Playing with Poetry

 Walking the Circle Path - 2024

Earliest beyond planning

Almost without awareness

Routes of exploration 

Sights and sounds

Within each precious moment

Until, quietly, sleep intrudes

And then waking sends one

Again to senses newly formed

Somehow down around 

A curve or corner

We discover the first faint

Awareness of a glimpse

Called destination

Perhaps maybe possibly 

Could be should be is

At least for awhile

Until concrete asphalt 

Highways byways

Bridges parking lots

Detours shortcuts

Cloverleafs round-abouts

And occasional dead ends

Guide us through the

May be could be

Might be should be

Would have been

Should not have been

Got right got wrong

Did over walked away

Turned around started again

That is life

When suddenly again

Beyond planning

At the reborn 

Corner of awareness 

The path turns

Soft and sandy

Bordered by nodding blossoms

No doubt once forgotten

Have been there all long

Now reassert their value

Sweetly requiring our

Attention appreciation

Kinship

Stop smell me

Implores a

Forgotten mantra

We would be wise

To listen to step aside

Off the harried highway

And return 

For a tranquil while

To that friendly path 

We traveled long ago.

Mice - 2001

As mice scampering across a moonlit mesa

Thoughts trace frantic paths across my mind.

Do not pounce. They cannot be caught.

Observe them. Allow them this time.

They are but figments destined to fade at dawn.

Who would have known empty

Could tip the scales to such an incline?

Perhaps dark matter does outweigh

All that is observable and light

Does so subtly assert its unimaginable worth.

For clear light does true love reveal,

Fragile and tenuous in its immortality.

While darkness nurtures its false shade,

A fleeting debasement that decays

Beneath its own whining and recrimination.

So seeming endless patience must your

First companion be.

The imagination of the eyes that look

To be the twins of your own comforts, bring 

A feigned indulgence of your heart’s true ease.

But lose not your firm determination 

To wait upon the rising of heart and flesh.

Allow ecstasy its own fair germination

For love delayed is far sweeter than

Affection or remorse draped in love’s disguise.

Pre-dawn showers mist the mesa.

An owl’s shriek steeps low against the mountainside

Sweeping mice to holes and cliffs and gone.

And sun’s first light reveals me still alone,

But softly now, fresh draped in calm repose. 

Here is the original version, but if you are viewing on a small screen, very, very hard to read 🤪