IF YOU WANT TO KEEP LIFE UP

It may get boring
or get tough,
but if you want
to keep life up,
resist the urge
to merge with sleep,
whether hot, disturbed or deep,
at peace or snoring.

Draw from,
give back
to life’s great font,
though you go
through so much stuff,
at times,
you really want to quit,
feeling that you’ve had enough. . .

Time’s come
that you
must muster up
the perk
in core
of red corpuscles,
the flow
and active pinkness
in your muscles,
the strength of stone
deep in your bone,
the stringy litheness
of your sinew,
to recall all that
you value, honor, love,
as well as those
you truly need to do,

go,
pick these up
where you left off,
and be so bold
as to renew
what might seem
ungodly old
when you choose
just to continue.

SMILE AND SAY, “PRETTY PLEASE”

Yes,
smile and say,
“Pretty please. . .”
but especially,
say,
“Thank you.”

For,
then, at the next time
that you sneeze,
you’re much more apt
to receive
another hanky, you.

ALLURE

Allure
allow it less
from the
beckoning bait
that gets us in a mess,

and more
from what heals, makes whole
and constitutes,
for any holes punched through our heart,
the cure.

For we still have
+++++our songs to sing,
+++++and flights to fly
++++++++++on our as-yet-untested wings,
+++++and roots to sink
++++++++++fathoms more deep
+++++and kin and friends
++++++++++with whom we’ve
++++++++++plenty more good time to spend,
++++++++++including those
++++++++++we’ve yet to meet.

So don’t get over curious,
and veer too far
toward the teetering and precarious,
if you would like
long and strong
life to endure,

And instead,
locate the place
to build a life
on solid ground
that’s far more apt
to prove itself,
more level,
smooth and sure.

PAIN: THE BUMMER AND THE UP-AND-COMER

Pain.
It’s hard to name it
anything
except a bummer.

But,
you wish
you will be worth
your self and name. . .

Therefore,
you let the fact
of how it hurts
become your friend
to teach you better means
to your best ends,

a wonderful discovery path
that brings you life and love
and all the best things
that from our world can be gleaned,

very much,
though not exactly as
the way the year
(each year)
does, slow and sure,
its requisite unwind,
in its perfect-for-itself
design,

all from
the darkest, coldest, and the barest
dead of winter,
into the brilliant, beautiful and plentiful
array of flowers and fruit
that we know and love
and revel in
in the brightest, warmest, highest
fire of summer.

LOVE AND HONOR AND THY NEIGHBOR

It’s hot
more stirring in the form of noise–
for cheer and warmth,
a need, it’s not.

At times like these
it is a labor
well to heed
the call
inside your heart
to love your neighbor,

Just as
the vow is not
“I’ll love and honor
all my days
except. . .”

The prompt
“So well as thou, thyself,
do love thy
neighbor,”
does nowhere state
that, for the ones
who hammer at your hard-won peace
with blasting music
our said directive
need not in that case
be kept.

Nay,
in such vows and prompts
it is not writ
that we,
when things get tough,
may waver. . .

Small action
and a great big patience
must come, instead,
full in to play,
in order that we live to see
the soothing, quiet twilight time,

when, by the gentle cricket’s song,
we’ll open up
our hearts and ears
our lives and world,
the better
then to savor.

LIFE NOT PENDING

One special thing
to know of life–
it’s really never
pending–

beats of the heart,
breath after breath,
or even if these
for a short while
should chance to stop,
while we yet on this Earth
still walk,

to the finish from the start
it continues,
even when
it or we
can use mending.

So we best do
the best we can,
in continuity
whether woman, child or man,
to live on now
just as we are,
and not to wait

for lucky stars
for anything
our confined minds
hold out as bait,
or use as blocks
to hold us back
to harbor
sundry petty thoughts
or vows,

but to do
just what
we have come for,
and offer all those gifts
we know have
(and maybe more)
that are ours
for the sending.

THE SATURDAY CHANCE

Saturday
A chance to balance
this and that,
that’s got
too much
on just one side
to weigh.

It might mean work,
it might mean play,
it might mean,
that for you
well to adjust,
take time you must,
to reflect well,
get serious,

and don’t forget
to let it out,
whatever it is–

till you can laugh
with a light heart,

and, at last,
do pause,
relax,

and make a fresh,
new kind of start,
where you feel good
from deep toe tips
to head hair tops
just under hood,

through every single body cell,
peace penetrated all the way.