Graduation

Graduation Day

After a year of tears,

not from kitchen prep work,

but from weekly PTSD therapy,

where an onion of another 

sort was peeled,

I asked if I would get a gold star.

She said, 

no, you get more homework.

For how  long, I asked,

already knowing the answer

to be for the rest of my life.

Knowing it to be

a life sentence,

we still called it 

graduation day.

Time to stand up straight,

shoulders back, 

treat myself like someone

I am responsible for helping,

always tell the truth,

(or at least don’t lie),

and live my life

with incisive simplicity

and tart common sense.

Oh, and when I encounter

a dog or cat anywhere,

pet it.

Comprehensive

An Exhaustive View of Things

Now that the wheat has been

mostly separated from the chaff,

I will speak my thoughts within,

upon my own behalf.

Anyone looking might not 

find me to be beautiful, 

and even though I might agree, 

I must say I think I’m sculptural. 

Nature and life have comprehensively,

sometimes to an exorbitant degree, 

taken their blades, chisels and styli to me,

letting the years do the rest,

not that any of it has been a test.

What is left might not earn a ten

on the Russian judge’s score,

but I think it’s still okay when

I consider a body of seventy-four.

Reserve

I Reserve the Right

to find beauty in everything,

in the children, of course,

and family, friends, and lovers,

but also in the catalog of daily living,

in the exotic succulent,

the mundane marigold,

the common fern, 

all capable of giving birth

to beautiful poems.

I reserve the right

to believe, regardless my sources,

no matter the topic,

that the truth will come out,

honesty will triumph,
love will trump cuteness,

every time,

each wonder-filled heart

generously giving birth

to beautiful poems.

I reserve the right

to be sensitive to each moment, 

open to all possibilities, 

receptive to miracles, 

aligned with love,

in a safe place, constructed 

on the edge of nowhere,

too far into the wild for problems to reach,

the kind of place written about

in beautiful poems.

I reserve the right 

to trust that all the hurt, all the bad, 

all the worry of the world

could be swallowed up there,

never robbing people of their God 
without giving them a better one,

full of harmony, receptivity, peace,

taking time to celebrate what is right, 

the small wins, what is going well,

doing so in a beautiful poem.

Facts

Faith is the ground on which I walk.

Gratitude is the bed in which I lie.

Compassion is the blood which flows through me.

Generosity is the wind which lifts me.

Grace is the very air which I breathe.

Lightwork Too

I am saving the world,

one hummingbird at a time,

and one flower, one tree, one human, 

each precious to its kind.

I am saving the world,

transforming it with love,

with right action, too, 

not white magic from above.

I am saving the world,

but it’ll take a miracle, they say.

Well, then, I’d best get moving.

I can’t think of a better day.