestowed upon us that we should be called the children of God."

    written from memory. Look it up, if you like.
Peace. Love, Linda

Blessings Flow

Sunday morning starts slowly with a cup of coffee on the back porch and the view of the sun shining discretely through the big oak.
The green is so rich in the woods behind the house from the heavy summer rains that a bank can't buy it,
and the peace passes in white puffs across blue sky.

The hole in the business check book created by bills is miraculously filled, as always, with "out of the blue" customers and unexpected sales, and the incredibly deserving technicians go home with their
sustenance for another two weeks.

Blessings don't fall in diminished streams to be had only by the lucky and the bold.
Blessings are everywhere for everyone, just for the taking,"the evidence of things unseen."
Blessings flow.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow.

Praise him all creatures here below.

Praise him above ye heavenly host.

Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

Amen.

Peace. Love, Linda

The Mirror

I wanted, for my sixth birthday, 
a beach ball and a bathing suit,
but it wasn't in the stars that year;
I cried and life went on.
I'm not sure if I had a mirror in my room, then.
We moved in third grade and things not so good happened, 
broken shards from the mirror cut me deeply
and happy school was suddenly over, 
and I was nineteen years old on a party treadmill
running too slow to keep the pace,
so I fell to the ground
catching a glimpse of shining glass on the way down
dropping off my sins at the feet of my father,
and next I was
married and pregnant.
The baby cried, and I rocked her in a yellow room on
a brown rocker, and I glanced at the light from the mirror,
but shied away from the swollen image. No time for that.
I somehow turned 35, in the midst of a career change
and about to make a life change and accept a death.
I saw my Daddy get on the Silver Streak, and ride to heaven, 
and I was weak with grief
lying on my side in our Georgia house,
looking at the mirror,
in a flash we moved back to Florida.
I was 42 and my breast had to be cut off, and my hair fell out.
I peeled back the bandage,
and for the first time looked very closely in the mirror
at multiple wounds and saw
what was missing,
at least part of it, half of it.
I wept for my losses, and soon watched my mother,
after a season of pain, die peacefully.
We raised our daughter to be strong, and she moved out young,   presenting us with a son-in-law and made me a grandmother, and I started a new job, again.
I daily began to check the mirror to see 
that things were in the right place.
I wrote an email where I worked at the time and sent it to the whole world.My words shone like a mirror, but blinders block the light.
I lost that battle,
but I won the war.
I stood once again on the precipice of change,
and my husband and I started our own business,
and I try to not forget to gaze at the mirror daily,
and to keep vinegar and old newspapers
in the bottom cabinet
below the sink.