anticipating spring as soon as the first greenness
in open meadows and pushing through snow patches
surprises me
the long sluggishness of cold
begins to melt
 
the touch of balmy breezes on my skin
the pull of long winding roads in my memory
haunting my daydreams
wakening me at 3 AM
sending me hunting for the road atlas
visiting vrbo sites
 
calculating how many miles,
how many days,
how to pack an overnight bag
a change of clothes
a day’s worth of food and water
nothing more
and I’ll be gone –
 
© 30january2016 phyllis boernke

The last week in January coming in with a full moon and snow showers predicted. 
Though we’re having a fairly open winter on the northern plains, many other places are not so fortunate.  Storms, cold and snow can make us want to turn up the heat, snuggle under blankets and wait till the world is more hospitable.  And how many other situations cause us to retreat, to hope that somehow everything will change – out there – and then we will be just fine? 
Old, faithful January winter, such a patient companion for our contemplations of
our former resolves, our repetitive past and our unknown futures.

 
Muscles long gone slack,
unaccustomed to the stretch, the burn
really would prefer to say
“No, thank you.”
 
But somehow atrophy is
such a cowardly response.
 
This body, created to move,
guards that strongest muscle of them all –
the heart –
that refuses to grow old
before breaking all the rules.
 
​  
© 24 january 2016 - pab 

I just finished my first knitted afghan in colors of spring grasses and sunflowers, mist, and rain and night, cascading colors one into the next.  I love it!  It is a gift for someone special and soon I’ll send it on its way.  But just for this morning I’m wrapped in it, trying it out, putting more love into it.
 
As I sit cocooned in the softness of this afghan, I think of lullabies and song writers and poets who use words to wrap us round about with images of warmth and love. Like cozy afghans and baby blankets that we can feel and touch and smell, all of our senses are soothed and caressed by words and melodies. The deep touch of images changes us.  Words and colors, music and wind, mist, sunshine and snow, pets and loved ones, growing things, houses, roads; all are elements that are tactile and available to us.  Each whisper their own unique and their own universal message:  that love is always reaching out for us. That love wants to wrap round us. Love wants to turn us on and warm us up. Love wants to bring us comfort and healing.  Love is a forever smile.  Love is here…and here….and here!
 
© 2016 pab

This morning, later than usual, old Sophie lay snoozing in her fleecy nest, when I peeked over the foot of my bed to make sure she was still breathing.  She was and she opened a sleepy eye at the sound of me.  Instead of leaping from my bed, flinging open the curtains, grabbing my notebook and pen, I followed Sophie’s routine. A lazy, full bodied yawn; a measured, languid stretching of her spine from head to shoulders to tail to pads of her feet – her yoga move of graceful realignment; then cautious stepping across slippery places on the kitchen floor; another unhurried stretch on the back deck; finally, sniffing the air before trekking out across old, crunchy snow.

Well, I didn’t do the sniffing and trekking part. 

Instead, I thanked my French press for its faithfulness to our morning ritual, changing cold water and inert grounds into steaming ambrosia with exotic names: Sumatran, Italian, Kona blend, Colombian.  Standing at the door sans notebook, pen or camera, sipping that first cup of waking up, transfixed I watched ice crystals gathered along every branch of the naked birch tree dance in celebration of this new day.

silence
 
 
winter
with its own beauty
quiet, pondering,
complete within its slumbering self
 
at rest, at last, waiting
 
softens my rough edges
my racing thoughts
my need for words 
always words to understand
 
at rest, at last, waiting


 
​
© 2016 phyllis boernke
 
 

it is gray today. . . . and cold
I look out upon this frozen world, 
tired, worn out snow, 
hills hidden in fog, 
and I want something else: 
sunshine, warmth, clear paths
through the woods to the river's edge

my book falls open to Hafiz
and I remember
the lacking is in me, not in the world

"even after all this time 
the sun never says to the earth
'you owe me'
look what happens 
with a love like that
it lights the whole sky"
​- Hafiz

​

      On these northern plains, dawn arrives late on winter mornings. Brilliant sun struggles to warm up the overnight air that sits at 10°. The neighbor’s car protests the turn of the key. I draw closer to the fire, cradling my first cup of coffee. After a quick run outside, a bowl of food, Sophie snoozes and soon will snore, dreaming of green meadows and flocks of sheep. At noon I meet with a handful of others, crafting a new venture that will enhance our arts community. Later, I will pay my respects to a friend recently passed, a warrior on many fronts, now at rest.
     Life and death walk hand in hand. We know the dangers, we adapt; we know the joys, we celebrate. Buffalo on the ridge just outside of town turn broadside to the sun, warming their shaggy coats, their ancient bones. In northwest Washington, my second home, on the Nooksack River, thousands of salmon fight the current, return home to spawn and die.  Hundreds of eagles feast and celebrate. Life cycles, ancient rituals, immediate urgency, orchestrated by suns and moons and seasons, repeated since the beginning of time. Our place in the cycle, our sacred trust in this moment: to awaken, to notice, to seize, to join the dance, to give our all, until our final breath.   
 
pounding of drums
low chanting voices rise in pitch and intensity
as fire in the sky grows brighter
earth shakes with pounding of feet in the circle
pounding of hooves across the plain
massive shaggy bodies running, running
reverberations widen westward to the sea
rising tides, rising rivers, pounding on stones
lungs bursting, hearts expanding, salmon
giving their lives
eagles scream, their wings breaking
placid gray clouds, blue green mist
rising, falling, with the river, the salmon
 
circles of friends, circles of enemies,
circles of dependence
circles of creation
repeating, repeating
 
©4january2016 

re-new-all
 
 
rolling up the darkness before her
dawn comes again
her paint pots full to overflowing
she streaks the palest of icy blue
with the warmth of salmon
and sunflowers
 
fingers of deliverance
reach down from the heavens
dance across the frozen lake top
and break into fissures
of singing color
all along the edges
where pale slumbering grasses
promise their return
 
an eagle rises from an anchored log
calling his praises
into the magnificence
​ 
 
©3january2016