OK, so in some ways I’m less like I used to be: more accepting of who I am, less eager to be who somebody else might want me to be, less eager to be who I might want me to be. Not too long ago I wouldn’t have published the writing below, feeling it was “too” something-or-other, definitely not cool enough, definitely not in keeping with the self image I’d constructed and cherished.
Anyhow, Mike and Jenny, mentioned below, are my step son and his wife, uncle and aunt to our new grandsons, Christopher and Benjamin. NuNu is a grandmother to the boys.
All my writing reflects all l’ve read, so please don’t be surprized at things sounding familiar. The poem about my poetry echos Ryokan, a Japanese zen monk and my current favorite poet.
Softly these come to me
not as ideas or feelings
but more like the breeze that moves the leaves
this sunny morning after coffee
in Mike & Jenny’s yard.:
Butterflies never fly off course.
Happiness is an abstraction…
And (#2 being true) so is despair.
* * *
Harmony
disharmony-
all else
is imagination or labeling.
* * *
For this moment I understand
my poetry doesn’t have to be good
or original
or even poetry.
What a relief!
* * *
Sitting alone
In NuNu’s backyard
Just where shadow meets sunlight
Surrounded by movement
Fragrance and sound
Wind thru the trees and
The love of family.
* * *
How can you not be angry at that which angers you?
Try this: Imagine twin boys at age 2
bright as a brilliant summer morning
running helter-skelter through a big green back yard
Yelling to unseen crows
and being understood.
* * *
A fly lands on my right leg.
My left foot brushes it away.
My face smiles.
No fly-no smile.
Thanks, God.
* * *
That part of me
that thinks I’m special,
that part of me is itself specialbecause that part of me knowsdeep down beyond any bit of doubt:
I am not special.
Sitting, reading, walking
feeling, thinking, wishing
fearing…
When you cut me, I bleed.
No more than that.
* * *
Like the ocean to a fish
Like the wind to a bird
So God is to us
and so, too, is love.
Welcome! 