Do you remember the lovely Ella Fitzgerald?  Her song was “Summertime and the livin’ is easy.” 

It looks that way in Sister Caroline’s photo of a corner of our garden.

And it is not just easy, it is fun for the grey, red and white squirrels who play together in the lush foliage of the little pine forest behind the monastery.

I think this photo deserves a poem.

EDGE

I understand an edge: a border, isn’t it, a first wedge into

something else, something new? – somewhere you can only

get past by falling, falling, and giving yourself into the hands

of gravity, flying to the nest you, the one that only appears

beyond the limits of what came before. There are sharp edges

that cut your fingers when you cling to them, and there are

long concavities that curl upwards and lift you till you are

flung into space, a free place wide enough for fear, euphoria

and second thoughts, a space where something is born that

turns you wide-eyed toward the welcoming curve of newness,

and you find yourself at the beginning, the threshold,

the other side.

Kate Martin 8/ 09

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