When you have touched an other’s
pulsating heart
and felt the difficult path
they’re walking on,
pity becomes respect.
Meeting an Other
Category: photo,
Difficult Person
We are all
unreliable witnesses,
sorting and resorting
our memories
crafted from
what we couldn’t see
(then or now,)
as we pin each reshaped story
to our current consciousness.
Who are you? My enemy?
Or another searching soul
lost in your own
wilderness,
your own storms?
Dawn & Spring
Dawn
Through a dusty screen,
black branches on rosy gold:
morning awaits me.
Spring
Lilacs are leafing
and blossoms budding, green mist
coating trees across the road.
A Day’s Grace
A streak of rosy gold
behind black pines:
the grace of a day beginning.
The silence of a Sunday morning
with lilacs in exquisite bloom
and a squirrel moving under the bush:
time passes and releases
the fragrance of memory
and ghosts of the past.
A Senior’s Spring
The insistent alarm
and furnace sounds ---
I open my eyes and,
out my window, see
young leaves, sun-touched,
sway, disturbed by a squirrel.
I stand hesitantly
and move stiffly
into another morning,
accepting the gift
of this time
and place.
Black winged and gold-tipped
butterflies, and I
feed from the lilacs’ fragrance
and mourn
in this secular wilderness
as I map out my day.
Paradoxes and Other Lessons
With the silence of light in darkness,
with the yearning for tenderness
of an obedient child,
the compounding of grief
and relief
releases
comforting perfume:
scars and other gifts
that have awakened me
in a forgiving world.
—/
The delightful impermanence
of sunlit flickering shadows
shows me a path
out of the fearful
cave, out into
the blue-skyed green-leafing
world,
where storms can pass,
and living through them
teaches the beauty of joy.
A Day of Haikus
Branches with green buds
in the early morning light,
swaying and sun-bless”d
-/
Through bare grey branches
I can see spring’s pink blossoms:
transient beauty.
-/
Ambushed by beauty -
the blossoming Bridalwreath
declaring spring now.
-/
Smoke rises
from the extinguished candle:
the aura lingers.
-/
A New Cairn
With the ambivalence of March weather
I miss the weight of your eyes,
looking among stones
from the cairn we built together.
I go to the lake searching
for stones I can choose
to build my new cairn
on the foundation of ours.
Daily Tasks
Matthew 4:1-11
The courage of grocery shopping
among stones,
in times of hunger.
The courage of refusing a parachute
near the map’s edge,
while demons wait.
The courage of letting go
not paying ransom
for all wishes granted,
All these are our daily tasks.
Good Friday Thoughts
When does death begin?
Before the last breath,
at the diagnosis,
when the symptoms reach consciousness?
A trip and fall in old age,
a desolate, desperate plunge,
as the car skids
on an icy road?
With childhood illness,
at the first breath,
when the sperm
lands on the waiting egg?
When eyes first meet,
as lips and hands touch,
with the grasping embrace
and thrust?
Death begins with life.
Learning Living 