Morning Walk ~ At the Baltic Sea

Ruegen

We walked on tiny white seashells and sand that morning.

To a Razor ~

Praised be you, my razor,

for serving me for six months,

unlike those that needed new blades daily

back when I was twenty-one.

That the Seed Take Root ~

Stood and watched the farmer harrowing his field, row for row, patiently, in a cloud of dust.

Nazi Concentration Liberated ~ April 15, 1945

Shades of Shoah

One Sunday morning in Munich

Seventy years later

Six suitcases painted white

Stood on a sidewalk

Each with a rose stuck on

And nametags.

People walked past,

Stopped, bent over to read

And continued on

With shoulders stooped—

Wrenched from Sunday calm.

To Understand the World ~

"To understand the world at all, sometimes you could only focus on a tiny bit of it, look very hard at what was close to hand and make it stand in for the whole. . ."

                                                           from: The Goldfinch, by Donna Tartt

Outside My Window ~

In 10 below zero weather a black bird sat in the lilac bush under a canopy of snow for one full hour, all hunched and meditating . . .

Merton's 100th Birthday ~

There was supposed to be a weekend seminar held at this Benedictine monastery here in Germany about Thomas Merton which I was excited about and signed up for. It was called off because of lack of participants.

Mothers of the Fallen ~

Take your hands from your eyes wet with tears, dear Mother, to show us the beauty there that your suffering has caused.

We Are All Brothers ~

Spent the day in Stuttgart visiting museums walking around downtown. I saw thousands of people but not one of them would look me in the eye or show any sign of recognizing me as a fellow human being.