The old man was still stiff when he woke. With great effort, he managed to prop himself up on his elbow and lift himself to a sitting position on his bed. The pain shot down his spine. This was the fifth day; it wasn’t getting any better.

He had just finished pulling on his clothes when his son called. “You want to help me cut some wood? We’re out,” The younger man said.

Over the years the old man had learned that keeping active was often the cure for aches and pains. And besides, he had a belly full of ambition that the years just couldn’t use up. His neighbor lady was out of wood, too, he thought; he’d bring her enough to get her by for a day or two. And besides, he’d promised her he would bring the Sunday paper.

Clenching his teeth against the pain, he pulled on his heavy coat and boots, tucked the paper under his arm and climbed into his old pick up truck.

He loved the sound of the chain saw cutting through the wood. And this was cherry; it would burn hot and long. As he worked with his son in the cold morning, he almost forgot the burning pain in his back. The two men worked together, the steam pumping from their mouths, for over an hour. When they were finished, hefty piles of logs filled the beds of their trucks.

Spotting a few scrap slices of wood on the snow, the old man bent to pick them up and threw them in his truck’s cab, smiling. She would like these, he thought. She’ll think they’re pretty.

Minutes later, he was knocking at her door. “Hope you got a pot of coffee going,” he said. “That cold out there is damp.”

She poured coffee and put a pot of chili on the stove to warm as he told her all the local gossip. “I didn’t come for the lunch!” he protested as she put a steamy bowl in front of him. But he ate it greedily and said, “That’s the best chili I ever had.”

They hauled in the logs together and as she lit a fire in the kitchen’s wood stove, he headed back out to the truck. When he returned, he set four little slabs of wood on her counter top and said, “You might want to take pictures of these. Pretty aren’t they?”

“That red in the center is called heart wood,” he told her, “and this stuff on the edge is sap wood. See the rings in the middle?”

He drank another half cup of coffee and pointed out things in the paper that interested him. Then he slowly pulled himself from the chair, groaning. “I think I’ll call doc tomorrow,” he said. “My back’s not better at all.”

She watched through the window as he walked back to his truck, sorry for his pain, and grateful for the wood, with its heart, and for her neighbor, and his heart. And she was warmed by the kindness and the fire.

I watched the bees at work.

They were focused and intent.

“Rock it, bees!” I said to them.

“That’s the way!”

The more you give of yourself,

the more you take away.

It’s kind of like loving,

hey?

In quiet, hidden places, the earth holds peace.
It pools there, in the leaves and the waters and the flowers,
and it breathes, waiting.

When a child of the earth wishes, or hopes,
or prays for comfort and relief,
the pools open and their peace floats gently to the petitioner’s heart.

And all you have to do to feel it
is to be still and breathe softly,
welcoming it and knowing that you are dearly loved.

having reached the outmost edge of his world . . .

he leaped,

right into the very next minute.

“Lessons everywhere,” I wrote in my journal.

Their shapes transform, tipped bowls
spilling light, the colors rising
like music into the moist air,
petals taking flight as if borne
on angels’ wings.  As swiftly
as they had arrived, they disappeared,
but not before marking us
with their indelible beauty.

As dawn ushered in the new day, a ripple of excitement ran through the little colonies of bluets that dotted the meadow. “Wake up! Wake up!” they sang. “She’s here! At last, she’s here!”

They lifted their star-faces to the sky and beamed their brightest greeting. The May Queen had finally arrived, she whom they had waited for all winter. May, the Most Beautiful. May, the Flower Queen. Each of her days was a gift of love, drenched in all the hues of the heavens.

So now the bluets rose to sing their most joyous welcoming songs. And the melody of them danced with the songs of the birds, and the lyrics were secret words of affection.

“Oh-lah-rah-rah, sweet May Queen. Oh-lah-rah-rah-lu-lay.”