
taken from Diary of a Word Nerd:https://www.juliatomiak.com

Invent reality?
Is there a minimum of thought
One has to do everyday?
She is playing a guitar
and humming then singing
about ideas and consequences
then stops and starts writing furiously
“Examine your own courage
if you can get up every morning
with a better will than the day before?”
A cat comes, nozzles in her arms
She touches her with equal affection
then she looks at me and exclaims:
“Is it sad or meaningful or ostentatious to say—
I hiked Switzerland the whole summer?
Or I hug cows to relieve my stress?”
The cat jumps, goes to the window, sits purring.
Time folds, distorts harmony of living
Why bemoans the loss during the pandemic
Thousands are dying, millions lost their jobs,
thousands are lining up for food.
Time has changed unlike any other time:
A call for one another to stay together.
Blindness Not Just The Eyes
I stand laughing and looking
You at the buoyant side of being funny
Your words trickle on the safe distance between us
The trick is to make it lasts longer
Longer than the recitation of arithmetic of pandemic
When to open doors, breath the fresh air
Without widening the hospital doors
More cases will enter, more deaths
We cry, pray without even hope of holding hands
There is already so much written about haste and finance
Lacking tests and more tests
They have deaf ears
Counting other types of numbers
Want the numbers bold and arrogant
Going deeper, poorer, much poorer in spirit.
“I don’t need a light
to think of you.”
true and curious apprehension
a letter
The Place
The surprise of hearing my own voice
like seeing slivers of light filtered between the trees
The words are whispered which I could have missed
Words of encouragement, a push
My eyes are closed, my attention sharpened
I am resting a bit after walking long
My breathing is trying to catch up with my steps
In trying to reach my goal I struggle
There are benches, handrails, sources of spring water
I am vulnerable but not feeble.
I am not alone, or helpless
Though night is approaching I am not lost.
Is it the wind or spirit descends from above the trees
A voice telling me a place in eternity
The place where I am going.
It rained yesterday.
Rained again today.
We are only 54 percent in rainfall for the year.
I walked to the river on most days.
Today I did not.
Calamities make days unreal.
In our isolation let’s expand our relationship
You are not alone
We are in this together
We cry together. We pray together
Let’s join our shoulders together
Love will prevail.
A glass of wine and rain on a March afternoon
She says she just visited Morocco
Ate a lot of foods served in tagines.
I struggle to know
The imperfections of a place
To find a solution, an honest quest
Some look familiar, others look relevant
A little twist, a little nudge can move small stones
Inspiring but not enough to tackle boulders
Unheroic simplicity to a balanced life.
Even busy exhausting life
Can point to God
With his never absent mercy and love.
To seek God is not for a day or a month
It’s not a pilgrimage
It’s a lifelong task, I will find in him
“The ultimate reasons for things.”
Sometimes we feel dead in our faith
Sometimes we feel invigorated like spring
The desert of lent is not devoid of life
“Rise, do not be afraid.”
It’s Lent
A new time to bring us back to God
Forgotten often during busy hours of work
Or diverted in digital temptations
Come in silence. Sit still.
Quiet the tumult of your heart,
A few minutes of rest.
A time to affirm who you are.
Remember who will be tempted afterwards.
the mountain’s affection for the sunflower field
radical, abstract, abundant
folding laundry, looking at each other’s eyes
You are a stranger in the stream
who walked away from a mountain trail
looking for a waterfall
a translation of the inevitable
modest steps lost in the tributaries
understanding that we are the ones
who are often distracted.
Let deer roam your mind
forest of imagination
when its head dips in the stream
let your heart be surprised
learn “to love things
as no one thought to love them”
you will arrive without knowing,
a raindrop surrendering to the sea,
the immensity of the unsayable.