Homage to Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Earth’s crammed with tomorrows
but every wild tree (or playground, too)
is a climbing place to this hour;
only those who stop, sit,
gaze, tie their shoes
and hear a bird,
or take them off and dip their toes
in warm soil or icy stream,
(it doesn’t matter which).

They choose to be here,
just here,
sketch goldenrod (some call a weed)
for a homebound friend,
risk the capital crime,
of talking to someone else’s child
who asks why, why, why
leaves change color in autumn,

pray for a season of change
in the human heart
at the climate summit
this year in Antalya, Türkiye.

The rest will just go on,
say they’ll stop tomorrow

but, just to remember, take a selfie.

A Reflection on Arches, September, 2026

I have gone to Arches National Park
to gaze in awe at the beauty
of stone curving high above me
balanced by its strength alone,

and I have been to St. Louis and Paris
and wondered at the grace
of human design that lifts the eyes
and frames a piece of the sky
for me to remember,
and portrays the beauty in a city proud
of the way it uplifts people.

I’ve admired the elegant curves
of those who dance ballet,
the extraordinary deep, long joy
of a feline stretch,
the surprised raising of eyebrows
in recognizing a friend or an idea
and the rainbow in the sky
that claims the end of a storm.

But I have never considered an arch
as the elegant repository  
for munitions, snipers and drones,
a molded monument to death and fear,
a looming threat
above all children and adults,
who come to the nation’s capital
as visitors learning  about our country,

hearing the guide say,
“my tour once included a building
where there was theatre and ballet,
but, now please view a new landmark,
the Washington Arch …

that assures us anyone who disagrees
can be shot down.

Arches National Park (my photo)

Reading Matthew 8:20 in 2026

In the small strip of woods
between my house and the town of Eliot
a fox family lives this summer
and we watch them
in the twilight hours
and early, early in the morning.

Tod and vixen and four kits
dance across broken stone walls,
and play among grave stones
in an old abandoned cemetery.

They chase one another and roll
tangled in red limbs
of some fox game of their own,
pull and eat earthworms after rain
that finally eased the drought,
and munch on the cabbage leaves
pea pods, ends of celery we give.

Many people are birdwatchers
in this place by the sea.
Gulls, great black-backed and
laughing gulls,
also blue birds and cardinals,
house finch, purple finch,
robin, jay, sparrow,
who pick up string, sticks,
bits of shiny left out by feeders.

Jesus said to one would-be follower
that birds have nests, foxes dens,
while he has no place to lay his head.

He sleeps these days
in the no place of immigrants
parents seeking or hiding children,
children weeping for parents gone.

I used to think the scriptural mention
of foxes and dens
was about being poor and pitiful.
Now I know Jesus meant
that being together in a simple place
to sleep, play with friends, go to work
enjoy a gift of cabbage leaves,

is the most joyous place in the world.

Photo by Steffi Wacker on Pexels.com

I missed it!!! Annual Cozy Mystery Day …

… was yesterday … September 15 — it coincides with Agatha Christie’s birthday (I will have to admit that I watched the new “Tommy and Tuppence” cast chew the scenery on Brit Box last night not even knowing. )

Maybe I missed it because Maria and I were tweaking the manuscript of “Death of a Scrooge” so that it can be in readers’ hands before … well, Christmas. We are very excited about it.

Remember … you don’t need to read the Rev and Rye mysteries in order. Have you missed one?”Death at Fair Havens,” “Death in the Woods,” “Death in Disguise,” “Death Throws a Bouquet.” Check one out from your local library (request they acquire it, if they don’t) or order from the amazing Brain Mill Press.

And, of course, even a day late raise a glass of (in my case) … ginger ale to Agatha Christie … because an old mystery can sometimes save a life!

For World Suicide Prevention Day, September 10, 2026

Exodus 15:1b-11, 20-21 (often considered to be archeologically the oldest words in the Bible)

Miriam didn’t drop the tambourine
on the long run from Egypt,
or throw it away as extra baggage.
She must have known
joy would be needed and a song.
For all of us who are family or friend
of someone at risk of dying by suicide –

that is – all of us,
as we are running alongside
giving support, offering hope, worrying,
watching, watching, watching,
giving advice,
hunting for good resources,

don’t forget the tambourine!

Hold some ankle-deep-in-mud joy.
Be that one who stops to sing
and won’t stop singing
while others are passing over
on an unexpectedly open way.

And, even for those of us who grieve today,
sing, too, this faith–
God also finds those who drown
and holds each of them in promised hands.

Miriam, Pippa Blackall, Art ion the Christian Tradition

Hear my Prayer …s

God who is all ears and love,
here my many prayers as I wake to news.

I pray for Hawai’i in the winds,
as Hurricane Lowell bears down
on Kauai and Niihau,
in this nightmare month of storms.

I pray for the families grieving
for five who have died
after the blazing Amazon cargo plane
crashed in Florida and for five more
being treated for injuries.

I pray for the tensions rising
because of tariffs
between Canada and the US
neighbors and so long allies
across a long thin border
of history and respect.

All day long I pray, heart hurting,
but my deepest assurance
for all the troubles of this fragile life

is that the heartbreak of your love
gathers them in tenderness.

amen.

Labor Day Prayer, 2026

God, we give you thanks for Labor Day
and ask you to help us carry its empathy and care
for those who work in dangerous,
poorly paying, or health-sapping jobs,
beyond this holiday weekend
and into our personal and church lives.

We are grateful for those who grow food,
and those who manufacture
clothing, shoes, homes, automobiles,
those who work in retail settings,
schools, libraries, health care,
those who protect others
in armed services and police forces,
fire fighters, coast guard,

and those who clean buildings at night,
stock shelves, change sheets in motels,
those who write newspaper articles,
commercials, speeches for others,
poetry, textbooks, home appliance manuals,
draw cartoons
or paint lines on streets.

We are grateful for so many more,
all who need work or a day off,
or respect and recognition,
for all the things that they do,

or respect and recognition simply
for who they are.

Amen.

Anticipating Leaf-peeping

Tourists come to these woods
in cars and buses that choke highways,
and mighty glad we are
in New England
for the dollars that keep our diners,
the mom-and-pop motels,
the state and national parks,
viable for the locals
to enjoy the rest of the year.

They come for foliage,
though their guides point out
that guessing peak is always … “guess.”
They insist on great splashes of color,
hill after hill painted
in amber and gold,
scarlet, ochre, umber, even purple,
a landscape’s dying splendor.

But every year I look carefully
for the first leaf to turn
and the last to drop,
for the single leaf that catches
this light of sunset,
or crunches under my foot.

I want my time leaf by leaf –
the tweet of the season,
the haiku,

a friend’s numbered breaths.

Photo by Adam Stuart on Pexels.com

“I always cry at weddings”

A Muslim wedding ceremony does not include
“till death do us part” as do the weddings
with which I am more familiar.
The Nikah Vows include Ijab-o-Qabul,
meaning offer and acceptance by both parties.

The new US strikes in Iran,
were not so clearly targeted yesterday.
They were ,”Broader and more intense,”
certainly not offered and accepted,
Ijab-o-Qabul,
and those of us in the United States
need to know that among those dead
were civilians, including those
who were celebrating a wedding.

In this country, we should be crying.

Love by Lap — Guest Post from Mark Saline

 LOVE BY LAP                   

A  child’s soul is not made of cells, but is born in grandma’s lap and craddled in her voice… Wherever the child goes in years to come, grandma’s lap and voice go with them. If a prodigal child needs to come home again grandma’s lap will open to them, and her voice is what their soul needs to hear for healng: ‘WELCOME HOME, MY CHILD!’ … ‘The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.’ – John 1:14… In differences & conflict, fathers & men tend to exile Different Others, and mothers & women tend to reconcile Different Others. Mothers & grandmothers reach, love, weep, and befriend across boundaries. As a metaphor, it is more true than not, to suggest a child’s first experience of ‘god’ is the unconditional love and non-anxious presence of grandmother. Eden was grandmother God’s lap of life where everyone belongs;  ‘And it was very good.’