Spring’s flowers screaming,
summer blooms still aborning.
Seedlings need water.
Red flowers open,
pomegranates in waiting.
We’ll soon make sun tea.
Proteas whisper.
Bougainvillas scream color.
Pastels still enchant.
Epi’s bloomed briefly,
cactus flowers much the same.
I must call my Friends.
Orange Navels are eaten
Valencia’s unfavored
What of the apples?
Brown season will come,
with smoke on the horizon
We must mend the roof
White snow still on peaks
Summer thirsts for its melting
Let’s
He’d tried to forgive himself
a thousand times, at least,
would do so again,
on each new day,
through joy or remorse,
come what may,
but held by the memory,
a determined beast,
those well-intended thanks
reminders of a distant East,
hoping time enough remained
for blessed service and more,
to banish pain and guilt,
master new lessons before
life’s final peace
brings an end to his war.
Dreams and Souvenirs
He occasionally hears the voice of
his mother, gone now for sixty years.
The images of his father, dead now for thirty years,
are mostly still, silent.
Country carnivals are captured in his memory,
wrapped in their colors, smells and sounds.
Raccoons still grab the plums before human hands arrive,
always at night, outside his bedtime window.
Lilacs by daylight, at night fireflies, likely still the same,
as today’s coastal sky carries mist, but no surprises.
Now, the only things which come easily to him are
things he does not desire,
while in matters of Spirit, words get in the way,
feelings being the language of the soul,
as it probably was when he knew it not.
So he looks back now, less interested
in making new memories, savoring this life.
When the time is right,
he’ll live within the Grace of a single day.
What To Do
Compassion takes time.
Can you spare a few seconds?
It will reward you.
There’s great need for Good,
people helping out selflessly.
There’s no time to waste.
Somebody should help.
What? Who? Me? Oh yeah, it’s true,
I am somebody.
Hope, faith and courage.
My friends in times of struggle.
Thanks for being there.
One day at a time,
practicing non-violence,
one choice at a time.
Making Friends
I do what I can
to not make your mind a foe.
Tell me of your heart.
If my faith depends
on agreement with others,
it’s become too small.
Future’s on the way,
So why not assume our best.
We can make it so.
A Perfect Day
If I could paint the perfect picture,
there’d be no frustrations,
no conflict, certainly no pain,
no fast leap to being old folks,
no, we’d be fresh and young again..
Can you imagine a day so perfect?
I can, reflecting on the day
that you were sent my way.
I can imagine that day so perfect
with the peace of the mythic dove.
It’s easy for me, you know, since
I am always with the one I love.
Can you imagine a day so perfect,
a valentine in every way,
where all we need is each other.
Today is such a day.
I don’t know
how much life is left to me
but I hope to
make a difference with it,
and if all I ever did
for the rest of this life was
say “thank you”,
that might be enough.
The Old Cat Advises the Old Man
What’s there or what’s coming, who can know.
there might be some bad, maybe some good.
Perhaps we’ll make of it as much as we should.
What’s there or what’s coming, who can know,
some rays of sunshine, some days of snow.
We’ll bask or we’ll shovel as well as we could,
preferring the good days, like anyone would.
What’s there or what’s coming, who can know.
I have strength,
the power to choose
how I respond every time,
sowing loans, not alms.
planting hope in the world,
one peace at a time.
Needn’t matter what stress
I might appear to be under,
I can collapse my ego,
blow down all illusion,
peace freed asunder.
Life is as it is,
some pain, more fun,
no need to create delusion,
peace in both snow and sun.
Recently returned from my Tour de Poets,
surprised at how much we laughed,
how little we cried.
There was the spirit in the Miami one,
always present, kind with an unusual side.
The heart in New York,
ever generous, truly kind,
the enthusiastic, leggy traveler in Tucson,
prolific, delightful and kind.
Oh, and the colorful soul in the Rochester area,
so supportive, so very kind.
There’s the Middlecreek mystic,
beautifully expressive, exotic and kind.
I enjoyed the love coming from Kansas City,
devoted, faithful and kind.
I smiled with the stories from Ontario,
finely tuned and kind.
Can’t forget that cheerleader from O-Hi-O,
no greater friend could exist, no one more kind.
Of course, there’s the Brain from Buffalo,
creator, leader, truly one of a kind.
I am sure there’s a city or two I have missed,
a part of our body I forgot, but
I’m still feeling the warmth and kindness.
Please forgive an old man’s faulty memory.
I don’t remember all that we talked about.
Talking wasn’t the point, not really.
There was more being and having than doing going on.
I know that no one really says goodbye,
not even when I moved from town to town, topic to topic,
doing my best to stay kind.
I think I scrawled about when I died for awhile,
on that hillside in the jungle, far from home.
No one’s ever heard the whole of that.
I know I did not tell them enough about
how I love what they do, who they are, how kind.
I don’t know if goodbye is important to say,
not like thank you, I love you, my life is better because of you,
those you better say before you can’t.
I once learned a new word - gelastic,
delightful, and to me, fantastic,
though it has nothing to do with being elastic.
It’s all about style,
how in a short while,
at the start of my smile,
as the joy I seek ever after
becomes clear shortly thereafter,
and I break out in uncontrolled laughter.
