“Prayer is a small fire lit to keep cold hands warm. Prayer is a practice that flourishes both with faith and doubt. Prayer is asking, and prayer is sitting. Prayer is the breath. Prayer is not an answer, always, because not all questions can be answered.”
― Pádraig Ó Tuama, Daily Prayer with the Corrymeela Community

From bed I watched the sky watercolor splash into day. I walked soon after, to the river. A fine cold for new ice. Edges and edges of it. In the wetlands, I crept out on thin sheets, a lovely sound of crunching broken glass over old grass. The brook was a mass of stars and triangles etched on the surface. I felt the week being born: Monday time, a busy day ahead. I didn’t rush, I walked a long while. Indoors, I caught up on e-mails and phone calls and thawed pizza dough and listened to news and troubled my mind with anxiety about democracy. Holding onto it. Trusting it. Sounds of breakage, like ice shatter in the wetlands. Through the day, the news worsens. I write a poem from my mother’s letters. I resisted. I thought I didn’t feel warmed up to it. And then I went forward and found a poem draft and was glad. Still, the day’s news worsened. I sauteed spinach and onions and mushrooms. My youngest and her boyfriend came. I made pizzas while we all talked over the news. The pizzas were delicious. Frank played tennis. I went to my poetry workshop and was so glad to be in this container of truth and beauty and craft and friendship. I end the day, grateful, rubbing and rubbing and rubbing the knot in the shoulder blade of my daughter’s back to make her feel better.