Telling the Truth

connecting the dots of my life

Tag: Outside my kitchen window

April 9, 2022

Distractions

The fight begins
without apology or
convincing evidence
that we are getting
anywhere fast

Yesterday’s news
becomes today’s garbage
overflowing with fresh
litter spread across
my computer screen

The urge to stay ‘up to date’ tugs at me. So does the reality of life on the ground these days. I’m starving for safe conversations. The kind that used to happen regularly, decorating my days with sometimes giddy delight.

Today I’m grateful for telephone calls and emails with photos from family members and friends. I’m also grateful for neighbors I see at a short distance as we wave, smile, and pass each other in Covid-style ‘safety.’

Yet the birds take first prize! I love seeing them storm the bird-feeder, pair off, play hard to get, or soar across the sky in noisy flocks of starlings or crows. (Granted, the lovely albatross pair above did not visit my back yard!)

Bottom line: My kitchen window, and my own neighborhood offer much more ‘up to date’ news than most of what passes for ‘news’ these days. Yes, I’m besotted with Spring.

Still, I’m not unaware of horror and sorrows heaving like waves or burning like wildfires wherever we look. I think I’m learning to become a survivor in a world going missing in action.

Praying you’ll find joy right where you are this day, despite the noise of computers, radios, TVs and your own worst fears.
Elouise♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 9 April 2022
Photo of albatross mating ritual found at audobon.com

Leave a comment
December 20, 2021

Christmas in bleak midwinter

Outside my kitchen window
the sun beams bright and clear
on a cold Monday morning

Hungry birds run into each other
trying to gobble as many
ripe red berries as the law
allows in this increasingly
lawless dreamland called
these ‘United’ states

A slight glimmer of hope
remains despite our
greedy determination
to spend it all on ourselves
before we disappear into
the vortex of a tornado or
wildfires of human mayhem

Christmas has rarely been
this bleak though in truth
it first arrived in bleak midwinter
when powers that be weren’t
expecting the revolutionary
transformation sparked by
one small baby born and laid
in a manger surrounded by
hopes and dreams despite
the stench of reality

Outside my kitchen window
the sun still beams bright and clear
on this cold Monday morning

With apologies to my friends on the other side of the globe, experiencing what may well be a bleak midsummer.  And with thanks to persistent songbirds that captured my attention this morning with their determined dive-bombing for holly berries!

Elouise♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 20 December 2021
Photo by Terry DeLuko found at pixels.com

12 Comments
March 8, 2020

Sunday morning silence

Small floor heater hums
Smudge rearranges himself
Next to radiator pipes
Refrigerator labors to maintain chill
Table clock whispers each tiny tick
Silence seeps through my bones

Outside my kitchen window
Neighborly trees stand at attention
Calm surveyors from above
Testing winds of change
And chance encounters
A dog barks in the near distance

All things considered, I stayed home this Sunday. What will happen next? The question is on my mind in more ways than one.

As for today, I’m grateful to be alive, awake and able to write.

As a writer, I’m turning a corner. Though I’m not sure what to call it, I know what it isn’t about.

It isn’t about feeling good. Nor is it about highlighting lovely side roads without acknowledging exactly where we find ourselves today.

It isn’t about making myself or you happy, or trying to keep myself out of trouble when trouble is spelled t-r-u-t-h.

Not just truth about what’s on the surface, but truth hidden at the heart of what feels normal but is not.

Easier said than done, I know. Yet that’s part of the tug. Trance is a tricky subject, with tentacles that reach everywhere.

The future of our neighbors, our country and this globe is worth our best efforts. Beginning with Sunday morning silence.

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 8 March 2020
Photo taken by me this morning, 8 March 2020

2 Comments
%d bloggers like this: