Beyond My Wildest Dreams!

As a child, I was given a little packet of cardboard
Audubon Bird Cards. Each had a color photo
on one side . . . the other had a brief description
including in what part of the U.S. they could be seen.

I poured over these cards endlessly,
knowing that there was no way on God’s green earth
I would ever see them. I knew I would never
leave my boyhood town in western  Minnesota
where the Red River of the North
beganits journey to Hudson’s Bay.

The cardinal redbird was just one of those card images
that I would never see.
It read that the cardinal lived in
the Southeastern part of the country.
I moved from Breckenridge
soon after graduating from college.
The cardinals moved as well  
to Breckenridge to look for me –

but I was gone.

The Best Food of All !

One of the East Indian restaurants we frequent has a wall lined with official plaques and awards
“For the Best Food.” The awards go back many years!

However, the best of all the awards for me is being in a place where people from all over the world
gather together, eat, converse in their country’s languages, and join together in the common language of laughter.

It is amazing to me that they all laugh “in English.”

THE BROKEN TOE

This was the first poem I wrote on my brand-new laptop notebook and the first poem written in 2007! Sitting in the Roseville Paneras, I plugged it in and wondered what I might write. Then, I overheard a couple talking about a friend who had broken one of her little toes.

The poem wrote itself! 

I heard her say to her friend,

Not quite certain
how it happened.
Not anything amazing
or anything.

It just broke.
They say it will heal
all by itself.
Not to worry.

In the meantime,
I wonder if —
old souls ever heal
like that?

NEXT ?

Just when I least expect it:
     Snowdrops peer from beneath the icy leaf litter.
     The pair of mallards return to our little garden pond
          a month early.
     Elizabeth says “hey – let’s take an overnight trip up
          to the North Shore of Lake Superior!”
     One of my poems gets published in some journal.
     Seven blue crocuses appear where we did not plant
         them!
     A pair of Pileated Woodpeckers, with their peculiar
         swooping flight and white patches flashing, stay for
         a while in a neighboring tree.
     Fiddlehead ferns unfurl to the sun.

I wonder what will be next?

Spring Brings Us Hope

The news continues it litany of politics and killing and war. No different than last January's news and it can make one wonder if humanity is making any progress at all.

But somehow all the new spring life has the power to alter our perspective. If all this new green growing can emerge from January, perhaps human compassion has a chance of flowering as well.

I am equally fascinated and repelled by politics. I try to remember what presidential campaigns were like decades ago. Somehow it seems to voters were asked to consider which candidates could best serve our country. It was not about agreeing with everyone, but about learning what solutions were being proposed. Not about slandering the other person - as a reason to vote for someone.

When it gets too much, I turn off the readily available news and go out into my garden.

Why God Created Magnolias

I first fell in love with magnolias when we lived on the East coast. Tall as buildings with big leathery green leaves - and their beautiful springtime blossoms.When we moved to the Midwest, I had to leave them behind because the winters here were too cold for them to survive. I wasn't delighted when horticulturists developed cold-hardy magnolias. They lose their leaves every fall - and bloom before their leaves appear in the spring. this year, the one we planted in our garden inspired me to write this poetry:

On the eighth day, God awoke refreshed and
decided to take a stroll though the new creation.
Humming a little tune, God noted with satisfaction
how well everything was working.
But the further God walked, the more
a disquiet grew within God —
in all this magnificent perfection.
something was missing

There was pure water to drink and
enough food for every living creature.
There was diversity of habitats and
ecological balance everywhere.
There were places for shelter
when storms passed through.
There were majestic canyons, great rivers,
oceans teemed with life, jungles and deserts.
And there were quiet places for peaceful relaxation.

How could anything possibly be missing?

God sat on a large rock for a long time and
surveyed the land spread out across the Earth.
Then it came to God — everything
had a pragmatic purpose. Food for the hungry,
water for the thirsty, shelter from the elements.
But there was nothing that existed
just for its own sake — beauty whose
only purpose was being beautiful,
and expected nothing in return.

So on the eighth day
           God created magnolias.

Mid March

It was an unusually warm, sunny day in mid-March of
this year. Elizabeth and I were carefully walking into our
backyard garden, following a winding path “looking for
signs of spring.”

The big, fuzzy magnolia buds had just burst and had not
yet put out their faint lemony smell. Our cluster of four
apricot trees were festooned with their white blossoms.
Pachysandra groundcover blooming white! Still to come . . .
the clove currant and fringe tree to waft its fragrance
throughout the neighborhood.

Slow Springtime

The crab apples trees are bursting with joy, their pink buds ready to display one of the most beautiful sights of springtime. All the other trees have been covered with the green haze that comes before they fully leaf out. This year, the soft green haze has lasted weeks rather than their usual pattern of busting into summer clothes in a week's time.

It is the kind of slow spring I loved when we lived in Washington DC. Something new bloomed every week from March until June. Then we moved back to the Midwest, where the joke is that spring lasts one day as winter shifts into summer.

The garden clean-up is complete and all kinds of precious plants are pushing their way up into the sunshine. Yesterday, we planted cool-weather vegetables and a whole bed of onion sets. In a month, we will be eating like royalty!

If someone were to ask me what is my favorite season, my answer would depend entirely on what current month it is. Winter does get a bit long, but otherwise I love them all - even winter. After this many years, this cycle of seasons is embedded in my bones.

My New Blog!

I have began a new blog of longer essays - under one broad theme.

Using Google, type in essaysbyecnagel.blogspot.com/. What comes up  is a site named essays from the heart, with the address I just gave you below this title. Click on it and it should direct you to my new blog. I will be putting a new essay on the site every two weeks, give or take a few days.

If you read the first essay, Where These Essays Began, it will give you a bit of an introduction. After that point the essays can be read in any order. Unlike writing a book where one chapter follows another, my intention is for each essay to give you something to think about. And where the "final" destination of these essays will be, I have no idea! One essay will generate another as my particular creative process.

I hope you will enjoy reading my writing. It is one more way current publishing has taken for all of us who read and write. I will always treasure my printed books, which have been part of my life since the time I first turned the pages of picture books and didn't have a clue what the little black marks meant. I just knew that somehow they were important - and had something to do with words.

Of course, Clem and I will continue to maintain this blog, for which our goal has been to post something two or three times a week!

What is There to Complain About?

I look out of my study window. The grass is green. Daffodils are blooming. Trees are well on their way to being fully leafed out. And the sun is shining.

Usually spring is one of my most favorite times. Being surrounded by all this new growth makes my heart sing. But this year my heart is heavy - because all of this explosion of life is way ahead of schedule. We broke lots of April records - in March. We have not had significant rainfall since last July. All the green is optimistic - living out of the belief that seasons come and go with a pattern of regularity.

 I never realized how much my body was tied to this pattern. We have traveled to lots of places where seasons vary from ours. Rain forests and jungles where there is a wet season and a dry season. Places of perpetual spring like San Jose, Costa Rica. Far northern places where the summer solstice means no perpetual light - and long cold, dark winters.

When I look outside I feel guilty and feel that I have an ungenerous spirit. I love all this green newness and because we live in a place where water is abundant, we can water to our hearts content. Then I feel guilty for lacking joy and I worry instead about the implications globally for these changes in climate. Add to that a heart that does not appreciate of this gift of springtime. Instead, I feel like growling at all this change which will have such dire consequences.

My two young cats don't share any of these feelings. They have never experienced spring before. Everything is a source of wonder. Every day brings newness to their lives. They sit by open doors taking in bird songs that they have only heard during nature shows on the TV. They live fully in the present.

Perhaps cats (and dogs) are wiser than us fretting humans! But then again, they aren't contributing to climate change.