Beautiful Swan,
head held in high esteem
Beautiful baby
gracefully stroking down the stream

Ugly Duckling,
with head held down in the pond
Lesser creature who really
wants desperately to be the Swan

For nobody notices the inferior kind,
who cannot delight they eye
With the others ahead of the way
but can't keep up the pace it tries

Beautiful Swan rudely splashes water
in the face of the desperate Duck
Smug Swan proudly proclaims
"Too bad, Ugly Duck, you're out of luck!"

With one last fighting stroke,
Ugly Duckling catches up to push on
Ugly Duckling looks back and answers
"***** you, you Beautiful Swan!"

Did you ever feel
the need to apologize
for even being alive?

You may not have
actually said these words
but you acted like it
Perhaps?

Thoughts buried down
deeply inside you
That you were a bother
That you were in the way

No parent is perfect
And most don't wake up each day
Saying, "How can I mess up
my child's life today?"

So we need to forgive them
for falling short,
for hurting us
instead of loving us
the way we were meant to be loved

There's no place like home. There's no place like home. There's no place like home. Dorothy's Kansas never looked so comforting, her black and white world never so safe--never so flat, so barren.

Didn't she learn her lessons? She caused such trouble! She gave Auntie Emm such a fright! That bump on the head must have caused her brain damage. After the "big storm" was only a memory, and the terrible twister only a town tale, Dorothy did it again.

She ventured out on her own.

Yet Mrs. Gulch was still a witch. And Dorothy's "nasty, little dog" still got into the garden. The sheriff was ready to track her down and clamp down on her for good! Running home frantically for help, Dorothy realized that Auntie Emm was still too busy ******* at her shiftless farmhands, henpecking tired, old Uncle Henry,
and he was just too cranky to care. The farmhands were supposed to be her friends, but they just started crabbing at her again.

They soon gave her what for. "Dot, didn't you learn a thing in life?" "Didn't we rescue you once from a pigpen?" "That heart of yours leads you in the wrong direction! " "Where are your brains, anyway?"

Heartbroken, naive Dorothy realized something that was quite profound. Her heart was always in the right place--she just needed the courage, the courage to know she was smart enough to make it on her own. So Dorothy packed her bags, especially remembering her red ruby slippers. She would never forget her loyal friend and sidekick, her beloved pooch, Toto. If she was going, he was going with her.

So there she stood, suitcases in hand, in her bleak, little, colorless world. Terrified, she stood upon the precipice. Fear or faith? And all of a sudden she was noticed again! Just what was she doing? Who did she think she was fooling? Was she crazy!?

"You'll never make it!", they all warned. "You don't know the first thing about how to live in a Technicolor world!"

"Sorry, I do love you", Dorothy answered back. "But I disagree and I will forward you my new address". So off she went finding the path down the yellow brick road.

I am a woman
and proud of it
But somewhere inside
in a dark hole of my soul,
like a hidden cavern,
lies a prehistoric caveman

He wants to shun the world
He wants to brood
because he refuses to allow
himself to be too vulnerable
or too naked

There are times
I wish I was a self-sufficient soul
going it solo
hunting for my own meat
and not needing to associate
with the rest of the  world
because life is not always
peaches and cream,
but anger and tears

Islands look like paradise
until you find out
it is just you
It is then I realize
that nobody is his or her
own best friend

Just don't let that caveman
know I said that

I picture my heart
like a cartoon character
with Betty Boop legs,
tapdancing around,
shuffling off to Buffalo

How many times must I learn
that I cannot elevate anyone
above God?
That I am not to worship idols?
My heart has no place with them

God and I are not that different
after all
He is a jealous God
and we are all made
in His image

So why would I
trade Him
for some wooden idol
or absurd image
that cannot compare?
Why do I let my heart
wander off
when it really belongs to God?

I am not Eve
Not paradise
I live in this world
Many troubles I have seen
Yet hatchling sparrows
in the pottery gourd
I have set up outside
by my kitchen door
have reminded me of simplicity

As squirrels come by to beg
for a scrap of food,
my two cats
lazing in the sun inside my home.

Is this how it feels in
the Garden of Eden?
Tending the animals I love so much,
providing shelter and food for others
that belong to the wild
If just for a moment or two,
no worries, no struggles,
no sadness, no doubts
A complete feeling of joy
at nature outside and inside my door

Open the windows,
part the curtains
Bring light into this house,
natural and soft and sweet
Smell the morning air,
an air that is special to this hour

Hear the low activity
of the Saturday morning
Saturate yourself in the tranquility
of a new day
See the humble beginnings
of a fresh start
and be ever so thankful

Adopt its ways
Own the light inside
Fill your lungs to abundance
with the cool air
Get intimate with the late summer,
approaching autumn
kind of inbetween season.

Satisify your ears with the post-dawn hum
Sense the day that will bring life,
that allows you the gift of yet
another day of a beating heart
Give back to what it has given you
by living your life