THE SOURCE OF STRENGTH AND BEAUTY

Find beauty
allow it to enter
through your eyes
into your heart, your life, your brain. . .

Notice strength
in or outside of you
observe its workings,
short term, or cyclical
or through the ages–

learn what you can
from that,

and ply it in
to your muscles,
your inner feelings,
and the swirl of thinkings
that you think.

Notice any benefit to you. . .

if none is readily apparent,
sit with yourself,
and the space near that surrounds you–

perhaps some air to breathe,
body to be in,
and if you’re lucky,
clean fresh water there
that you can drink.

You could be anywhere. . .

but since you’re here,
it is the only place,
for now,
that heaven or hell
or anything else
can possibly be for you. . .

and would it not then be a shame
if you never ever knew,
that something wondrous came to bless you. . .

For in the flashing of the moment,
it came to show itself,
whilst you, unwatchful
did opt
to blink.

SMILING ENERGY SURGE

Cross paths with another
smiling being
and/or get something done,

And suddenly,
a surge of needed energy
flows through me,

where through my trusty
solo methodology
there ran but a trickle,
or maybe even none.

DIG

The field of archaeology
studies rubbish
left by the likes of you and me,

the sum
of what remains
to show those distant future diggers
clues of who and what we were,
when perhaps all more central traces of us
are long gone,

and even our descendants’ memories
and their tales of us
have ceased
to let our little lives
live on. . .

the things still there
that maybe we forgot
or dropped
or threw away somewhere,
for which, even then perhaps long hence,
we’d ceased to care,

and longer still,
before our earthy forms
merged with the dirt,

in our camp, our village, city, factory,
or whatever size and shape of farms. . .

All that
just might remain
humanity’s full range
of how to wrap their brains
around the best facsimile
of what, in our brief stint
on this blue planet,

we
to the rest of our co-habitants
could possibly have meant
or been deemed worth.

SUN SHINE SUNDAY

Sun shine
Sunday. . .

let it shine
and shine it up
you very own way–

take it in. . .

or drink the shade. . .

get out to catch a sail on wind
or do what ever is most needed–

work, rest,
commune with the universe,
or else
Perhaps your truest self,

or play.

SPRING WILD

Wound tight hair allowed run free

Spring wildflowers in the wind

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

For a video version of this poem, see:
https://youtu.be/DFMu3fbHZ9I

NIGHT

faint dot stars peek through
new moon’s quarter not yet seen
spring’s whisper eludes

I THANK GOD FOR HEALERS

I thank God
for healers. . .

Or perhaps I should
thank healers
for God,
or whatever force of universal power
they ope to,
to let do
its bright magic through them

whether they just do it
as a loved one,
kind stranger
or a friend,

or whether,
for their precious work
they do their part
to help me make me
the better whole I want to be
by charging
by the hour.

IF I CAN JUST. . .

If I can just
do enough work today. . .

If I can just
skip the rest,
the other kinds of work,
the play,
the self-restoring
and reflective introspection,

I’ll maybe just
do enough
to finish what needs done
and start tomorrow a better day,
having done the work exhaustively
and with a keen perfection. . .

If I can just
do a punishing relentless quantity of work,
my wish and will
just strong enough to make that work. . .
to slave away
like there is no tomorrow,

But,
I begin to see
that that won’t work,
and to me or others
or to my goal
the treatment’s far from just,

at least not on
too many days,
for it cuts a path of pain and sorrow,
assuming there will indeed
be a tomorrow

and there is no way
that slaving away
even on behalf of my own self
in the long run
will succeed
beyond the harm it does,
to help,

But yet, it’s true–
sometimes I need
more than average
hard and fast to dedicate a day
to focus firm
and minimize
the rest and play,

and remember that
what, from one account,
today I borrowed,
back to the others, tomorrow
I must repay. . .

And while, even with this law,
the spirit means more
than stingily to adhere
to just the letter,

And this precept
I’ll best honor
if I can let the spirit thrive
and do the work
in such a way
that aids my quest
not just to be
but too, to truly feel
alive,

if I at least now and then
I stop to take at least one little,
or even a great big,
deep breath,

both I and my results
are almost sure
to come out just as good,
and also, very likely, better.

I HAVE BEEN GOOD

I have been good.
I have been
who I am.

And not as oft,
nor near as well
as I dearly would have wished
have I been understood.

I have been sad
and angry and afraid.

And I’ve been good
so very,
very, very good. . .

and yet the forces contrary
have chosen now and again
not just
to block
the very good I’m trying to do,

but nearer yet
to me to come,
and my own guarded,
precious space
to breach, to sully, and invade,

to pilfer key things
that I need
most regularly
to let me rest and to reflect,
to live to learn, and too, to grow.
To find and ride
my special flow.

And so, to find
a way to respond
that’s not too much in kind,
represents a kind of challenge
that’s difficult to walk in balance–

How not to hurt
the beings who
come to encroach upon my turf
not really seeking out to hurt,
but, just doing as they do,
is hours and volumes of thought worth. . .

And,
to honor, too,
the fact
that I have got a claim to stake
and must now act
in calm, but with
more than a modicum
of haste,
with a double urgency
which presses me,
both in fair and in foul weather,
to stride high and long my very good,

to the point where,
at some point along the way
I’ll feel and see
that my longtime very good,
at last, is rendered
ever so much better.

WHEN YOU DON’T WANNA

When you don’t wanna do
the things you know you gotta do,
it may be time
to realign
the sort of things you’re wanting,
and that may mean
that you must bid adieu
to the comfy spaces
you’ve for so long
been haunting. . .

And take a peak,
once you swing
to ope a crack
the heavy, creaky door
and see
the wonder and the beauty
of all that
out there waits for you. . .

though, to step through
may, even then. seem
more than a little daunting.