Spring Journal: The Joke

The groundhogs don’t know the stream floods.
They just dig. Sip. Rest. Begin again.
This piece is about watching them work—
And realizing we do the same.
We build our lives beside a stream that will rise and sweep it all away.
But in that certainty, there’s freedom. In that impermanence, a strange lightness.
What if falling… is just another word for flight?
Spring Journal: Two, yet not two

The valley awakens in purple fire.
Snow crocuses rise from frost-heaved ground—tiny, defiant, luminous.
This reflection is about early blooms, a single honeybee, and the deep magic that binds them.
Two, yet not two. Flower and bee. Light and earth. You and the world.
Spring begins here.
Spring Journal: Betrayal

We thought spring had arrived.
But last night, snow returned—quietly rewriting everything in white.
This piece is about late snow, broken expectations, and the sorrow of things not going to plan.
But also about what happens when we release the map, and simply notice the cardinal in the laurel.
Spring Journal: Mud

Spring doesn’t arrive with fanfare.
It seeps in slowly—through thawing trails, frost-cracked soil, and the patient churn of mud.
This reflection is about frost seeding, trail-building, and the quiet power of letting the mess make way for something new.
Creation begins with dissolution. Mud first, then bloom.
Winter Journal: Hunger Moon

The deer come at dusk, ribs showing, coats dull.
The hunger moon rises. The carrion birds gather.
This is a meditation on the sharp edge of late winter—
where bare branches, bones, and longing all speak the same truth:
Don’t look away.
Even now, there is beauty. Even now, everything belongs.
Winter Journal: Cold Snap

The snow is gone. But the cold remains.
This reflection is about what winter strips away—
how frost cracks the seed, breaks the stem, and scatters silk on the wind.
Nothing blooms without a breaking.
The universe waits in the split pod, the frozen bird, the hollow stalk bending to soil.
Winter Journal: Deer

Each morning, the deer return.
I watch them through my window—daughters grooming mothers, fawns testing new legs.
For years, I thought I knew them. I even named one.
But lately, I’ve begun to see more clearly.
This piece is about how nothing truly disappears.
Not the deer. Not the stream. Not even us.
Everything returns. Everything flows.
Winter Journal: Light

The valley teaches in light.
Each season arrives with its own voice—spring’s honey-gold promise, summer’s restless shimmer, autumn’s amber hush, winter’s quiet charcoal.
From my stillness, I see it all more clearly now. Every leaf. Every shadow. Every tender change.
This reflection is about watching the year turn from a wheelchair—and realizing light is always writing love letters across the walls.