In line I find minutes are hours
Years are eternity.
In line I find friends laughing, sun shining, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, parents and grandparents around me eating chocolate birthday cake and homemade ice cream.
In line I find summer turns to fall and I walk to school with my metal Star Wars lunch pail.
In line I find time is not so slow as I walk across the stage with cheers for high school graduation.
In line I find the ups and downs and whirlwind of dreams, career, marriage, homes, vacations, friends, family spinning as time slips into the future. 40 just a number.
In line I find success and failure, pain and peace. I have more scars but more depth. More meaning and more love.
In line I find that many in front of me are gone. I wish I could have just one more dinner or phone call. The sounds of the children behind me keep me marching on.
In line I find that I can see the passing of time before it happens. I can speed it up or slow it down before it comes. It comes and passes so rapidly.
In line I wait for what must come, my time. My turn at the end of the line.

Barbareño


Sun touched Chumash children played upon the land.
Golden brown bears walked from mountains to coastal sand as wild steelhead swam up the Los Angeles River.
Cabrillo eyed the wide expanse. Spanish sailors laughed and danced with visions of beautiful wild maidens.
Old San Salvador bobbed and slipped smoothly through the warm salt waters of Southern California.
The Spanish Crown would be so glad, but thousands of Chumash would soon be sad.
Enchanted summer turned to fall as tranquil waters north turned to squall.
Captain Cabrillo and his men
returned south again,
to find protection on Miss Santa Catalina.
A fateful cut caused Juan’s leg to swell.
On January 3rd his men bid him farewell.
Near 500 years have past since then, Cabrillo’s gone as are his men.
40 million now tread upon nature’s most beautiful daughter.
Still upon a starlit night moon beams reflect an ancient light down on crashing waves with effervescent thunder. Her powerful beauty comes out again and erases the scars of greedy men.
Ancient words of Chumash roll and the ghosts of Tule elk bugle like banshees across the water. When again, will she be free to run again in harmony with nature and the universe of her creator?

Creature
Body, mind and spirit
Blues eyes ponder
A universe spinning furiously.
Stars gaze through the arctic night
Northern lights dance like sprites
Blue and green fantoms reflect upon
glacier's ice
Slow,
Now I see, that faith is all that exists
between me
and eternity.