321/365

A power of Butterfly must be -
The Aptitude to fly
Meadows of Majesty concedes
And easy Sweeps of Sky.

- Emily Dickinson

Gray skies characterize the day. The hours pass slowly, and I probably check the clock one hundred times. It is a Hurry Up and Wait sort of day. 

Finally, I walk over to my house with a friend. There in the midst of drab, a butterfly rests.

Still, I am surprised that such an ordinary thing as a caterpillar morphs into such a beautiful winged creature. Yes, in our Creator's plan, even the mundane is being transformed.

150/365

At the Sea-Side

When I was down beside the sea 

A wooden spade they gave to me 

To dig the sandy shore. 

My holes were empty like a cup. 

In every hole the sea came up 

Till it could come no more.

-Robert Louis Stevenson, 1947

123/365

To pay attention, this our endless and proper work.
- Mary Oliver, White Pine: Poems and Prose

53/365

Halfway down the stairs
is a stair
where i sit.
there isn't any
other stair
quite like
it.
i'm not at the bottom,
i'm not at the top;
so this is the stair
where
I always
stop.

Halfway up the stairs
Isn't up
And it isn't down.
It isn't in the nursery,
It isn't in town.
And all sorts of funny thoughts
Run round my head.
It isn't really
Anywhere!
It's somewhere else
Instead!
- "Halfway Down" by A.A. Milne

33/365

I have a vision problem;
my eyes are okay,
but my heart
doesn't see very well.
I live in a world
where Your beauty
is everywhere visible.
It is there
in the lily.
It is there
in the cascading wave.
It is there
in the multi-hued sunset.
It is there
in the stars of the night.
It is there
in the power of the storm.
It is there
in the rhythm of the rain.
It is there
in the grandeur of the mountain.
It is there
in the lace of the clouds.
It is there
in the succulence of the apple.
It is there
everywhere I look.
But often
I do not see Your beauty.
I must confess
I am so blind...
- "Days of Beauty," by Paul David Trip in A Shelter in the Time of Storm

321/366

…apparently we believe

in the words

and through them

but we long beyond them

for what is unseen

what remains out of reach

what is kept covered

with colors and sizes

we hunger

for what is undoubted yet dubious.

—W.S. Merwin, from “Rainment”

I am thankful for

cool mornings, the hover and still of fog, little boys who babble away, the familiar voice of my longest friend, the promise of eternity, gathering together.

95/366

There was a roaring in the sky;
The sea-gulls cried as they blew by;
We tried to talk, but had to shout-
Nobody else was out.

When we got home, we had sand in the hair,
In the eyes and the ears and everywhere;
Whenever a good nor'wester blows,
Christopher is found with
Sand-between-the-toes.

- A.A. Milne, "Sand Between the Toes," in When We Were Very Young

16/366

Landscape

Isn’t it plain that the sheets of moss, except that
they have no tongues, could lecture
all day if they want

about spiritual patience? Isn’t it clear
the black oaks along the path are standing
as though they were the most fragile of flowers?

Every morning I walk like this around
the pond, thinking: if the doors to my heart
ever close, I am as good as dead.

Every morning so far I’m alive. And now
the crows break off from the rest of the darkness
and burst up into the sky – as though

all night they have thought of what they would like
their lives to be, and imagined
their strong, thick wings.

- Mary Oliver

277/365

Thy train of cars behind, obedient, merrily following,
Through gale or calm, now swift, now slack, yet steadily careering;
Type of the modern—emblem of motion and power—pulse of the continent...
- from "To a Locomotive in Winter," in Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman (1881)

252/365

to do list progress
unexpected starts and stops
surprise texts are best

(view of the desk today)

243/365

Bound No'th Blues
Goin' down de road, Lord,
Goin' down de road.
Down de road, Lord,
Way, way down de road.
Got to find somebody
To help me carry this load.
Road's in front o' me,
Nothin' to do but walk.
Road's in front o' me,
Walk... and walk... and walk.
I'd like to meet a good friend
To come along an' talk.
Road, road, road, O!
Road, road... road... road, road!
Road, road, road, O!
On de No'thern road.
These Mississippi towns ain't
Fit for a hoppin' toad.
- Langston Hughes

(artwork from Jacob Lawrence's Migration Series, #40 The Immigrants Arrived in Great Number, One Way Ticket at MOMA)

So much of this artwork reminded me of where I live...

175/365

     there is something 
inexpressibly beautiful 
about the world
     when the sun begins to rise
and fill the dim sky
with soft rays of light
     and only the birds are awake
to sing to you "good morning"
while everyone else
     is curled up in their beds
unaware of the magnificence 
they're missing
     and everything feels so simple
it's as if six a.m. is an epiphany
that sparks at your fingertips
     and spreads until
you are encompassed entirely 
by a feeling of clarity
     there is something 
inexpressibly beautiful
about being awake to behold
     the splendor of this world
while everyone else
is still asleep
- m.k.

108/365

Hang-head Bluebell,
Bending like Moses’ sister over Moses,
Full of a secret that thou dar’st not tell!
- George MacDonald

362/365

How to Recognize Grace 
by Marilyn McEntyre

It takes you by surprise

It comes in odd packages

It sometimes looks like loss

Or mistakes

It acts like rain

Or like a seed

It’s both reliable and unpredictable

It’s not what you were aiming at

Or what you thought you deserved

It supplies what you need

Not neccessarily what you want

It grows you up

And lets you be a child

It reminds you you’re not in control

And that not in control is a form of freedom

356/365 or DPP 22

If you try to talk to the bison,
he never quite understands;
You can't shake hands with a mingo -
he doesn't like shaking hands.
And lions and roaring tigers
hate saying, "How do you do?" -
But I give buns to the elephant
when I go down to the Zoo!

from At the Zoo by A.A. Milne

351/365 or DPP 17

Love came down at Christmas,
Love all lovely, Love Divine;
Love was born at Christmas,
star and angels gave the sign.

Worship we the Godhead,
Love incarnate, Love Divine;
worship we our Jesus:
but wherewith for sacred sign?

Love shall be our token;
love be yours and love be mine;
love to God and all men,
love for plea and gift and sign.

Love Came Down at Christmas by Christina Rosetti, 1885

212/365

In Childhood

BY SARAH A. CHAVEZ

In childhood Christy and I played in the dumpster across the street

from Pickett & Sons Construction. When we found bricks, it was best.

Bricks were most useful. We drug them to our empty backyard

and stacked them in the shape of a room. For months

we collected bricks, one on top another. When the walls

reached as high as my younger sister’s head, we laid down.

Hiding in the middle of our room, we watched the cycle

of the sun, gazed at the stars, clutched hands and felt at home.

165/365

Love through me, Love of God,
Make me like Thy clear air
Through which unhindered, colours pass
As though it were not there.

Powers of the love of God,
Depths of the heart Divine
O Love that faileth not, break forth,
And flood this world of Thine.

- "Love Through Me," Toward Jerusalem, by Amy Carmichael (1936)

99/365

from Block City by Robert Louis Stevenson

What are you able to build with your blocks?
Castles and palaces, temples and docks.
Rain may keep raining, and others go roam,
But I can be happy and building at home.

Let the sofa be mountains, the carpet be sea,
There I'll establish a city for me:
A kirk and a mill and a palace beside,
And a harbor as well where my vessels may ride.

11/365

The fog comes on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on. 

- Fog by Carl Sandburg

or, sometimes, it looks over the fields and town, and then moves on...