Serenity sets the mood
A misty and quiet groove
Fireflies light the darkened path
And crickets chirp their tunes
The moon has given its white-washed bath
Of perfect silver lunar charm
And stars wink down on forrest line
Leaving no room for pitch alarm
Darkness is friendly
When accompanied by light
And shielded by hooded figure fair
For she walks only when the sun is gone
Exuding depth, the shallows beware
She glides along the shadowed path
And lingers at the foothill, long

Legion of Honor
It's wrapped in coastal winds and cypress trees,
  With lions guarding entrance to the court.
  Inside, they serve up tea and apricot tarts,
Between glass clad in mist from neighboring seas.
Degas' love of Parisian millinery
  Ripples among the walls of light and dark:
  Illuminated portraits, girls in sharp
Well-flowered, feathered hats in velvet sheen.
Around the corner, see a more ancient hall:
  An ibis-headed man in frozen gait,
Cartouche and hieroglyphics on a wall,

By the end of my first day of teaching the following week, the ball seemed years ago, a distant memory buried under an avalanche of paperwork, schedules, lesson plans, grading, and assignments. Had it not been for Devorah Erren’s insufferable boasting to the other girls about the ball (she being the only one of the class whose parents had allowed her to attend) I might not have thought of it at all.
By the middle of the week, however, my thoughts had turned to the upcoming festival that I was to attend with Mira and her family.

A little creature wanders by, is watched by gleaming eyes,
It stumbles on a sticky strand that brings its quick demise.
A flash of black, then ugly fangs are pointed at the prey
A spider full of cunning stealth, his meal he won’t delay.
And yet I wonder what would be if you and I would try
To see those creepy spiders through a different set of eyes.
If we looked for beauty and intelligent design,
Then maybe all those spiders we’d no longer undermine.

Today I finish up the second week of grad school. For the first time of my life I am living away from home, ostensibly independent concerning my social, academic, and spiritual life, and even making a little of my own money (small though it may be). By the grace of God I was settled into the home of a remarkably charming and generous couple, complete with two delightful Australian Shepherds that remind me of my own two dogs I left back home. From there I can step out the front door and walk – to a literally colorful village on the ocean or a private, cliff-locked beach.

“Ben, I want to be a gardener.”
“A what?”
“A gardener. And I want you to teach me.”
“Oh,” said Ben, and chuckled.
And so it was.

At first I shadowed Ben, stood behind him and solemnly observed. The first thing I noticed was how little he spoke, how deliberately he moved, and how cumbersome he found it to communicate his thoughts to me. Giving me a task was a sacrifice to him. How could he forsake cradling each and every seed, nestling each one beneath the soil with his own wise fingers, fingers he trusted, fingers in accord with his thoughts.

January:

Snow has fallen. It sparkles in the sunlight, gleaming like diamonds. It hides the yellow-brown grass and the dry ground, creating a clean, white sheet, covering the old, awaiting the new. A perfect greeting to the New Year.

School will start soon; work will return; but everything seems fresh and ready. Last year’s trials and hardships are past. This year lies before us, and we must begin anew.

February:

Trek through the hills of the Northwest’s Sierra Nevada, and you will find red soils peppered with some smooth, waxy rocks called Serpentinite. Attractively streaked with greens and blues, serpentine, as it is locally known, is a type of metamorphic rock with quite the fascinating history. To begin, let’s take a glimpse into a chapter of geology known as Plate Tectonics.

Deep in the woods,
There’s a little wooden house,
And nobody lives there, but dreams.
And the laughter of childhood,
Floats on the breeze,
And splashes through crystal streams.

Find me beneath the old maple,
Let’s fight a few monsters today,
And return to the hall,
When the quest finally ends,
And we’ll sit with a fire ablaze.
Knowing well that we have
Something fleeting and sad,
That we’ll hold for as long as we can.
As long as we can.

A Letter: On A Morning, One Week After You Left
The garden's fence was dressed in morning glory.
One liverwort's crescent held its last gemma.
A cruciform blossom evoked the trilemma -
How can that Soul be sent to Upper Story?
The dampened soil was fresh with petrichor
(Which I discovered when the rain had stopped
Its long unceasing murmur; up I propped
The window in that room of vellichor
You always sit to read in when you come).
Beyond the fence, dew-dropped viridity
Was dancing on the spring-leaves of the Plum