
but I’m so glad my flower bulbs are reaching for the sun!
Let’s grab every bit of hope we can!
After another homeschool day inside, my kids burst out into the evening sunshine to play in our yard, joyful within the necessary confines of our gates.
Our world is fragile
yet crocuses cup sunshine
and daffodils bloom
Come spring, come spring,
Let flowers sing!
Let no more melancholy winter reign,
With its thousand reasons to complain.
No more introspection in the dark
Be rather joyous as the lark!
Burst outside the walls your soul restricting
Let yourself fly on winds uplifting.
A hillside of flowers catches my eye
I hurry toward them on feet light and lithe.
Tiny crocuses shake in the breeze
Delighted to see them I drop to my knees
Translucent petals tremble and sigh
But lift their glowing faces to the sky.
Despite the February frost,
Let not one day of sunshine be lost!
Come spring!
See the woman walking
light as air–
her wings filling up with the wind,
canvas shopping-bag sails dancing in the sun.
An easy, breezy escape
for 10 minutes,
popping over to the corner gas station
–alone!–
to pick up lemonade ice-tea
for her temporarily bed-bound husband
who had this special request.
She walks along in the sun
smelling the city scent of spice and cement,
free enough to notice such things
without the usual tangled parade of double stroller,
the baby in snuggly
and other kids marching two by two.
She wonders what the chances are
that she’ll get to capture
the poetry of this ordinary moment
when she arrives home
to 80,000 questions
like “Why is blood red?
What is the sun made of?
What do we do before we are born?”
and “Can I have a ‘peeburrer samich’ nooooooow?”
An obnoxious car cuts her off to turn through the crosswalk on her light
–keeping it real–
lest in her pondering she float off into the brilliant blue sky
to alight on the snow-covered mountain tops that beckon in the distance
to this winged creature:
a woman alone for a walk.
I’m outside walking on a January day;
the sidewalks and the sky are matching gray.
I pull my hands into my sleeves,
–the cold wet air is biting me–
but inside there’s a flame no one can see.
I’ve got Maui warmth
hidden in my heart.
The sunshine from Paia
is here to stay, yeah.
Oh, yeah, aloha!
Oh, yeah, aloha!
When you are in Hawaii,
no one asks you why
you’re doing what you’re doing
or you’re wearing what you’re wearing, today.
They say, “Oh, hey, aloha!
Hope you have a great day!
Oh, hey, aloha,
it’s just fine doing things your own way.”
When I was out swimming
with my brothers in the sea
I cut my foot on coral
now the sea’s inside of me.
I’ve got mermaid scars
(perhaps I’ll grow a tail).
The ocean’s salt is in my blood
and bright Maui stars
are ever in my eyes.
So oh, hey, aloha,
hope you’re having a great day
Oh hey aloha,
I’ll be going back to Maui,
someday.