New

Even though I’ve not been here before

Going through the motions

As though I have.

Where nary an original thought

Feeding reaction

S’to be found.

Ideas

Expectations

Roles

Ways of responding

All seem irritatingly preconceived.

Decided upon.

Not deciding’s deciding too.

I must decide to remind myself

That I’ve not passed this way before.

This is a new day

A new thing

(Full of promise and opportunity)

Why does this remembrance seem the exception, the extra?

A pleasant surprise? A life-changing epiphany?

Why does succumbing to lesser quality modes of responding seem to be the most common rule?

Going through the motions will reign

If I don’t fight for lusher, more vital grounds.

Fight to remember this new day

The thrill of new ways.

Will I fight?

Will I perceive it?

Will I see the new thing

And refuse to be swallowed

In the old?

Be remade, live fully alive,

In the new?

Craftiness

Wondering if adding to the beauty

May also take from it.

Not always or necessarily, and thankfully not exclusively.

But if indulging one’s craft

Does more to contribute to self indulgence

(And this may be a given to some degree)

Then “adding to the beauty”

Is a misspeak.

Before one satisfies one’s desire to create, or pursue, or whatever,

There’s something of a decision:

Will I serve them, or will I serve me?

(One’s “craft” = one)

If I decide to serve me (one)

There may creep in an eventual sense of entitlement.

And if not acknowledged and made to stand in its

Truthful non-entitlement place,

May grow – quiet-like – but insidious.

And if not checked,

And then if not indulged,

The ‘I’s not indulged.

And if the I’s not indulged

It must be your fault.

And if the self can convince the self it’s your fault

– That it was somehow owed its “autonomy”

And not paid what it was owed –

Then you must be punished

– Whoever “you” are that was replaced, misplaced by my craft.

I might not tell you.

But quietly hold on to resentment

(When I didn’t quiet the voice’s demands, I got to stay mad and entitled)

Hold it, feed it, coddle it, start to act in its favor ‘stead of yours.

And soon, there’s no beauty to be seen,

No pure craft to be had.

Only I, me, my and the muddle of inanimate “craft” in my hands.

Hospitality

Dinner company

Requires that the split personality

Meld for a more gracious hostess.

The day’s thoughts-chaos and weariness

Forced to the backseat

While social graces take the wheel.

It’s not dishonest

– I don’t think –

But therapeutic:

My self blessedly forced to give way

To your self

To the hospitality’s remedy

Of your preferences, your comfort.

Up and out from my own stagnant waters

To the living, rushing waters of present others

Makes being a good sharer

So much more than the stuff of playground politics,

The “I” put aside

In deference to the “you”

Is the great healer.

Wisdom (and its elusive accumulation)

I accumulate

Snippets and scraps of wisdom

Furiously copy and collect quotes

Try and grab on to ideas in hopes that they’ll stick.

But they drift and settle

In nondescript locations

And no matter how badly I want to hold on to their quality

They dry up, break down, and lose their initial splendor.

Rarely permanent

A wind change and they’re scattered.

I grasp at them;

But no sooner does the fist close ’round

Than they dissolve and fade from memory.

No sooner do I identify one

Than that leaf blows neath the rest of the heap

No longer remarkable, decipherable, identifiable

From the rest.

Further proof that

All these – none of these –

Are mine to keep or hold as my own.

Neither wisdom, nor moments, nor leaves, nor snowflakes

Nor any other of the divine’s holdings

My property.

A steward is all

Whose domain’s graciously on loan

And hopefully, whose care and keeping

Not wasted.

Love’s Thrill

When the children came, “thrill” left

Replaced by care and caution and love’s breadth

Not always safe: the pursuit of safe.

Lots may die in the wake of hesitate.

But ah! That is not all there is.

Before them wonder was a largely private (selfish) affair

After them – with them, because of them – I am expanded

Expanded in delight not just my own, but in delight in theirs

What a gift! What a gift to be enlarged

And stretched beyond my own thin skin

These trenches and crumbs are not beneath me

These are where the real life is – the full life is

Forced outward love stretches all my womanhood

– anyone’s personhood through parenthood –

Battle waged I am forced to reckon with these, with me

To find that my self’s death is the truest liberty

To be present and free from my own way:

(Not just in order to indulge another’s whim)

– But to provide what’s needed –

This is liberation: realizing wholly the love within.

So to find I’ve grown – and am willing more still –

Becomes the delight of sacrifice – true love’s thrill

To find that before I gloried in the small

I’d venture I knew Glory not at all.

The Toll Booth Attendants (and other small but blessedly profound encounters)

It lasted what, maybe 15 seconds?

Those four times at the toll booths today.

In the scope of eternity

That’s not much

(If you’re counting time).

So not to make too much of it,

But the attendants’ calm, cool, professional collectedness

– and most of all the smile and the eye contact at the end –

And an unexpected stability crept in my car,

Sidled comfortably into my psyche.

Men and women fulfilling their role, in their place,

– temporary or not –

In those well done isolated moments

Helped catalyze

A centering solidarity

A happy empowering awareness

Of folks.

Folks working their shifts

Capably, willingly,

Wholeheartedly

Profoundly inspired me – in reminding me – to well-work my own.

Such a sturdy this-sphere’s-intact-and-life’s-going-forward posture

Set me better on my way.

Thanks for your part in paying it forward,

Whoever you are.

Some Shoes, a Snake, and a Straw

A local newspaper writer invited readers to accept a challenge to write a story (though I chose a rhyming form) using a shoe, a snake, and a straw. This is what I came up with, which to my delight and surprise, he chose for publication! I offer it here in response to the Color by Words blog story challenge.

I was 8 years old, ’bout 3rd grade, you see,

When I walked in the store that day.

My Mom was ho-hum

But I was a-thrum

Anticipation held all out at bay,

It was

Anticipation held all at bay.

(For you can’t very well

As a kid just let tell

of the thrill that is buying new shoes;

They make you jump higher look cooler run faster

If you’re shy, bring you outta your shell,

– Maybe –

If you’re shy bring you outta your shell.)

So I sauntered real cool

As I eyed up the stool

Where decisions’d be made that would count.

Like a beacon of light

The stool shone all aright

My innards a veritable fount,

– Say I –

Of excitement a veritable fount.

Too excited to talk

Real deliberate I walked

To the shoes that lined new on the wall.

That’s when he came in

Kinda tall, kinda thin

Glasses and ponytail donned, I recall

– That’s right –

A gray ponytail donned, I recall.

“Can I help you?” he asked

With a smirk that was masked

‘Neath a straw that he held ‘tween his lips.

He chewed it all ’round

It made nary a sound

But his words were sarcastic and quipped

– They were –

Words all sounding sarcastic and quipped.

So onward I went

Tentative though not spent

From my search for the perfect new shoes.

Saw a blue and white pair

On their own little stair

Couldn’t wait to see what they could do

– Oh, man! –

Couldn’t wait to see what they could do.

But this salesman, this guy,

No matter how hard I tried

Wouldn’t let me get outta my head.

Condescending and mean

In his eye a deep gleam

That said, “Don’t make a mistake, little girl.”

– It did –

Say, “Don’t make a mistake, little girl.”

How dare he, this guy,

Come in here and try

To thwart the bliss of my getting new shoes!

Did he not think

That his straw, smirk, and wink

Were the bane of a kid’s ability to choose?

– Why not –

Know you’re the bane of a kid trying to choose?

Well I’m happy to say

That I bought shoes that day

In spite of that guy at the store.

(They were a bright white

With blue stripes that were light

I still remember the feel, what is more!

– I do –

Still remember their feel, what is more.)

So, grown-ups, please know

As the young ones who grow

In your presence are trying things out,

Don’t make them feel small

Condescend them at all

Or arrogantly throw ’round your clout

– Please don’t –

Take advantage of all your (old) clout.

Else they’ll think you a snake

Meany, phony, or fake

As they discern whether fight or just hide.

So please watch your tone

Get way down off your throne

Let them know you’re a guy on their side

– They need –

You to really just be on their side.

————————-

So that is my take

On the shoes, straw, and snake

From the gauntlet and challenge so thrown.

Robert Frost I am not

Just a dried up old snot

A once-kid in a person now grown

– I am –

A once-kid in a person now grown.

Darlings Away

Oh how I love you.

And so very wildly surprised

(And delighted) at how

Motherhood spins all these

Invisible threads that

Palpably

Bind me to you.
Hoping this solidarity’s (desperation) will

Defy time and space,

Carry over, blanket you in all things needed.

Hoping these while-you’re-away prayers

Are reaching the throne of heaven.
Hoping that somehow

My love for you is an offering;

That these frantic hopes please Him and

See you protected and good-showered

– help to defeat all that would harm or steal.
My darlings,

I pine for your return:

But I celebrate your going

As I try to bravely (not cut)

Stretch the cord enough that you feel free

But still fully supported.

That you feel free to go

And (always) free to come back, to be, to bound to me.

Not stifled, not held back,

But wholly loved that you’re filled full up,

Ready in turn to fully live, fully love.
Be free, my darlings.

Be open, be wise, be strong, be kind.

Be impervious to evil’s wiles.

Be engaged in love’s beauteous play,

Life’s glorious possibilities.

As you’re away,

Be.

And know that I am grateful that you are (at least little bit) mine.

Be you…

And most of all,

Be His.

Worth

I’ve borrowed from others’ beauty

And I’ve resented not having my own.

And I’ve fished and I’ve watched and I’ve wondered,

What is it like to really be known?

Then I hear it real quiet – a whisper –

A suggestion to play over in mind;

“When you look to ME instead of to them,

MY worth in you you will find.”

Then I’ll think that I’m then on to something

And I wait and I think and I ask

Of the One from Whom these whispers come,

“Is this really a possible task:

To quit wasting the time in wondering

If I’ll ever quit wasting the time?

CAN I be known and live fully contented?

Could I be (I whisper) sublime? “ [sublime – beautiful, morally worthy, complete, excellent]

Now He waits and watches and asks me

With such tenderness it puddles my core, [core – essential part]

“Will you believe it is I Who can love you,

Show you all that I’ve made you for?”

And I nod, though it’s tentative, quiet.

And I slowly sink down to my knees.

And I open my hands, with a smile I look up,

And I give Him my heart…

And receive.

Book Nomad

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