THE WINDS OF CHANGE, THE GLARE OF DOUBT

Change.
Hard to live with it.
Can’t live without it.

Strange.
The stuff of these utterances I posit.
I know, contains a lot of nonsense,
and yet, with regard to this one,

I know it needs the light of careful scrutiny,
that stands right up
to ask the most crucial questions,
about the kind of change I mean
and why I’ve got it in my head
it’s absolutely sure to treat me mean,

and exactly what are the changes
that I can and cannot live without. . .

In other words, I needs must dare,
not only frame my task
in terms of soft self-care,

but also to call my own personal
deep thoughts and creeds,
including the lurking, unseen ones
I had no clue I held,

into the quite demanding glare
of truth-discerning doubt.

A VENTURE

A venture into new terrain–

I must scout for my sure footing

as circumstance expands my range.

SENTIENT, IMPATIENT

Sentient. . .

Impatient. . .

Bursting at the seams. . .

And shedding this dried out, ancient skin.

If this creature shall survive,
she shall be so different
that,
though she be to you
like that back of your own hand,

you’ll know her not,
as if a brand new life form
did begin.

THE TALLY, GIVE OR TAKE A FEW

Take it as it comes.

Plan
when and what and where you can.

Ask for
or offer to lend
a hand.

And make the best of
the gnarly stuff
that looks to you
like it MUST be
a quite unpleasant joke
or test,

as well as
the basic
and the icing on the cake-ish stuff,

that if you look
and count quite honestly,
you must
(at least begrudgingly)
admit
adds to much more than enough

falls more into the category
of what you’d tally
in the column
of all the things
with which you’re blessed.

HOW QUICK POPPED BLOSSOMS CEDE TO LEAVES

This springtime come,

And
the what I thought
would be the yearly crop
of pink-white plum blossoms
popped. . .

I smiled to myself,
reacting,
but, also
anticipating,
expecting the typical expanding
into a vast
array
upon their
volunteering, supple, bending tree

But it seems,
that that was it–
a smattering,
a disperse spray,
where I looked for
a vast array
upon their tree,

But they
went straight quick
to green-red leaving,
with scarce a pause, much less a stop.

So little time,
even in the sight
of those scant several or few
to delight.

Seasons not only change
in constant shifting cycles
each year,

but, too, do vary
uniquely
one year so different
from the next. . .

To note what’s here
in the fleeting time it may be here,
call it a challenge,
a normal practice,
or a daunting test.

But, no matter which,
sometimes, the way it plays,
you must be swift. . .

To love who’s here, while they are here,
you need not every time,
to every one
to do it sweet.

But in whatever way
you can,
that way that’s just your own,
and according to
the real time and day.

But, just in case,
it may be best
to seize upon
what words to use,
or how to act,

and above all,
you minimize delay
and, when you can,
get to it fast.

For nary a one
of any of us knows
when
our would-be beloved ones
or we

our end,
or at least departure
from this kind of life,
shall meet.

EVENING ROLLS IN

Evening rolls in. . .

bay fog–
a cloak to comfort. . .

peace. . .

chance for belief
that all is well.

THE RISK OF SPRINGTIME

Risk looms large
is it success or utter failure
in the cards?

Either way,
change will come
in this fiercely growing season.

LIFE LIKE NOBODY’S BIZ

Life ain’t always
so great
that you could say
it’s going like nobody’s biz,

but whatever happens,
you may assess
that
that 21st Century phrase applies–
“It is
what it is.”

And you can choose,
at times to cry,
but make sure, too,
to laugh at times,

and maybe even mark
with great honor
what is right,

and find a corner in your heart
that can be very pleased.

THE BETTER PART OF TRUST AND CONTROL

As an excuse for his worry, his drive to
nail down every possible detail, to keep himself safe,
he liked to quote Lenin:
“Trust is good. Control is better.”

It was always meant to be amusing,
when he pulled out that pithy saying,
and she was like, “Yeah, right, ha ha. . .”

But one day, she thought,
Perhaps there is an interplay.

Control and trust,
as least vis a vis oneself–
could they not both
be allowed to play?

And, and when all is told,

when you can trust
yourself,

might not that tend
to supercede
anything you could ever do, perforce,

over your blessed,
dear, goodhearted self,
to exert control?

WHEN I WALKED, AND SHE SWAM IN THE RAIN

Water under the bridge. . .
the scribblings on Facebook
I shared with my Friends
but maybe nowhere else.

A reaction to a walk I took one day
where there were birds
led one Friend to say
she felt as though she so much sensed
the birds and beauty on the walk
that she were there, with me, too. . .

And I replied
that for me to read
of how she swam in the rain,
it made me feel as if I were with her,
although many a year
had past, since I had done the same.

These snippets make me curious,
to peek, to see more
what I wrote,
and what she wrote,
but with all the posts that in between
have scrolled on down the screen,

I’ll have to satisfy myself
with whatever vestiges
reside in electric impulses
that still survive
from those conjured thoughts
of those lived days
in the crevices and windings forged
from the many gray cells in my brain.