Graffiti in town recently seen: May you be… safe and happy well and beloved
Where is this vandalism? May you be… human fully and free like the son of man in all his glory? May you know… mercy and grace faith hope and loving? May you… smile and speak in the image of God? May you not be… tested and tagged censored or silenced jabbed then traced afraid or compliant?
Do not go gentle into that confined space Rage, rage against the dying of the face
Both photos from Wikimedia Commons by Basile Morin
Our low endeavoring sun gently downs golden leaves one by one except when A frigid blast hurls them stinging into my face
Leaves soggy one day crunchy the next My feet and cane pestle and liberate their musty pungent fragrance
Our sky widens again Sea reclaims once more its chameleon surface as boats leave marina slips on trailers heading into town
But not before sailors take one final jaunt into grey green and blue reflections Return and unwind dock lines from their hips
Piers abandoned but boarded by fleet-footed white mewling gulls puffing and huddling until wind hoists their unfurled wings
Stray grasshoppers dragonflies Lethargic bees and wasps Solitary monarchs who missed their scheduled flight to Mexico
Expat Canadian geese foolishly form their V’s then land again in futility Honking memories of migratory prowess
They linger all winter Icy film or deep freeze on lagoon and marina simply propels them to open rivers and sea
Being likewise temperate We zone out indoors Hibernate with books and tea and poems to remind: “If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?”
Photos by Sandra Johnson of Into The Light Adventures. I highly recommend you visit her blog filled with excellent nature photography. Here’s the link: https://intothelightadventures.com/
October drizzles a blanket of soggy leaves in the park covering burial mounds next to civil war cannons Beneath rubber boots small twigs snap Sound staying beneath my feet muffled by foggy mist A woodpecker’s hammer breaks apart the clouds
So I sit down take off fingerless gloves press my palms against a warm black molded bench Pull off my cap with my hair undone Look up to absorb the sun The hat blows off the bench rolls toward the pond and stops caught on the edge
There are times I miss picking up your empties cleaning your ashtray You know that plastic turquoise colored one I bought for you when you come to visit the kids After all we have between us now is history It’s where everything is headed
Yesterday keeps untold stories folding into dreams once real No person can unsing a song that once was sung Lingering one sacred night below a harvest moon I watched our windows from the backyard barefoot Inner lights shining forth our children’s laughter
Upper photo Wikimedia Commons by Dietmar Rabich; lower photo in the public domain, attribution not found
In tender camaraderie within the covers of body and mind I declared to him: My shoulders are in my heart No better yet: My shoulders are in my womb To one up me he said: Mark off a spot I’m all shoulder
Solitary now Calling on God for insight and scanning the night sky Entranced I see the birth of galaxies He shows me opening upon opening wheeling within Brilliant harmony Majesty unfathomable
My vision reaps ecstatic time with grateful humility This is home While living lies in the light of others we can only reflect self-dignifying self-justifying But a better way is a mystery To mirror what we cannot know
Who is able to bear the weight of losing matter? Cloaked in pride eclipsed by certainty I grasp reason and forfeit precious faith When I surrender the shadows I am lifted into the Light of pure Love
Photo, Coconino National Forest – Flagstaff (Public Domain)
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