I'd like to retravel
The road to here
Straighten out a few curves
Undo some straight lines
Unmuddle some puddles
Shake the mud out of my eyes
Take more time to explore
Those missed detours

The road to here
Has been a long one
Sometimes walked
Sometimes on the run
Sometimes rocky, often dusty
And sometimes fun
But never did I ever
Leave a deed undone

I traveled it in the rain
I traveled it in the sun
Ups and downs and switchbacks
There's no going back again
Can't be redone
Miles and miles and miles
Of tears and smiles and love
The road to here.

r ~ 8/2/14

The old boy
was comforted by morphine
when he flatlined,
gave up the ghost
in a gurgling-manner,
then went ashen.

He was surrounded
by his loved ones,
eleven of which
were once held
by such large fingers,
but what seemed to me
at that sad moment,
just tiny hands,
I touched
tearfully.

He was shorter than us. Scrawny. Freckles around his lumpy, mushroom nose.

He walked to school alone.

We would hide by his fence and pelt him with leftovers from dinner.

By his locker, we jeered. Rained occasional blows on rounded shoulders. Watched as his face slowly turned the color of ripe tomatoes.

One day, he didn’t come. Not to his fence; not to his locker.

The others saw his mother on television. I saw her eyes gaunt with grief.

They saw his father. I, the tears his father shed.

They moved on to new targets.

It’s just me now, standing here, alone.

Among such structures was the  pools of creation..  The airglow here was ambient and beautiful beyond all measure..  This is where I set fire to all the stars in the universe.. I smile before I do so..  Signals and twilight fire flies fill the black void..  And there echoes creation eternal..  A nexus travals across forever..  Feeding colors to life..  To the eyes that will one day behold them..  This is how wonder is born..  I think of all this as I look to the stars.. I am just a human.. But my imagination is a GOD...

Blue the mountains
holding close in view
sacred smoke of yesterdays
blue fog shrouded trails
beneath the rhododendron

falls of sweet blue water
replenishing the rivers
sapphire lakes reflecting
splendor of the bluest hills
above the peaceful valley

hear the sacred music
of the blue ridge mountains
magic in the songs of old
forever blue my appalachia
blue the hills I used to roam.

r ~ 7/4/14

i have never been her
the girl with the perfect body
perfect face
perfect hair
perfect life

i have always been me
the girl with the good brain
bad attitude
average looks
struggling to get by

i knew I could never be her
but still i plastered my face in makeup
dumbed myself down
became anorexic
just so i could feel like her

now i look in the mirror
see a painted face
a small stomach
perfect clothes
and her staring back at me

then i realize i am gone
there is no me
only her

and now i know the truth
you cannot become someone else
you're you
because now I know
though i am not her
i am still beautiful in every way.

The day was dry and hot,
with not a breath of air.
His uniform was loosely fit,
The pinstripes, number 4.
Lou Gehrig was the “Iron Horse”
but an iron horse no more.

ALS had robbed him of his strength,
and now moved in for the ****.
Most thought, at first, he would not speak.
That he didn’t have the skill.
But all there remembered what he said
And I think I always will.

He considered himself “the Luckiest man”
Despite the” bad break” he got.
An immigrant’s son who hit it big
and shined in the spotlight.

Lou passed away within two years.
The Stadium, too, is gone.
We’re not the Country we were then
America has moved on.

But on this Independence Day
I’ll stand where Gehrig stood.
There used to be a ballpark here
and a hero kind and good.