I have very badly wanted a parakeet lately. His name would be Leonidas.

Sunday night in the city. Dusk comes late these days as daylight stretches out across a frame so wide it confuses time. Along Washington, the setting sun hits downtown with a glow of orange and reds that make a soul ache for permanence. The sight will last only a moment. A towering skyline reflects it back in submission, economy bowing to calm before a Monday that will bring a week of movement and energy. Planes fly west chasing the disappearing horizon. Here now, monies are counted and dishes washed, clinking and clanging to end the day and I too wish to chase west, knowing night will be long and tomorrow begins my last week here for a while. Pen to paper to keys and letter in darkness distracts for a time from a struggle that will claim the next several hours. Thoughts that need exit before concentration. Lamps are lit in counteraction with songs on repeat to note the words that have yet to be heard. I’m glad for the jazz they played so near to closing, and the smell of radiance and the quest for community.

Blue-Butterfly Day, a notable spring.

Woke this morning to light skies and thunder, as I expect tomorrow to begin. The day passed slowly as moving out of doors felt like swimming, hot and humid. I was grateful for the April spring that is warming to summer. So in gratitude, a plagiarism:



It is blue-butterfly day here in spring,
And with these sky-flakes down in flurry on flurry
There is more unmixed color on the wing
Than flowers will show for days unless they hurry.

But these are flowers that fly and all but sing:
And now from having ridden out desire
They lie closed over in the wind and cling
Where wheels have freshly sliced the April mire.
R.F.

A struggled mix of proximity and distance confused and minutes pass as sleep evades.

Three hours and miles ahead. Roads will greet the sun as northern travel goes and I along will be grateful for light. Hands thick with air want water and three has come sooner than expected. It seems thoughts come at the suggestion of friends or music or dreams, and today has had much of each. Words with shared glances and silence. I listened to a friend’s song so beautiful it was all I could do to stay confined to chest without explosion from ache. And surprising wisdom and question from a friend left vision for a time and end of which I’m still unsure. How can I miss the place I’m in?

distracted by storms that beat on streets and lights that fill the sky with branches of fire, so here's a few days ago.

Weekends flow slowly, winding through streets and slowing the course of time reminding us to rest and breathe. I spent much of today making needed repairs on a damage of which I was unaware. The knowledge came only later, when I returned and found it wanting correction. I hadn’t even noticed the injury; it must have come under a sky of blue and deeper gray, a beautiful following to unexpected storms enjoyed on a porch with friends. A sky that cleared with time and rose with the sun. Or maybe down a road that lead to stones with ancient dates and names put in the ground.

A night with new friends made me grateful that community was not exclusive to Eden. Thanks be to the forgiving Lover.

I woke with the sun and remembered a dream of one who took the face of a distant acquaintance. Remembered of how easily we use and are used and that easy is often embraced at the sacrifice of meaning and hope. Towards, I was scared and staggered. I thought it was desire, but the desire wasn’t real and the desire was not for me. And then I woke. I’ve been told lately to let things be what they are instead of what they can do for me. And of letting words be what they are and not trying to make them into what I want or think I need them to mean - in an attempt to be less self-consumed. I could use a lot of that attempt.

and Pygmalion and Galatea by Gerome because it's beautiful

I’ve wanted to leave this with something, have written several times and left them saved and folded away. Of coffee and how I wished we could share this conversation over a fresh pot. Or a mug of bengal tea, as I’ve been drinking much of that lately. I wrote once of a dream of storms and how it left confusion and an exhaustion that was relieved only after time and thought that what I had been so convinced was reality had no foundation in fear and the sun and earth I rested on was sure again. I told it to a friend in a tone of mockery and wondered if I would have benefited both by keeping silent. A cheap joke. A visit to friends, probably you, left me with thoughts of aching and books and measured time. Mostly gladness. And a letter on return. I hope to tell you more, but this was tuesday, and it might not make sense, but it’s what I have to say today:


Dark clouds and weeping skies dance in the windows whistling a song of mourning echoed by strings and wind with a voice of love and longing. And I remember the dream of fear that woke me in the early hours and left me in a cold sweat and an empty room – a dream of fear for something so unknown and threatening. The thunder taunts downpour needed to wash our sins and remind that a peacock’s feathers mean something just within our grasp to know and comprehend. And faces and honesty and vulnerability even when acted leave an aching for something not promised or recognized as promised, but I am not so confused as I lean in. This music is new and full of future and creativity and science meets sound, here where those of history may someday join. News and gladness. Apropos. And let us not fill with darkness but complexity and desires to avoid sloth, to appreciate rest and knowledge and the greatness of this journey on The Knowledge Limited, clicking on tracks of books and words, clicking tunes with voice and key and melodies of spice and a fullness in flavor as all we need is You to save us.

aiming to avoid clanging

Thinking about love today, as everyone else is I suppose, but have been frequently of late. It seems important, even without a higher knowledge of its essence. I find it is everywhere - cinema, books, music. I find it is inescapable. C.S. Lewis classifies four loves, I started this earlier. Still haven't finished his thoughts. I was interrupted with Elisabeth Elliot's Passion and Purity. Interesting read. I am swimming in thoughts not quite congealed on what she said. Most of what I took away had nothing to do with romance. Today I heard that hearts are failing. What does this relate of our ideas of love? I suppose we have missed all if our aim is morality.

"If I speak in the tongues of mortals with human eloquence and of angels with angelic ecstasy, but don't have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions to the poor, and if I hand over my body to the stake to be burned as a martyr so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing, have gotten nowhere. No matter what I say, what I believe, what I do, I'm bankrupt without love.
Love is patient - never gives up; love is kind - cares more for others than for self; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but takes pleasure in the flowering of truth. It bears all things, putting up with anything, trusts God always, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.
We don't yet see things clearly. We're squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won't be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We'll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!
But for now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love."


Dallas saw the most beautiful sunrise I have known in ages this morning.

a path to writings not my own

I took a trail that lead past rocks and water, and had the feel of nature but was most certainly enclosed by fence and planned. Walking along, I climbed stone steps and reclined to re-begin a book I had picked up some years ago. The author spoke of nearness to God. It seemed familiar, closer than just a glance of a read from the distant past. The nearness-by-likeness seemed like an echo of something I had heard from a friend. And then I remembered her story - It’s still one of the most beautiful things I have ever read. In reference to the Introduction of C.S. Lewis’ “The Four Loves” - he speaks to things I have felt were beautiful but never knew why. “Read it. I know you’ll love it.”