Remembering Our Treasures

This is Judy and her son Tim in Albuquerque, 2007.  

This blog is my first one posted with my new computer.  Thanks to Doug Williams, I'm moving into the future, if slowly.  I have Windows 7 and Word Perfect 7, up from Windows XP and Word Perfect 4.  I found my old files and I learned how to create and save new ones.  I still feel somewhat bewildered, but here's a poem I found.  I hope you enjoy it.  Back in June I was struggling with what to do with my life if fracking came near me.  Now it's coal ash dumping threatening, but I think I'll be able to stay here.  I work toward that goal every day.  Here's a poem from my long poem Gifts, which I'm still writing. JH

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GIFTS V. June 1, 2014

The art that matters to us–which moves the heart, or revives the soul, or delights the senses, or offers courage for living ... that work is received by us as a gift is received.  The Gift, Lewis Hyde

Sometimes the soul labors–never in vain.
We could try to forget, block out the bad 
news, bury ourselves in oblivion, but that 
never did work for human beings.  
The way we are made demands that we
see.  If we close our eyes and stop our
ears, we suffer the torments of the
damned.  If we step out into the light,
even if we are the only ones who see
where the light is, we suffer but not
without meaning, not without joy.
I am afraid of so much change.  I built
a life I love, worked out a balance of
writing and learning work and outside
engagement with garden, orchard, hens;
the wild birds, the increasingly 
unpredictable seasons.  I still grow
food, the orchard trees, vines, bushes 
will bend their branches down with
fruit.  The weeds I’ve fed the hens
keep them productive.  The weeded
carrots and beets flourish now.  I
don’t want to leave this bounty, but 
if air, earth and water are poisoned?
Then I must.  I have words streaming
forth.  My life must stand behind them,
else I help no one and lose my very Self.