A World of Motion and Distance

 June 22, 2025, 8.40 a.m.
Last night as I took the laundry off the washing line, I heard a high pitched shriek from above. I looked up past the pines and the oak tree, through the verdant green and up into the cobalt blue sky, and I saw an Osprey, circling directly overhead. It spiraled upwards, riding the thermal updrafts, those sultry pockets of rising warm air. I watched until I could no longer see it. Goodbye, I whispered.

This morning, at 5:50 a.m., the Osprey's call woke me from a deep, dream-filled sleep. It was so close, overhead my window, that I heard the flap of its wings. I laid still in wonderment, holding my breath. Osprey, Canada Goose, Loon, Great Blue Heron, Common Merganser: the sounds of the river from my bed. It is the earth being itself and I am here to observe, acknowledge, listen, love. Life gives to life; there is nothing to fear. We live in a world of motion and distance. The heart flies from tree to bird, from bird to distant star, from star to love; and love grows in this quiet, green house.



June 30, 2025, 6:50 a.m.

It was your lightness that drew me,
the lightness of your talk and your laughter,
the lightness of your cheek in my hands,
your sweet gentle modest confident lightness:
and it is the lightness of your kiss on my forehead
that is starving my mouth,
and the lightness of your embrace
that will let me go adrift.




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Most Powerful Tragic Light

Image
  [This post is from diary entries from last summer, when Frank was first diagnosed. It serves as context for the rest of this blog] June 20, 2024 Frank has been in pain for six months now. He says it's from splitting wood all winter-long. I am worried, naturally. He saw his doctor a few weeks ago and blood tests are in the works. We receive a phone call this morning from Dr. F, a locum at the clinic. She is shaken by Frank's results, especially his prostate specific androgen (PSA) levels. We can hear it in her voice. She says she's never seen anything quite like it before. A PSA test result above 4 is concerning. Frank's is over 1700. He has excruciating bone pain; so much that he cries when he rises from his chair. "I'm confident to name what will eventually kill you," she says. A strange and abrasive way to phrase, "You are dying." He has prostate cancer. And, more than likely, it's metastic prostate cancer. We are both numb, speechless. ...
Read more

The Pulse of The Morning

Image
Most mornings I try to sit and write a few pages in my small notebook. Pencil to paper. A daily record of thoughts, observations, feelings, ideas. Mainly unedited and nothing profound. In my small notebook, I try to capture my slow, deliberate days with Frank, who is living and dying with aggressive, terminal cancer. I try to capture the beautiful intricate dance between life and death; the weaving together of living and dying, and the grace and beauty of awareness, compassion and love. This blog is an attempt to reflect my morning scribblings. I've been contemplating it for a while but my inner saboteur likes to tell me that no-one would be interested in my very small, quiet world alongside a river in rural Nova Scotia. So I've put it off for many months. I am a Luddite in heart and soul [I'm a weaver after all] and I rebel against this technology. I considered publishing a zine which feels much truer to who I am. But that takes time and effort, something I am very short ...
Read more

Suddenly, Last Summer

Image
  April 20, 2025. 6:50 am It has been far too long since I've written anything down in my notebook. It was a hard winter. Frank went into heart failure in November, an unfortunate co-morbidity of his particular cancer. After many appointments and overnight stays in the cold and windy city throughout January and February, he had an aortic valve replacement in March. The medical care was exceptional and he recovered well. But it has taken a toll on him. He is smaller, frailer. But his determination to live has only increased. He walks 15 minutes every day, rain or shine. He stacks wood until he feels the all-too-familiar, slight nagging pain in his back. Sometimes it takes an hour for this pain to emerge; sometimes half an hour. But he persists. He is a superhero. So I begin another season with good intentions of writing each morning, pencil to paper. It is spring after all! But this morning, I struggle to make sense, to form any proper, cohesive thoughts. I am still tired from the ...
Read more