We are in Cyprus for a couple of weeks. This is our yearly trek to the land of encouragement. And encouraged we are! Great to be with the community of friends we have here. Great to be with our daughter, who is stationed here for the next six months. Great to be by the sea.

I have had a little time to read and write for pleasure instead of for deadlines! And pleasure it has been.

Here’s my latest poem on a sunny afternoon sitting by the sea.

To Touch the Sun

Brilliant burning sphere

nucleus of the world and reigning daystar

Sun is your name—life giver to living greens and dying reds,

spilling warmth on my soul,

my face, you undergird the living with vitality.

Many sweet hours

I soak in your shallow wake.

To touch the sun is to be kept from

deep darkness, chilling death.

I am cradled in your arms of warmth,

prepared for greater hands of love,

heavenly illumination. I see a shining, hotter than yours,

whose smallest molecule, bursts with eternal force;

and I see a sparkle in the Son’s eyes as he flung

you into space on the day when creation sang,

suspended you immobile between

heaven and earth, and named you… “Sun.”

The fire from his

eyes radiate a love light so intense,

that I am pulled away from your intense beauty to his

alone. The

coldness of my heart

has melted into surrender. ~original

Paphos, CY, January 22, 2010