I took this one at Ghost Ranch a couple years back. It is outside the Agape Center, although there are a number of places at the ranch where one can spot hummingbirds. Amazing creatures.
See you along the Trail.
Firefly in August
Hard it is
to be a saint in the city;
harder still, perhaps,
mid the noise and the bright lights and the traffic,
to be a firefly
that is seen in August.
5 August 2011
Shire on the Hudson
Filed under Poem
Other choices
Forever he will wonder
how his life might have changed
had he chose to turned back that day and stay –
or if not to stay –
at least to say what was in his heart.
Now, years later,
each night he lies awake,
in the small hours of a morning,
delightful images dance in his mind as he
invents scenarios of what might have been.
Yet in some of those still, small hours,
before he reluctantly surrenders to sleep,
he grudgingly concedes
that greater joy no doubt lies in in his imagination
than would have been realized through other choices.
4-5 August 2011
SW 163 MDW – LGA
Shire on the Hudson
Filed under Poem
Do you know?
Do you know
what fills my mind,
what shimmers in my heart?
Do you know
what I think,
what I feel?
Do you know
what I bear,
how much I care?
Do my deeds reveal?
Do my actions show?
Do you know?
4 August 2011
SW 163 MDW – LGA
Filed under Poem
Cracking
Like a green shoot of vine
that wraps around a stone,
clinging patiently until the rock cracks,
there are people who,
seeing something, sensing something in me
beyond my comprehension,
choose the path of relationship,
tenaciously engaging me
until my heart cracks
and they become a part of me
forever.
4 August 2011
SW 163, MDW – LGA
Filed under Poem
Seat 21-E, SW 163
Seat 21-E sits empty beside me,
on this nearly full flight,
provides
space:
space to spread out and relax,
space to enjoy the company
of whomever I call to mind.
4 August 2011
Midway Tarmac
Filed under Poem
Sticks and stones, but words
Sticks . . .
sharp
pointed
jagged
sticks.
. . . and stones . . .
dull
ragged
rough
stones.
. . . but words . . .
rip
wound
destroy.
Sticks . . .
green
growing
supportive
sticks.
. . . and stones . . .
smooth
polished
shiny
stones.
. . . but words . . .
caress
nurture
heal.
2 August 2011
SW 646 and Shire West
Filed under Poem
Living without love
Waiting in line to buy
junk food I did not need,
I was more than a bit befuddled to hear
the young clerk wonder:
“Would you rather have
love or money?”
It seemed a most out-of-place
inappropriate query to pose to
an absolute stranger who only wanted
a candy bar filled with sugar and calories
that would do me no good.
As I stood searching for
a response that seemed witty –
or someone germane –
or at least not totally inane,
she spoke again.
“‘Would you rather have
love or money?’
That’s what she asked.
And I said:
money!
Love is too stressful.”
My disorientation deepened.
Who was this mysterious woman
who posed to my clerk the question?
And what was going on?
Was she expecting a response from me?
From the guy stacking the shelves?
From someone I failed to see?
Was she practicing a soliloquy:
preparing to audition for some part
that might forever transform her life?
I’ll never know.
Silently I took my change
and stepped toward the door,
but on the way,
a thought – unsaid, but still recalled,
filled my spirit, mind, heart:
love brings stress; it’s never easy–
commitment, compromise, costs.
But what of the stress,
and what of the costs,
and what of the loss,
of the utter, empty barrenness
of living without love?
2 August 2011
Gate B-19, MDW
Filed under Poem
Pots
It took me a while to get there. Several times I tried to visit the Coronado State Monument in Bernalillo, New Mexico – north of Albuquerque. Each time, the monument was closed. Finally, on a cold day last January, I made it. The visit proved worth the wait.
For some reason, among the landscapes and the history, these pots spoke to me. They simply hung on the wall – but they seemed full of meaning as they did.
Is that a sheet of ice covering the top? Or the inside of the pot? I can’t tell. I don’t remember.
See you along the Trail.
Filed under Photo
Self-reliance
They boarded the train at 103rd,
two friends,
who found a spot
in the nearly empty car
to sit together,
talking,
joking.
After a few moments,
one pulled out a book and
began to read –
carefully,
slowly,
clearly,
reading to the other
reading for the other
every word of
Self-Reliance.
31 July 2011
Shire on the Hudson
Filed under Poem
