Oil Pencil & Watercolor

12″x10″

2013 (Scroll down for comments)

“….and blessed be the dog who runs in her sleep,/To chase some wild, elusive thing”.
The afternoon I first brought Morgan home, I sent out an email to a few friends and family members.  Within only an hour or so, I had an email from Dominique Browning….whose own two boys are now quite grown&gone-into-the-wide-world and who (despite my unabashedly public & repetitive urgings) hasn’t yet gotten a puppy for herself.   She wrote (wistfully, as it seemed to me) “Oh, those little milk teeth…”.
Morgan’s now a two year old romper-stomper, but he was sweet when he was very young.
 Holy is the dish and drain
The soap and sink, the cup and plate
And warm wool socks, and cold white tiles,
Showerheads and good dry towels
And frying eggs sound like psalms
With bits of salt measured in my palm.
It’s all a part of a sacrament
As holy as a day is spent
Holy is the busy street
And cars that boom with passion’s beat
And the check out girl, counting change,
And the hands that shook my hands today.
And hymns of geese fly overhead
And stretch their wings like their parents did
Blessed be the dog
That runs in her sleep
To chase some wild, elusive thing
Holy is the familiar room
and the quiet moments in the afternoon
And folding sheets like folding hands
To pray as only laundry can
I’m letting go of all I fear
Like autumn leaves of earth and air
For summer came and summer went
As holy as a day is spent
Holy is the place I stand
To give whatever small good I can.
And the empty page, and the open book?…..
Redemption everywhere I look.
Unknowingly we slow our pace
In the shade of unexpected grace
With grateful smiles and sad lament
As holy as a day is spent
And morning light sings “providence”
As holy as a day is spent

 

Carrie Newcomer 2001