Spin a yarn of wonder
Knit together words of hope
Cords of every color
Loop so hearts may cope.
Weave a warm new cover
From yarn old and fine
Find ways to discover
The love intertwined.
For The Daily Post
Month: April 2017
Breathe in
Breathe in the scent of spring
The fragrance of new growth
Of verdant leaves
Of rain
Of flowers.
Let new life fill your lungs
Your heart
With light
Perfumed by sun
And sky
And sudden showers.
Breathe in your fill
Of hope
Of splendor
Stock up your mind
With awe
To brighten
Any dreary hour.
For The Daily Post
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Knackered
Photo: today.com/parents
When you’re out of juice
Depleted
Wrung out
Brain-mushed
Yawn-injected …
Take the time to rest.
When you’re harking for the days
Of face plant in spaghetti …
It’s time for slug-fest.
When you’re putting keys in fridge
And eggs in pockets …
Take the hint
And
Make a nest.
[Dedicated with much love to Adele, who I have a feeling understands … :)]
For The Daily Post
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The Blanket
photo: diaryofaquilter.com
He took it with him everywhere: School, the doctor’s office, the park, the car, the dinner table. He carried it in hand, in the backpack, over his shoulder. It was to him a cape, a comfort, a memory of tucking in, a constancy.
It’s always been there. He couldn’t remember a time before.
Well-worn, oft-washed, much-handled.
His blanket.
Never out of sight.
He’d sit before the washing machine and watch it spinning, floppy, in a foamy sea. Later he’d guard the dryer as the blanket tumbled, already impatient to come back warm and scented into his arms.
He’d place it at the ready on the bathroom stepstool to guard him as he washed. A sentinel over his pajamas.
It waited right under the chair at mealtime, in temporary exile from his lap after his argument that the blanket could make an excellent napkin had failed.
Even at school, where he wasn’t allowed to hold it, he’d leave a small blanket-ear peeking out of his cubby; to remind him it was there, with him, waiting for the end of the school-day.
It was a coat of heart, a shroud of courage, a cover against storms of any kind.
It was almost part of him. His blanket.
Then the fire came. He was carried half-in-sleep and heavy-headed, by a man whose giant shadow painted wall-monsters against the orange flicker and the swirling smoke.
There was more flicker outside: blue and red and white and blinding. Shouts and calls and creaks and cries and movement. Yellow coats, red truck, bright door, funny mask.
And no blanket.
It was gone. To Blanket Heaven.
A spark in the sky now. A spot of cloud. A star.
Lost along with Curious George and Teddy Ben and his dinosaur car.
For The Daily Post
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Shared Roots
Reach deep into your soul
And you will see
Shared roots hold
All that we have ever been
And all that we are
Meant to be.
For The Daily Post
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“I Gray?”
Photo: picklebums.com
His maman is from Haiti. His “so called papa” is “no one you’d want to remember” (as per his maman and grand-maman) because he has “no color in his eyes or heart.”
The boy has soft waves of honey brown hair. Cupid lips. Deep brown eyes. Light caramel skin. Freckles on his nose.
He’s recently discovered the magic of combining colors. He finds it entrancing. He is especially moved by the alchemy of what happens when you add white.
“You have black?” he asks, pointing to the Play-doe containers on my shelf.
“No,” I note, “I ran out. But I have brown.”
“Let me see.”
I hand him a container and he pulls the lid off and inspects the contents. “It in the wrong place,” he states, pointing to the yellow lid.
“I know. I just used a container I already had. It didn’t come that way. We made the brown from mixing different colors.”
“Who make it?”
“One of the other kids I work with made it. You want to try and make brown, too?”
He frowns, considers, shakes his head. “But I want some.”
“You want to use some of it? Sure. Go ahead.”
He pinches a bit of the dough and rolls in pensively between his fingers. “You have white?”
“I do!” I give him the white-topped container. He peeks in. After the yellow-topped one holding brown, one never knows …
He pulls out a chunk and begins kneading the white piece into the brown. A moment passes, then another. He’s quiet. He’s got something on his mind.
“Brown people are called black,” he notes.
“Hmm…” I nod. I wonder if he’d say more.
He glances at the yellow lid and I wonder if he’s wondering if it is one more of those “in the wrong place” designations. He sighs.
“I black but I also white,” he raises his eyes to me. “That mean I gray?”
For The Daily Post
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Do Not Be Silenced
- The Children’s Memorial, Yad Vashem
In remembrance of times
Of horror
Never to repeat
Never to minimize:
Do not shy
Of voice
Do not shy
Of fact
Do not shy
Of holding truth
To challenge
Those who in their blindness,
In their hunger to cause pain,
Seek to deny
The cost of hate
The force of harm
The voice of those who had been silenced.
∗
Do not be silenced.
∗
Be brave.
Walk tall.
Remember:
Those who seek to silence
To zip history closed
To limit learning,
Can only do so
If they make you forget
The truth
Entrusted to you — to all of us —
By those who’d perished
And those who’d managed
To survive.
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Live Avidly
Be keen
Be ardent
Be earnest in your zeal for better heart, more soul.
Find passion in all that you devote yourself to, breathe for.
Live avidly.
Live whole.
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Harmonics
- Image: John Whitney
As the sound of sorrow multiplies
So does the song of hope.
As fear reverberates
So can circles of compassion.
As hate amplifies,
So does love.
We can choose.
Which harmonics
To make ours.
For The Daily Post
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Counter-Spike!
Dhammakaya Temple, Thailand: 100,000 Monks Praying for Peace, (Luke Duggleby)
There’s a spike in crime. There’s a spike in hate. There’s a spike in divisive talk around the country, world, the internet.
There’s a spike in violence, a spike in stress, a spike in power-hunger, a spike in blame.
Let’s spike a counter-spike, to douse the flames.
Let us spike in kindness. Let’s bring a spike in care. May a spike in love envelop everywhere. …
For The Daily Post
Na'ama Yehuda 
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