As I grow older, Melody, my only Love,
I remember young desire
And thank my only God above.

It was you who made me croon,
Paw the dirt,
Howl at the moon,
And burn.

So it is as we are growing old:
You light the fires
Deep within
And stoke the flames
We've long been in.

I would not have another,
Wife,
Though hard has been our
Life.
I find you everywhere,
It seems...
Asleep, awake, you're there,
Girl of my dreams.

Don't bother me...
Don't bother me...

The snow or rain or wind
You bring
Are only temporary flings,
Changing the golds and the blues
For a day and then blown away....

Gray skies,
Fling your snow,
Spew your rain,
Blow your gales again,
And leave the soil moist,
The air swept clean,
The birds returning with the Spring,
And I will soon rejoice
In yellow sun and green.

Gray skies don't bother me.

Doesn't need us,
Wasn't lonely,
Knew the future,
Saw the way,
Past Death,
Chose to act,
From perspective
Of Perfection....

We
Need Him,
Are lonely,
Uncertain of tomorrow,
Face imminent immolation,
Are powerless,
In desperate need
Of perfection....

Needing Grace,
Needing Mercy,
Demanding Justice,
Heaping Dooms
Upon our heads...
Unaware, we see
Only our current needs,
Ignoring our helpless state,
Created beings,
Deny the Creator,
Deny the Savior
Who decided before Creation,
To take our place
When Death arrived.

Or

We acknowledge
We are created beings,
Desperately in need,
No other way past
The Curse into which
We are born,
And throw
All hopes,
All trust,
Entire,
Upon the God
Who made us.

Received a letter via
Our snow-covered mail box
Just a hundred steps from my front door.

Rather than the quick work of electrons,
My mother's friend
Had carefully penned
Her thoughts.

Two tight pages
In black ink:
Questions about life,
The kids and grand kids,
Whether we were getting rest,
And how was the snow?

Paper and ink
Envelope tucked,
Cancelled stamp,
Delivered after a thousand mile ride,
Lies on my desk,
Proof of my mother's love.

Mainly, she was concerned
That we were finding time to live,

And were we still thinking about her?

Unshaven, old, and nearly spent,
He slouched in his kitchen chair,
Lungs rattling each wheezing breath,
Radiation doing little then,
To control the mass within, or
To prevent the Mass he knew
Would soon begin.

Hard to believe a man
So tough as Rubin always was
Sat stubble-faced and wan
In that early morning sun.

Two years ago,
At 65,
He and his son
Put a ****** on,
Fought a cop,
Nearly won,
Stayed a week in jail,
Paid a $7000.00 fine,
Then bragged it all
Was worth the time
And memories.

I saw him jump,
At 66,
From a moving van,
Six feet up
Like a younger man,
Hell bent to take his fill,
Shovel hard, cursing still,
Cigarette hanging loose
Even with a rattling cough
(He shrugged it off)

And then,
At 67,
His last remains crave no nicotine,
No *****, wayward fights,
No carousing old man libertine
Out with his son at night,
And we who watched Old Rubin's days,
Paid our respects and went our ways.

No sense at all. No sense at all.
Shucked off your slippers;
Ran away from the ball.
Out on the streets,
Over the hill...
Run away, Jill,
For your Jack.

Left your home,
Left your hearth;
Broke your mother's
Sweet mirth;
Abandoned
Your father's advice.

For a roll in the mud with old Jack;
For a roll in the mud with old Jack.

I wonder...
Will you ever
Come back?

My brother is a pilot,
Not just any old pilot...
A tail dragger pilot,
Champions
Cubs,
Super Cubs.

Planes made of spars and fabric,
Held tight
By screws
And dope,
And glue.

Airframes part wood,
Part aluminum,
Part steel.

Fuel tanks sloshing in the wings
Either side above our heads,

Set the mags,
Hand crank the prop,
Turn on the fuel,
Hear her pop
And roar to life.

We strap in
Single file,
Controls fore
And aft.
And rev 'er up
To join the winds.

Once up,
He yells, "She's yours!"
And I am piloting,
Or rather gingerly sliding her
About the blue,
Skidding right or left,
Holding my breath,
Wondering how much I dare
To tip her up there in the air.

"I've got the stick!"
He yells, and I let go.
"Don't be afraid to fly it!"
"It's just a machine!"
"Make it do what you want it to do!"

And we are diving toward the ground,
Then bringing her up and tilting 'round.

"Give her fuel when you tilt to turn!"
He demonstrates, and we are standing
On the wing,
Perpendicular and looking to our left and down.


I know he's right,
That I am timid in my flight,
And he is brave with years of joy,
A pilot fearless since he was a boy.

"You want to land?"
I hear him say.

"No, that's alright!"
"Not today!"

To prove how safe it is to fly,
He touches down,
Then bounces high,
And vaults us back into the sky.

We flit across the fields,
And then,
He flies beneath the power lines,
To show how spray planes catch the ends
Of fields.

He skies the plane at either end,
Then bee lines it to the badlands' edge
Where suddenly we are swooping down
Between the canyon walls, and sinking low,
Then, rising, turning to our right,
He sails us toward sun's dying light.
My only hope is that we will land
Before the night
Erases all our sight.

And sure enough,
The air is calm.
The night is coming on.
Gusting breezes are all gone.

We gently settle once again,
Back at the ranch,
And I help wheel her, then
Into her waiting hangar pen.

Life can be lived all in a panic.
Fear fills us with a lingering dread,
But we should live our lives.

Just like my brother said.
"It's just your life, so make it do
Whatever it is you want it to!

Time has rounded in the world of men;
The winds blow hard toward Anarchy,
While raving sailors hoist their leaking sails
To gather, jubilant upon the floods.

Howlers peer into the burning winds
Seeking ****,
Spread indignant fire,
Seeding hate,
Burned with desire,
Drowning protesters
Die between tides,
No chanters chanting peace,
No aspirant hope of love,
The baby's in the gutter with the bath;
When mobs exhibit wrath.

Tear old history from dusty shelves,
Forget true hymns that honored God,
Forget the tired Truth,
Or rather Truth of which we tired;
Rules now only Chaos,
Fervent fuel of howling mobs.

Riot in the streets;
Ride the lawless swell,
No plan for reconstruction,
No lessons from the past,
No vision for the after glow;
Discordant voices chanting
On the ****** road to hell.

Yeats proclaimed the Second Coming
Must surely be at hand between World Wars,
Yet still the Second Coming holds its fire,
While ranters tear the old ways down,
Dictators ratchet missiles toward the skies,
And our leaders twitter platitudes and lies.

Hair flying like lace all undone in the wind,
Flaxen and golden and fine in the sun,
Scented with hay mown fresh before dew,
A laugh on her breath and the mention of you.

She came in from the chores
Bearing Dolly's warm milk in a pail,
A tabby young kitten threading her heels,
And baby was greeting his mother in squeals.

She came in with the cold, blown by the wind,
And shuttered the heavy old door.
She stirred up the coals in the rusty old stove,
Cheeks all afire with the ice and the snow,
Stamping her feet by the fire's warm glow.

She came in from the spring,
A pail in her hand, and butter, packed in a jar,
Humming a tune with mud on her shoes,
A meadowlark's call on her mind,
First signs of green and new life on the wind.

She came in from the walk,
Frown on her face, mail in her hand,
Letters from home, black ribbon adorned,
News that made tears find their place,
And saddened her heart as it raced.

She came in from the fields
Weary and worn, old from the sun and the wind,
And she settled herself by the rusty old stove,
And she rocked in her battered old chair,
Reflecting a life both bonny and rare.

She came in from the fields,
And she'll go back again
When the evening sun makes its way
Round the flickering stairs to new day;
She'll rise just a bit before dawn
To stoke up the dwindling fire,
And go feed the new lamb
Whose mother has left her alone,
Whose mother has left her alone.

While the world
And I
Mourn Kobe's passing,
On nearly the same day
Jihadists invaded villages...
West Africa,
Burkina Faso,
Alamou.

Villagers ordered out
Into the open areas
Gunned down,
Slashed,
Murdered.

An attendance question opens,
"What happened in the world?'

Kobe Bryant is gone.
Private helicopter crashed.
The world is on its head.

We hang our heads
In mourning.

Jacque's turn:
"My village was
Attacked Saturday.
Forty people killed.
My wife and children...
There.
The people are fleeing
To the capitol,
Ouagadouga."

[Awkward, this revelation.
How will I ever justify
A week of Edgar Allan Poe?]

We bow to pray.

She was washing dishes,
Putting things away,
Glad for a little quiet after the fray,
Hospital bills would be coming,
Juggling bills to pay,
But she was glad for the quiet today.

Sam came in with dirt on his face
From playing "trucks" on the drive,
And trailing a gritty wet trail
For a cookie or two and some milk with his Mom.

She milk-dunked an Oreo
Looked at her son, and said,
"What shall we do for today?"
To the  milk-mustached boy
Who'd barely made it to five.

"How 'bout checkers?" he asked,
And she looked hard at him,
"Where did you learn how to play?"

"At the doctor's," he said,
As he dipped cookies in,
And startled his mother again.

"Honey, who taught you to play?"

"Max and I played. He showed me how,"
He said with a straight, serious face
As she spilled the milk from her glass.

"Honey, Max has been gone for two years!"

"I know, Mom, and now he is six, and not three.
In heaven, you get to decide.
And Grampa and Gramma came up to say hi,
And numbers were swirling around."

She paused, now uncertain, and mopping up milk,
"So did you see Jesus?" she said.

"Yup, Jesus was there. He said I could visit,
but I had to go back," Sam looked at her matter of fact.
"Can I go play now?" And outside he went,
Brown smudges still stuck on his chin.

Left the house this morning before six;
Stopped to photograph the hoarfrost
Beneath the street lights glowing thick...
White, silver, black before it all was lost.

The headlights caught a snow-like fall,
Frost slanting north before a southern breeze,
And I was all alone in wonderland to see it all;
I turned inside a splendor-dome of trees.

The camera tried to focus, battling light and dark;
No sun to give some depth against the night.
I felt my fingers growing numb and left the park,
Hoping at least one snapshot would look right.

The morning breeze then stirred, "Enough!"
Revealing golden warmth, arrived the sun;
Shivering trees their silver jackets sloughed,
And I, to work because the day'd begun.

Just last week he was on his knees
In my mother’s kitchen
Scrubbing the yellow flowers’
Darkened dimples.
“The floor’s still good,
But the wax has darkened.
It’s been in there 30 years now!”
He told me on the phone.

Nothing needed replacing
If there was any usefulness left:
An old floor, or pair of jeans,
An old Ford or length of wire;
Use and re-use,
Or if something were not useful
At the moment,
It was stored (sometimes tagged)
In some haphazard pile for later.

Today we walked out on the place
He lived fifty-four years…
Scratched our heads and
Wondered where to begin.

“You can clean some of this scrap up…
Make some money,”
I say to my farmer brother.
“No!” his quick reply,
“Never know when something
Might come in handy.”

I stand there, looking
At the tottering empire of scrap,
Broken equipment,
Peeling, graying sheds.
I realize that in some ways
Dad isn’t really gone…
That I am the one who has left
The family farm up on the hill
Out in the sun and wind
And the seldom rains.

Acid notes have just begun;
When the mellowness is gone,
Acrid memories linger on.

Embrace the rush into unknowns,
Treasure pleasure's fleeting tones,
Know sorrows come when they are gone.

Pile up the dulcet memories;
In summer load your treasuries;
Lay up the sweetnesses of life
To feast upon in coming strife.

Old bucks eat late
Under harvest moons,
Leave the younger crowd
To chase the does
Before night falls,
And down they go
Before the hunter's bow.

Scarred and limping
They may be,
But old bucks are wise
To outlive generations
Of the young and strong
By patience
And by separation.

The groomed dog lies
Clean upon my sofa,
Resting,
His reward.

Resisted he
The urge to flee
Or bite the handler
While the groomer
Plied over the sopping ****,
Clipped the carpet-ripping nails,
Coiffed and primped him
Head to tail.

Waking,
He nuzzles me
With a brown-eyed stare,
Sidling close to my old brown chair.

This canine friend,
Just a dog in mien,
Communicates his needs,
Comforts me in loneliness,
Amuses me with dog-face grin,
Reads and responds
To the state that I'm in.

How gaily fair, and fairly gay
This child of May
To skip past cares and dance away
Her childhood in a day
And leave behind her fairy form
And form so fair
As though her bones
And not her soul
Could dance on air.

How quickly soon and soon and quick
Comes age and care and body thick!
When only eyes and spirits dance
And fairy form and form so fair
Are vanished with the flaxen hair.

Now dance, my child, with spirits free,
Before the careless days all flee,
And as I watch, my heart once more
Will lift with you and gaily soar.

Eastern Montana prairies struggle
Too little rain,
Too much wind
Too much cold and heat.

In dire extremes
Living things have learned
To live a life of second chances,
Save some seeds from sprouting,
Produce more than can be used,
Find a quiet shelter from the wind to grow,
Never stand too tall against incessant wind,
(There's certain strength in being small)....

A cactus revels quietly in scarcities,
Flowering briefly,
Concealing water in a leather skin,
Resting in spiny clumps
Of resilient solitude.

Blue grama grasses
Curl toward the earth,
Decline the luxuries of height
To put on seed,
And stand in wiry toughness
Moving beneath sun and wind.

A weathered look befits exposure to the elements;
Gnarled branches speak the will to live;
Grasses, brown and speckled mark desperate thirst;
Frays and fissures delineate wins and losses
Against passing time.

Patience endures the ravagers' scorn.

Which might just as well mean
That "It,"
Whatever "It" might be,
Didn't come to build
Permanent residence...
Had no plans
To put down roots,
To settle down...

"It"
Brings no eternal joy,
Nor infernal pain...
No Anything,
Really...
Forever.

So...
When "It" comes to pass,
Either savor or endure
For what "It" is...

But...

Don't build "It" a nest;
Don't build a wall against "It."

Let "It" be,
And prepare
To let "It" go....

I know what you are thinking;
I know what you were thinking;
I know what you will be thinking
When your end comes.

When the end comes,
I will be waiting
To pull you through into
Always.

Wasn't it I who pushed you,
Unaware and blinking
Groggily into the light;
Wasn't it I who pushed you
Forward into Time?

We are Children
Of earth and water.
We are reminded
We are of the elements
In our entries,
In our farewells.

Exodus 32:11-14
But Moses sought the favor of the LORD his God. “LORD,” he said, “why should your anger burn against your people, whom you brought out of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that he brought them out, to **** them in the mountains and to wipe them off the face of the earth’? Turn from your fierce anger; relent and do not bring disaster on your people. Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Israel, to whom you swore by your own self: ‘I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and I will give your descendants all this land I promised them, and it will be their inheritance forever.’ ”
Then the LORD relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened.

Thinking about the finite speaking to the Infinite,
The imperfect to the Perfect,
The chosen to the Chooser,
The creation to the Creator,
The human dialog with the Almighty.

Did a man change the course of Doom,
Move Heaven on behalf of earth through "prayer"?

Senseless ones,
These men who mock,
These men who curse
The things they do not know,
The things misunderstood!

Animals plummeting,
They fall into dark desires,
Ignite devouring fires,
Ruining their own souls.

I came exhausted
Out of the blistering gray,
Lungs choking dust,
Tongue parched,
Body swollen with heat.

Your cool gardens saved me.
Basked I in the tender greens of spring;
Nurtured, I lingered in the shade all summer;
Warmed, I stayed near your embers in autumn.
I would not leave the blazing logs in winter.

Dry and desperate my early plight.
Parched and stumbling,
Clogged by dust,
I found your water;
Drank and bathed,
Found solace in body and mind,
Found time to rest, to heal.

I wonder at the restlessness
Howling outside your gates.

Frogs croak against the growing dark;
Loons call loneliness into my soul;
Chill invades me in sudden falling dew.

Waking
From a dream
Of irreversible
Actions

Half in
Half out
Between
Two worlds
My only cry
"Thank you, Lord!"

Not so wonderful,
This world is
Not so bad
As the world
Of dreams
I left.

Time to rise,
Prepare for work,
And go.

Japanese fighter planes coming in
Three men at the gun, ready to fire;
How does one know it's time to go?

He knew the General Order, had never disobeyed:
"To quit my post only when properly relieved,"
Death leaning in or no. But what if it's time to go?

The Pacific teamed with ships; enemy planes sighted;
"Somebody's going to take a hit this time."
A sense that grew inside: "It's time to go."

He stood in the cramped gun house, "Good-bye, boys."
"Good-bye, Paul," one said, with no derision.
In his decision the certainty that it was time to go.

Swinging the steel door and stepping out,
His vision grayed from detonation,
Time stopped, or at least grew slow.

He'd left his post, nearly died in doing so,
Covered with gore from his friends
Who hadn't heard the call, "It's time to go."

I must remind you
That God delivers His own
People to safety,
And sends them
Into punishment.

Remember Egypt
And our ancestors,
Freed from slavery,
And then punished
For their unbelief?

Remember the angels,
So powerful,
Loaded with authority,
Some of whom even now
Are banished from His Glory
Into chains of *******
For their rebellion,
For their disobedience,
For their disbelief?

They now wait Judgment,
Tormented and waiting for torment...

I am writing to warn and to remind you, brothers.

Jude

Love demands Truth.
Love that bends and lies to pacify feelings
When Truth stands, resolute, cannot be
True Love.

It may be frightened, maudlin, corrupted,
Or many other things, but it cannot be
True Love.

Some, hoping to change the shape of Love,
Would pummel the footings of Truth,
But they haven't shovels enough,
Nor dynamite powerful enough,
Nor lies lasting long enough to dislodge
True Love.

True Love stands resolutely with Truth.
This relationship has always existed, always will,
While the Resistance has a beginning,
It must eventually meet its end.

      (DB, meanderings, July 10, 2023)

Truth starts with a capital T...
Makes up the rules...
Doesn't ask me?

What if truths I throw His way
Don't affect Truth with a capital T...
At the end of the road, the end of the day...
When Truth has His say?

Oh me.
Oh miserable me.

What if at the end of the road, at the end of the day,
Truth stands to ask what I've done...
My opinions don't count, with no other Way,
Oh won't that be fun at the end of my run?

Oh what will I say?
Oh what will I say?

What if I see Truth has a capital T,
If I listen to Truth to let it change me?
If at the end of the road, stands Truth as I've said,
Aligned with the Truth, I'll have nothing to dread.

at the oddest moments
just at the brink of ennui
glimmers of eternity
ephemeral dancing joys
sideways slippings
just out of sight
moving fast
detectable only
to the desiring ear...
to the attentive eye...
faint sighings
murmuring laughter
patter pit of little feet
contented laying of jowls
in a dabble of sunlight
carpet warm stretchings
closing of contented eyes
soft dog snores
laconic life in the moment
this Sunday afternoon....

"You can't."
My father used to say,
And corollaries I have found:

Pull the nails...
The holes remain.

Burn the bridges down...
The pillars stand at water's edge.

Slam the door and go...
Cracks spread out above the frame.

Dust off your feet...
Your footprints will remain.

A rocket launched...
Must surely fall.

Arrows loosed...
Cannot be called back to the string.

A hundred souls have now been called,
Finalists for the one way trip to Mars;
They wait again for numbers to be culled
So they can take a place among the stars.

Knowing they can not return,
Still they choose to feel the thrusters burn,
The first to leave their mother, Earth
Prodigal children, these, their birth to spurn.

And so they wait while science catches up
To give them air and food and liquid sup,
Suspended on their way so they can stand
In thinner air and orange rock and arid sand.

The universe, expanding as it goes, for Earth
Waits patiently as we climb the ladder to the sky
To test the science and find an astral birth,
The outer limit of our human quest for why.

And when we stand some day on rocky Mars
Dissatisfied, we'll look out past old Sol
Peering out for paths to other stars,
The restless quest still burning in our souls.

I grew up working the land,
Out under the sun,
In the wind,
Squinting in the semi-arid dust
Of our farm.

My sister lived inside,
Learning to cook,
To clean,
To live the farm wife's life.

We both live now in cities
A thousand miles from that old farm,
Visiting a week or two....
Never long.

Our recollections vary.
I suppose they must.
So when we walk a country road
We see things differently.

She sees flowers and rolling hills,
Grasses bowing gracefully in the breeze,
Dusty agates hiding patterns.

I see dust upon the flowers and grass,
I curse the way days pass
In wind and heat and cold
Turning living creatures old.

Hard the stones,
Sharp the thistles,
Bent the curling flowers,
Wind-rutted the hills
By wind and water powers.

I am tempered in my sister's pondering,
Pause in my cynicism.

She holds an agate to the light,
Turning it angle to angle
Seeing Beauty glow inside.

At lunch
My friend told me his dream:
"Jesus, my dad, and I
Were sitting by a fireplace,
Comfortable on soft leather chairs...
And we were smoking.
Dad had his pipe,
I was smoking a cigar,
And so was Jesus."

He laughed;
So did I...
Dreams can be absurd.

"I looked at Dad,
Said, 'You know,
You made my life miserable
Some times'...
And then he looked at me...,
'You made my life
Difficult, too.'"

He stopped and looked hard at me.

He'd had an Epiphany in his dream;
I saw the look in his face:
A coming to terms,
A sort of peace,
An understanding,
A sadding sorrow,
A letting go.

I remembered what he'd told me
When I had shared a dream...
My dreams are only about me...
Not about the people in my dreams.

My introspection ended
When he laughed...
"But that's not all!
We three looked up,
Somehow partners in the dream,
To see mother standing at the door,
And we, all three,
Slid our smokes down to the side
To hide them near the floor."

The twisting tale took us then,
And others in the coffee shop
Looked up from smart phones
To see two Frenchmen laughing.

You come to the end of those long roads
You've staggered down,
When you have fallen and can only drag
Your sorry self around;
Remember then that home
Still is the place Frost told us
They have to take us in
When there's no place left
For us to go.

Remember when
You've no where else to turn
Because those bridges you have burned
Will no longer carry you across;
Because you're spurned by friends you've spurned;
Remember then that all's not lost;
A humbled soul still finds
That home remains a waiting friend...
When you remember when....

A woman dressed in black,
Shadow-hidden,
Deep woods at her back....

I caught her image
In the yellow headlights
Just for an instant.

My wheels rolled by
While my imagination
Slid to a stop with her.

Why was she there
On a lonely road
In freezing rain and cold?

A mile up the road I slowed,
Turned around to answer
Nagging questions.

At the point where she had stood
Remained a half burned stump
Five feet tall, a broken scar face-high.

I smiled at my imagination...
Nearly stumbled on a shoe:
Black, high heel sunk to the hilt.

I met a girl named Winter,
Skin as white as snow,
Heart as sharp as splinters
Iced and cold.

I met a girl named Autumn
Suffering on the brink;
Dying embers made her glum,
and made my passion sink.

Summer was a girl I met
Just a little after spring
And though we danced,
Twas just a little fling.

When e'er I think of Spring,
Her fitful temper flares....
She promised everything,
Then flitted off somewhere....

"I'm done with seasons,"
Then I said, "Elsewhere will I look."
And so I sought a little song
And found one in a book.

Her looks so fair; her words so sweet -
Our voices found full harmony;
My happiness has been complete;
My heart has found its Melody.

Father in Heaven, Giver of breath,
I am tainted by my prideful lust,
Wearied as I run toward death.
Kneeling knowing "dust to dust."
Were I to beg you slay the wicked,
My death I'd call for you to give.
Lord, hear the cry of one so wretched,
Tortured now, who begs to live.
Despite my wretchedness, I know
Surrender as I see your Image pressed.
Make whole this desperate soul,
Lift me to live in holy rest.

Amen

There's a picture of you holding cake,
White frosting on your nose, wanting more
Your mother and father grinning
As you explore sugar as never before.

Behind the cameras, we laugh and clap,
Celebrating a year and nine months' wonder,
A life that we have come to know and love,
A little girl, on a day you're only partially aware.

The dog lies nearby, watching for crumbs,
In his own way celebrating this happy day.
He does not seem to mind he is supplanted
As family favorite; at least, he does not say.

The balloons, the cake, one candle all aflame,
Join our choral "Happy Birthday" song
Follow in the first of what we hope
Will be many, many more to come.

My estranged daughter,
I wait news of my mother's
Survival or demise.

Holy water,
A crucifix
Wait nearby,
I know the emptiness of agonized prayer,
Of groaning alone in sanctuary,
Of feeling only limbo,
Only limbo.

It's August.
I shudder
January cold.

Here today and gone tomorrow,
True of love and joy and sorrow.
Frost said gold lasts but a day...
So does work, and so does play.
Here today and gone tomorrow,
True of anger, pain and horror.
Savor golden days whene'er they come;
Remember them when they are gone.

Rests invisible in the hot blood's rise,
Unused before barrage of rage and alibis,
Silently outwaits the soul's angry sighs.

Wisdom, too, holds knowing tongue,
Content to hold forgiveness' hand, while long
The cooling blood is covered with their soothing song.

When right mind o'er-takes the anguished brooding whole
Wisdom and Forgiveness emerge, envelop, and enfold,
Release the hatred, salve the bitter, broken soul.

So find the wounded soul's release;
Wisdom's Forgiveness bringeth Peace
Provides the way to life's new lease.

I have become a ten-toed dabbler
Meanderer intentional sampling delights
Finder of mundane pleasures
Thankful for sound and sight, taste and touch,
Overcome by the newness of scents

I intend to be the finder of earthly heaven,
A barefoot walker of beaches
Collector of shells, sunsets, sensations
The crust of salt and sand and shells
Between my happy toes.

Relief settles slowly upon me
Covid come and gone, come and gone
Taste and smell returned
Lungs strong and pulling, pushing air,
Awareness of the preciousness of living.

I stop for the pleasure of roses, of rain, of radishes.
Thank Heaven for a taste of juniper, mint, basil,
Cantaloupe, berries of all kinds....
Covid gone, I am here to stay, if only for today.

I'm out, about, and on my way.

As we wait beneath the mountains
For the passes to clear.

The river fills in torrents
As the horses and the men grow thin.

Feats of winter thriving
Fade in the springtime starving.

Birds fly high above,
Finding open water beyond us.

We wait in wonderment.
The dogs sense danger as we eye them.

When you run across a "which,"
Put a comma in the ditch.

Time rolls backwards into a memory haze,
And I am young, and she is young always;
Her beauty turns the heads of longing men,

And I am jealous, once again.

When I remember passioned days,
My soul leaps up into old ways,
And I pursue the girl I love, amazed,

And I am satisfied, again.

When I remember battles past,
I know the one we're in will end at last,
And our old love return to hold us fast,

And we'll return to love again.

Though time retrieve the golden days,
And stamina in all things stray,
Never will it take our love away.

Still, our love remains.
Our love remains.

Remember When

You come to the end of those long roads
You've staggered down,
When you have fallen and can only drag
Your sorry self around;
Remember then that home
Still is the place Frost told us
They have to take us in
When there's no place else left
For us to go.

Remember when
You've no where else to turn
Because those bridges you have burned
Will no longer carry you across;
Because you're spurned by friends you've spurned;
Remember then that all's not lost;
A humbled soul still finds
That home remains a waiting friend...
When you remember when....