a prophetic voice-

  Remembering...I have been remembering all day long... recalling the people and happenings which have populated my life over these many years. And, though recently my Muse of Poetry has been tantalizing hiding, I pulled my book, Life Lines, from the shelf to search for words written in 2007 all about the reality of the past being always with us. the past The past swirls around me... I walk through the mists seeing only dimly...yet occasionally there is a clearing and I glimpse the view with startling clarity- just a brief moment- before the fog again enshrouds me and I find myself wondering if it were real or imagined.   Memory is like that- an occasional lifting of the mind's misty curtain... a moment of revelation- and then darkness. And yet, this sustains me somehow... encourages me...lets me know that I am real and my life has meaning. While paging through this book of mine, I also encountered a poem I wrote for Thanksgiving in 2007 and publ

Yesterday was a delight...beautiful snow showers...a visit to an old friend at Trinity Glen...coming home to a house decorated for the holidays...hot chocolate in front of the fire. Lovely... But this morning, tears came unbidden as I found myself longing for Thanksgivings long past and the people no long present. I felt suddenly bereft...of purpose, of hope, of joy. A shroud of loneliness covered me, blotting out the already-brightly-shining sun. I was alone... felt alone...and I found myself wondering just what these nearly seventy-two years of my life have been all about.   The tears passed, as they are wont to do, and as I stood in the blessedly hot shower, I began thinking about this day- meant to be a day of giving thanks, though it has taken the meaning of a day for family and feasting- not a bad thing, except for those who have neither family nor food. And I have both- in abundance, if truth be told. And friends...beautiful, wonderful, sharing, caring friends

How easy it is to forget in 2013 America what it was like for people diagnosed HIV-positive in the 1980s, when the epidemic was seen as a "gay" disease...when so littlewas known and understood that other people would not even touch a person with AIDS...when the diagnosis was a death sentence, at least in the eyes of the medical community. I spent two hours this afternoon at the Aperture Cinema in W-S, absorbed in a film entitled "Dallas Buyer's Club" and was both enthralled by the story and enraptured by the performances of the two main actors: Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto. The true story of Texan, Ron Woodroof, the official film website has this synopsis of the movie's story: A son of Texas, Ron Woodroof is an electrician and rodeo cowboy. In 1985, he is well into an unexamined existence with a devil-may-care lifestyle ( And incredibly dangerous and self-destructive one, I might add.)  Suddenly, R on is blindsided by being diagnosed

moonglow... Have you seen the full moon? The Beaver Moon, it's called...the Full Frosty Moon... Its brilliance luminates my upstairs hall, a trail of light so bright it seems I might travel it to the moon itself-      and beyond... A reminder on this chilly November morning of the power...the wonder...the glory of reflected light For the moon has no light of its own, is simply a piece of rock floating in space, offering only a reflection of the incredible candescence of the shining, warming star      we call Sun... Yet the light I see in these early-morning hours is no less lovely, no less wondrous for being reflected...      which gives me pause to wonder-      can I- in all my human earthiness,      with all my human faults and failings,      offer a reflection of the greater      Light of Lights,      illuminating the way for others with      that reflected love...letting it shine      in, through, from me until      it is clearly The Light      they

Oh my! the furor around the Affordable Care Act is mounting...and I am increasingly frustrated with the smoke screen being constructed by the brouhaha over the inoperable web site, over the numbers of people having their insurance program canceled, over the members of Congress who continue to take a do-nothing stance regardless the issue. I say "smoke screen" because it seems that no one...NO ONE...is addressing the real problem with our health care system. (NO, it is emphatically not the finest in the world , in spite of what we have been led to believe; hence, our position as 22nd in life expectancy among the countries of the world. That's right- TWENTY-SECOND.) And the real problem, as I see it, as I have long seen it, is the COST of health care...which is far, far more than in most developed, industrialized nations for the same procedures, for the same drugs. Fellow Americans, this so-called "best" health care system, which in reality is far

I was involved in a conversation recently about domestic violence- its prevalence and devastating effects- when I stated that I was totally dismayed that the things for which so many of us had fought for so hard back in the 1970s and 80s seemed to have regressed, slipped away, been forgotten...that so many of today's young women were once again so convinced that their lives were meaningless and incomplete without a male presence that they were willing to put up with abusive, disrespectful, unacceptable behaviors from their boyfriends or spouses. How could this have happened, I wondered aloud. "It's almost as if the Women's Liberation Movement had never happened," I lamented. "Gee, Linda, I didn't know you were such a feminist," one of the other women responded. "Absolutely," I affirmed. "Aren't you?" "Well, I just don't think it's necessary any more. I've never felt any discrimination beca

Sometimes I go about pitying myself And all the while I am being carried across       the sky By beautiful clouds.   -OJIBWAY SAYING confusion... Life makes no sense, has no logic... God is confusing, mysterious,      totally beyond understanding... Yet here I am, in the midst of it all, Caught up in, shaped by, the      paradoxical nature of existence,      of being human,                   spinning dizzily with                   the very cosmos                   and loving every moment                   of the wild ride! The foolish seek happiness in the distance; the wise grow it under their feet.  -JAMES OPPENHEIM It could be argued that Christianity is one tremendous koan that makes the mind boggle and gasp in astonishment; and faith is the breakthrough into that deep realm of the soul which accepts paradox...with humility . -WILLIAM JOHNSTON in Christian Zen Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undo

a new month A new month, the calendar says. And I leave behind the turbulent memories & emotions of October, step carefully into November, pausing at the brink to scan the road ahead for potholes and pitfalls, realizing all the while that I cannot know what lies in wait around that distant turn, hoping only that the roads I have taken thus far have prepared me well. And perhaps what lurks ahead, beyond the hills and valleys I can see is joyful surprise- the gift and grace of laughter, the wonder of delight. A new month- welcome November. I wrote this poem five years ago, a year when October had been especially difficult for me, as I recalled the death of my first husband, my bout with breast cancer, and the birthday of my dad who had died years earlier but whom I still dearly missed. As a child, I had loved autumn, but for many of my adult years, autumn had become a season which, though I continued to revel in nature's colors and the feel of the air,