Cats are Nature's way
of ensuring we wake up
early and often

Thunderstorms - inevitable proof
of the awesome power of Nature's God

If Dog is best friend
then Cat, my sweet little love,
is my soul’s tonic

When I lived on Venice Beach
my nickname was “Smiley”
because I smiled at everyone

When I lived in Luxembourg
I was not understood
because I smiled at everyone

When I was a child
my mother made a game of smiling
and when she saw someone unhappy
on the street or in their car
she would smile at them
until they finally smiled back
and only rarely did her efforts fail

I have been considered shallow
by those who never knew me
because I smile at everyone

but those people have no clue
how much inner strength
those smiles represent

More folk need to learn
About Cause and Effect
Respecting others
Is fundamentally what earns respect

My dad was raised Christian
Episcopalian
But left
No disrespect
He just wasn't convinced

So when I was a child
Our attendance at church was
sporadic
Sometimes a source of contention
And, usually, more pain than joy

The summer of 1969
Men walked on the Moon
And my parents
Split
My dad moved across town
I saw him one day each weekend
The most time we had ever spent together.

When I was twelve the earth moved
Sixty-four people died
And my father embraced Buddhism
And Buddhism embraced him
In a way nothing else ever had
and he learned moderation
Regaining his freedom

What got him was the Law of Causation
Cause and Effect
What goes around comes around
The Golden Rule
Unencumbered
With the baggage from his past
The philosophy of common sense
His pianist's artist's teacher's mind
Could comprehend
Grasp and hold for good

My twelve-year-old mouth
Would not be denied
And so I one day announced
That chanting
Was simply another form of prayer
A fact he acknowledged
reluctantly
but ultimately
with humor and grace

And was it my father's turn to Buddhism
That sparked my own
Journey into Spirit?

In 1972
With Godspell on the radio
I saw Jesus Christ Superstar
At the Universal Amphitheatre
Twice
And when my sister joked
"Let there be light"
And all the lights came on
Then she genuflected
Before taking her seat
It was only partly in jest
For there was reverence in the air
And a sense of the Eternal
The foundation of the story
Of every story
Cause and Effect

Later that year I was baptized
Before I realized
That no church held the key
For the key was within me
As it resides within us all

More folk need to learn
About Cause and Effect
We are here on earth to Love.
And respecting others
Is fundamentally what earns respect.

6/7 July 2005 Approx. 2 AM

Babies - of what do they dream?
What thoughts play behind those closed eyes,
Those eyes so like others before
Unfocused and newly revealed?

What is it in holding a child
That brings such a tranquility?
That puts the world's problems at bay
And shows what is truly at stake?

Perhaps when they dream they become
The person they one day shall be
In full philosophical garb
So leading us to what will come

Or maybe it simply is shapes
And colors so formless and free
A way to make sense of the world
They sample with unfocused eyes

2Apr2002