Smell the Onion

I am feeling very grateful and very overwhelmed right now. 
Gratefully overwhelmed, maybe.  I can’t shake the presence of my
African summer and that is so achingly bittersweet.  Then of course,
there’s the girl whose very existence is in me a wellspring of joy and
gratitude.  And the sheer excitement in the knowledge that God has plans to prosper
us…to give us hope and a future…What kind of joy is it that the
creator of the universe has decided that even in my (vast)
unworthiness he will a) save me from myself b) allow me joy and
c) let me “help” be a part of what he is doing in the world through his son?

 Ahh.  A picture:

and A poem:


There are days when breathing is too much–

when air is so clear it dissolves you from the inside

when the grass is too green–liquid green

and the sky is too big and too far;

days when your soul stretches past the horizon–

past the fixed spheres where music began

and outruns Atlas.



There are days when pices of your sould dig clear through the earth–

and end up in some Tibetan saddle bag,

the tin mug of an Indian orphan,

or pour down on Korea in monsoon rains.



There are days when your soul alone

bears witness to the last scream of a pterodactyl

or the birth of a star.



There are days you feel the scent of flowers

days when the sun catches your skin the right way

and rips you wide open.



There are days you can swallow the sky.