I have always disliked repetitive tasks:
Take a shower after having taken one the day before.
Shave my face after already shaving it a couple of days before.
Wash my car after washing it only a week ago.
Go grocery shopping again and again.
No, I am not Sisyphus, I tell myself,
cursed by the gods for eternity to push a rock up a hill,
only to see it roll down to the bottom of the hill.
Doing something once is enough for me.
I need to move on,
and do something entirely new.
But then again, moving on and on to something else
sounds like an ongoing repetitive cycle.
So, in fact, I am just like Sisyphus.
We are all like Sisyphus.
The cycle cannot be broken.
Earth goes around the sun for 365 days
only to start the same celestial voyage again,
on and on for billions of years.
Stars are born; stars die and then are reborn again.
And so it goes on and on.
Sisyphus was doing what everyone and everything else keeps doing.
People, planets, stars, the universe, are all Sisyphus.

I am caught in your orbit,
I think you know that.
An invisible string tie me to you,
I believe you feel that.

How did it happen?
How does it work?
Is it you or is it me?
Or is it just my fantasy?

Are you a diabolic sorceress?
Did you make me swallow an alchemist’s potion?
Or is this just a lover’s hallucination,
borne out of sheer fantasy?

To feel is to be.
So set your heart and mind free,
and they may lead you up to me,
or maybe this is just my fantasy.

I can’t tell if you’re real or a figment of my imagination.
Regardless, even if you did not exist
I would make you up; I would invent you;
A beautiful fantasy of my own creation.

Effervescent bubbles
rising up and up
Burst of joy

Snow one foot deep
hungry birds on my feeder
chirping Thank You

“Soon I am going to die!”
I did not reply.
Just waited to hear what else he would say.
He was old but did not look like a man who was dying.
I finally replied:
“Tell me about life?
You must have a good idea by now.”
He looked at me for a minute and then said,
with a twinkle in his eye and a raised brow:
“Life is many things, not all of them pleasant,
but feeling alive bestows vision even to the blind.  
That’s the only part worth talking about.”
“Tell me about that”, if you do not mind.
Suddenly all gloom departed from his face,
and declared with much emotion and grace:
“Life is the sun rising from below the water.
It is the dew on flower petals on an early spring morning.
It is a beautiful woman’s lips ready to give you a kiss.
It is the taste of the first bite from an apple
after a long day of fasting.
It is the smell of the fields after the rain.
It is a bird bathing in a waterhole on a hot summer day.
It is coming to port after riding out a perfect storm,
with your clothes soaking wet and your mouth salty and dry.
It is waking up in your warm bed to the smell of coffee,
after a long absence from home.”
The old artist suddenly stopped, took a deep breath,
and said with a hint of regret:
“I have been around for eighty years,
but if I condensed all the moments I felt alive,
they would add up to days,  
maybe only hours, no more.”
A few months later the old artist passed away,
leaving me with not a word to say
but with a deep impression in my mind
that feeling alive bestows vision even to the blind.

Humans,

who are we?

What are we?

Habitats for microscopic life-forms?

Fertilizer for spring blooms?

Animals, incessantly foraging for sustenance?

Polluters of the Earth and its atmosphere?

Killing machines with insatiable appetite for war?

Yes…Yes, we are all that and more.

We are poets and dreamers,

truth seekers and love makers,

scientists and prophets,

heroes and villains.  

We are the ****** and the blessed  

inhabitants of a lonely planet.

A sea like no other sea.

Theater of the Odyssey,

and of Cleopatra and Anthony.

The sea  

of war and of peace.

Cradle of known civilizations,

and jealous keeper of secrets

of civilizations yet unknown.



To me, it is simply

the sea

where I took my first swim,

panicked and sunk like a stone,

pulled down by the wrath of Poseidon,  

that eternally angry god of the Greeks,

who, it was said, lived a thousand fathoms below.

But a strong hand quickly snatched me, lifted me up,

and at the surface I saw a reassuring face smiling at me.

My father was standing in chest deep water,  

and I heard him saying,

“son, you got to keep your legs and arms moving.”



To me, it is simply

the sea  

where I fell in love with the Mediterranean blue,

where I lingered long summer hours at the shore

lazily dreaming,

about people and lands  

beyond the faraway infinite line,

that elusive border  

separating two magical shades of the azure.