This past week, my wife and I took a road trip to see the redwoods and to celebrate 27 years of marriage. It was a fantastic trip, full of gifts: we enjoyed each other, fresh seafood in coastal towns, and stunning ocean views. We saw redwoods in a couple locations; each was like stepping into another world, sacred and still.
While romance and special trips are important, love’s true measure might be the quality of mundane interactions. To be sure, love is sometimes a celebration but more often, it is a daily ritual, easily overlooked.
Below is a meditation on these ideas I wrote sometime in 2025. “Light Conversation” will be in my next book, A Song of Glass: Dreams, Stories, and Poems, which I plan to self-publish in the next few months.
Light Conversation
The sun peeps out
from half-closed lids of cloud cover
and sits at the breakfast table
while you and I talk in confidential tones:
“Is anyone coming to work on the kitchen today?”
Sunlight fingers your dark curls, finding auburn patches.
You tilt your head and shrug.
“I texted Bradley last night, but I haven’t heard anything.
I hope they at least come to prime the walls.
I should hear something soon but you never know.
They usually don’t text until 8:00.”
“So are you meeting Deb for coffee?”
“I asked her if we could play it by ear
depending on what I find out this morning.”
We eat or check our phones,
continuing small exchanges
as commonplace as the sun
whose rays warm the room,
wrap around us,
and clasp the reaching leaves
of the tulip in the window.
A Wandering Minstrel 