Questions

Are questions, the big ones,
Meant to be answered?
I'm not so sure.
Most of mine
I am quite clear now
Are not to be.

I ponder and I wonder and I think
And when I ask people about them
They think they know
And sometimes
Are quite definite about it.
But how?

Have they been there?
Have they solved it?
What has changed?
For we struggle still with
What has been
For many years.

Perhaps it's a method to cope,
A way to keep life simple,
To move on.

I still ask the questions,
Sometimes for answers
But not always.
For I am sure now
I will not find them here.

The most that I can ask for then
Is that my questions increase
In depth and wisdom and
Wonder at this complex
And amazing world
God has created.

Five Dollars

I'm selling this poem for five dollars
And I'll write another for four
The last one, I think, I'll sell for a dollar
Definitely not anymore.

I dared my husband yesterday
To ski off the side of the trail
Down into the hollow
Not far
Through unbroken snow
Lovely and pure
Sparkling and beckoning
It was
(But more than I desired
To do on my own)
And I thought he could
But not that he would
Five dollars, I said
Then he did what he had not before
With a smile on his face
He skimmed down the hill

And this morning
While setting out on a walk
I egged him to cross over our pond
Not very deep
Covered with ice
Five dollars, I said
When I have offered before
He has just shaken his head
But today he wandered right over
Put a foot on
Gently and slowly
He easily crossed
Not a crack, bump or bruise.

And while I am thankful
In both he succeeded
He was not to have agreed
From the start.

So now I owe him ten dollars.
Please won't you buy me
Out of my problem
Perhaps it is something I should
Not have started.
But I did and we smiled.
That's the story.

Sunday Afternoon

A nap
Sunday afternoon
In the middle of winter
True delight

The sun
Shining in
Warms my tired self
Into abandonment

Dog sighing
Birds chirping
Serve to accompany
The stillness

And slowly
I drift
Not knowing until I
Have awoken

How long
I disappeared
Into a world of dreams
So welcoming

Pears Like Poems

I'm not sure that I have ever seen fruit so abundant.  The trees down our street and in town have been laden with apples, pears and plums.  Really, it's hard not to be poetic about it.  Some friends, the ones with the greatest number of pear trees, invited us to a pear picking party last weekend.  While we were not the ones up in the trees shaking the branches, nor standing on the ground with a blanket to catch them, we were the beneficiaries of a bagful and are free to pluck now, when the need arises.  It is rather silly, but my heart is filled with delight about all this fruit.  What has been batches of apple strudel this past month is shifting to a pear strudel this morning.  The dough is chilling and my tummy is rumbling.

The pear
Much like a poem
Is difficult to get
Just right.
Too mushy
And my desire
Is to spit it out
To rid myself of the texture and feel.
Too firm
And again
It is hard to swallow
To choke down at all.
Either way
One bite
Is enough.
But then, like words

Well spoken

A pear

At the perfect ripeness

Is delightful

In its complexity and

Simplicity

Letting one’s taste buds

Feel the abundance

Of freshness just the

Right balance of sweet

Rich in texture

Delightful to touch.

Made

Even better through the

Picking right from the tree.