I sit here many a night
For no reason tears escape from my eyes.
I don’t know for sure why they are there.
I seek within my soul
I seek within my heart
I seek within my being.
Answers don’t seem to arrive.
No matter how deep I seek.
No matter how I feel.
I can not find an answer.
I have been alone for most of my life
And maybe this is the center of the problem.
My past,
No matter how much I try to deflect
Bounces around my mind
Twinging my heart
Pinching my soul
I guess the source is,
I have been alone
For most of my life.

       Daniel Gray
    February 3, 2025

I have been thinking back over my years
Trying to figure out for who I am looking.
I am not looking for someone to walk in front of me,
I am not searching for someone to follow me,
I am seeking someone to walk beside me.
To be able to tell tales both tall ones and short ones.
The ability to discuss what has happened in ones life,
And the two of us able to adjust to what was discussed.
To be able to laugh and raise ones hearts feeling.
Having the ability to cry enough to empty ones pain.
Doing things together whether big or small.
Having a hobby or two that both can share.
To have the knowledge on how to look deep into the others eyes
While being drawn deep into the others soul.
To walk hand in hand,
Where ever we are walking together.
Being able to sit quietly,
Listening to music,
Watching the television,
Reading books.
While never worrying what the other was thinking.
To be one but also be an individual.
The want to please the other,
Before themselves were pleased.
I have been looking for someone just to be with
And I have been doing this since I was 15.
Thinking more than once that I had succeeded.
But so many, many years later
I am still looking.

                                                    Dan­iel Gray
                                                            ­      February 4, 2025

Someone is tapping my empathy.
They reach out, not to pat my shoulder,
But to reach within to hug my heart, soul and mind.
Wanting to stimulate all three.
It is not a warning of danger, pain or hurt,
For I always note and take heed of such.
This is trying to massage away the stiffness of stretching time,
That isolates the feelings that are carried inside
As treasures of what once was.
What have I forgotten, misplaced from memory?
Is this one from this times past or another?
Odd things happen.
Music not heard in ages keeps popping up to my ears.
Feelings of walking someplace else sends shivers within.
Flashes of not clear images in the corner of my eyes,
All feed the feeling of something just beyond my reach.
Is someone worried they are being forgotten?
Not wanting to disappear into the nothing?
Or are they standing there with a great smile?
Knowing how they cause me to delve deeper within,
Working to answer feelings radiating to the surface.
As they once did while looking deep into my eyes.
I have ideas of who may be the cause.
My frustration is; I know that all of it is just
Out past the fringes of my mind.
The answer will come,
That spirit placated and made peaceful again.
Inner calm will return.
The need to once again express the feelings brought out,
As words selected and placed upon paper,
Settle my heart, soul and mind.
I will once again be able,
To be enveloped into a quieter space and time.

July 4, 2021

Walk your life’s path, softly.
Always notice the minute beauty,
Those small things that so many miss.
When a youngster, you were close to the path,
Spotting everything along it.
As you grew older your outlook began to stretch
Farther and farther up the path yet to travel.
With your gaze being so distant,
Who and what was beside you went unseen.
You tread the path so hard as to make it everything.
Always expecting the better that is yet to come,
Sounds and tastes of life are not noticed.
Thereby missing the flavour of what is being lived.
As you beat down the path so hard, it became a road.
Walk the path softly yet again.
Soon the road will once more be as it was.
Becoming the welcoming path that you seek.
Its way will soften back to what you once knew.
Transforming to a journey that leaves
No notice of your travel except to those who care.
So step ever so lightly that those who follow
Will be able to find what you have discovered
About yourself and the joy you have found
While taking your journey along the path.

When one travels through out time
Whether in reading or research
You are learning from peoples past actions
Adding it to our present knowledge
While forming it for others future reaction.
The past is not dead;
It is the seed to what comes next

                                               Dan Gray
                                                January 4, 2021

When at that point in my life
I came disconnected to the dream of it, my life
It feels as if I became a leaf falling off of a tree
Picked up by the wind before being grounded
Carried to a myriad of places with no control
Stopping but briefly
When in contact with a point to cling to
I know not where I go next
Never seemingly with who it will be
As time makes it seem that it will last
The fates blow hard
I am loosed
To drift alone until I am next caught.

Dan Gray  
December 23, 2020  11:30 PM