Can you wait just a minute,
and forget right this second,
think back to the past,
and lay down our weapons?

Forget what we've heard
from different sources,
and break down our walls
and knock down the fortress

Put aside the battles
we've lost and won,
work together,
all for one

Forget what's just happened,
start over again,
now is a time
when we can be friends.

Can you wait just a minute,
and let it all slip away?
Can you wait just a minute,
and see the new day?

Children, grandchildren, great and great-great, too
She taught all something no matter the age.
Five generations she spread her love through
And wrote special notes on our life’s book’s page.

Now we remember the times she was near
Reflecting on her magnanimous deeds
And think of the moments we all hold dear
And the intelligence planted like seeds.

Through the haze of something long un-thought of
it comes,
flowing from a dusty memory
to something clear
and my heart aches with the bittersweet drifts of it,
as it slowly takes over

It becomes so vivid,
that it is hard to imagine it gone
it seems to fill me
and at the same time
take part of me away
The memory of a day

Days past,
some long ago
others more close
All filled with the warm feeling
of a generous heart
and a gift of great love

“All that we love deeply becomes a part of us.” –Helen Keller

I think life is a new, strange, different, deeper thing...since the last time I wrote anything for you. I've lived a lot, these last few months; in some ways, it feels like I've lived more since the end of last year than since the beginning of my life.

“Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.” (Robert Frost, Nothing Gold Can Stay)

I think we have something to learn from a lot of things. Things we take for granted, and don’t think twice about. Things like snowflakes…and hairbrushes…and candles…and glass…and rain…and sugar crystals… And asphalt.

Here’s something random that jumped out of me the night before last, as I was sitting idly in the dining room, in front of my sister’s laptop, looking out the French doors and watching the day die… I figured it could be my July contribution. And for August, I’m going to have something revolutionary. See, the story goes…*deep breath*…my sisters and I won scholarships to participate in the Irish week at the summer music camp at the Augusta Heritage Center in West Virginia. So I’m going to write something little every day, about my experiences, and type it all up when we get home.

I walk slowly up the hill. The chilly wind sweeps down from somewhere outside this world, and rushes past me in a flurry of illusive wonder. Out beyond the little patch of green I stand on, the trees stretch out in rolling splendor to the horizon—and slowly, slowly they’re turning crimson, and orange, and gold.