If I Had Words to Make a Day for You
Is our country's despair louder than hope?
Hello Everyone,
If I were not to thank you for your overwhelming support and loyalty through these past few months, it would be a grave offense on my part. Thank you for staying. Thank you for receiving. And thank you for the ‘offline’ notes that arrive in my inbox or in comments—those unbidden starlit wishes granted. 🕯🍂 ✨
I’d sing you a morning golden and new. I would make this day last for all time, give you a night deep in moonshine.’ —Words sung to Babe by Farmer Hoggett, to soothe and to hope.
And this is what I wish I could give you now.
I fully understand what our country is going through, although I don’t write about it. This is a scary time, and for the first time in my 82 years, I watch the world tilt and wonder if the light will hold.
I know it does.
For a decade or more, I’ve offered calm: a moment of beauty in an image and lyrical words strung together like cherished prayer beads. Today, our world is bruised, and the wounding seems unstoppable.
I see troubled faces everywhere. One could argue that the anger and hate are justified. Sadly, understandably, hope, love, and peace are clichés for so many, and words used so often, they’ve lost their power to stir the best in us. We are that sad—that angry.
I learned in the rooms of AA, a long time ago: One step at a time. Keep it simple. Easy does it. Are these truisms still relevant? Yes, they are. They tell us to slow down so that we move in wisdom and clarity. Stay focused, stay calm. Nothing in all existing matter and space remains the same — not our body’s cells, not the one who plays King, not the noise of fear.
Yes, we must stand up for: undeniable truth, noble intent and action, and unimpeachable ethical standards. This is the foundational marrow in the bones of our Constitution.
I can’t tell you how to feel. I can only tell you the light holds. Not because of speeches or kings or crowns—but because we keep noticing the small astonishments in just living this life. I try to focus on those wonderments.
I will continue to create beauty in words and images, even when the world is worn down by sadness, frustration, and the absence of hope. This is my personal opposition to acts that lack compassion, use rude words, and take pleasure in contemptuous deeds. For when we pause for a line in a poem, gaze at the spinning solitary mirror of a Harvest Moon, smile at a newborn baby’s innocence, its wide-eyed wonder — something opens. In those brief moments, anger loosens its grip.
Despair dissolves, leaving room for hope to breathe.
And, like Farmer Hoggett singing softly to the small, bewildered Babe, the light will reach someone who needs it. (Farmer Hoggett singing “If I Had Words” is linked below.)
I hope you can take a small something from this piece to hold on to.
That is my wish for you.
In gratitude,
