Mid-October 2015

These last gold and green and blue days are to be spent with the Sun on your skin and the Winds in your hair.  Breathe it in, savor it, and hold it close, for its memory will be a beloved companion when Winter winds blow.

And we will go a walking in those fields my love, my dearest, and remember times when we were young.  How we have watched the seasons change the land, shaping it, a gradual grinding down, much as its eternal rhythm shapes and changes us. 

On A Short Drive in Winter

A twenty minute drive on January 3, 2015. 

Cold, gray winter skies dreary winter skies, solemn winter skies. 

These far off hills, tree covered and misty. 

A lone crow perched atop a dead tree. Water from recent rains dripping in long icicles long rocky embankment where old shacks perch precariously along the ledge above them.  

A ruddy colored hawk wrestling with his dinner, a small rabbit,squirming in his sharp talons along the side of the road as I drive by.  

Once green cornfields, shorn to rubble, now are just part of the tans and browns and grays that comprise the winter when there's no snow on the ground,no sun in the sky, and all is overcast and muted.  Quiet, resting, rebuilding waiting for Spring.  

A great gray weathered barn sits alone in the field of muted greens and drab tans set against the backdrop of dark and silvery sycamore trees across the field along the tree line.  

Four-lane highways are like sinewy grey devils, more pleasant to go through quiet little towns, towns with weird and quirky names, like Avoca

and Oolitic,

little towns along rural highways with cops running radar.  Closed up stores and abandoned houses like blemishes on the quaintness of the town.  Gravel parking lots, tiny white churches and signs for deer processing, 2.3 miles down a side road.  

Done

Sitting here in the dark

Yes it's been a long day

Feel it breaking my heart 

And there's not much to say

I'm alright well at least

In some time I might be

Yes the truth well it hurts

Still you deny and won't see

I'm done trying 

Yeah yeah yeah

I'm done crying

Yeah yeah yeah

Well you live for the moment

And the devil may care

You've broken hearts all your life

With no hope of repair

You think Love is a game

But you're playing with fire

At the end of the day

You are known as a liar

I'm done trying

Yeah yeah yeah

I'm done crying

Yeah yeah yeah

So look around at what you've done

See the terrible cost

Despite the smoke and the ruin

It's really you who has lost

Take your games and your lies

And just go far away

It's beyond apologies

Now there's nothing to say

I'm done trying 

Yeah yeah yeah

I'm done crying

Yeah yeah yeah

Measured in Song

My life is measured in the songs I sing to, treasured memories in every line.
These I will miss, when at last I lay down in my time.
Dying slow, as we all are, I gather these notes to my heart
Could I ever let them go, sleep the dreamless sleep in part?
Ah, sadness furrows my brow when I think of that.
More than anything in this world that I lack,
Their loss would grieve me unceasing,
At the moment of this body's releasing.

Lately I see
People putting on a show.
Mega-dollar McMansions,
Looks like they're rolling in the dough.
Here's a nugget of advice,
Just to let you know,
Those rockers on the front porch,
Don't make that house a home.

MORNING IN THE MEADOW

I

Stumbled into the meadow

The silence broken only by a bird

Then

Wind rushed in through the trees

Soul

Released and proud

The Gloaming Forest breathes a gentle sigh

A tender whisper in my ear

While the Sun

Dances with the shadows

The air comes alive

While dew-drenched serenity

Gives way to bronze and amber hues

Shimmering to a misty golden light

All the while

The air is filled with joyous birdsong

It is morning in the Meadow

And I gaze in sacred wonder

(Written 3/10/1979 while in high school)

LITTLE ONE

Little one with your inquisitive mind
Always wanting to know
Afraid to ask the questions
So you let the answers go

Who made you so reticent
Holding back from Life
While 30 years have come and gone
You've been a Mother and a Wife

Was it your Mother
With unyielding Yankee reserve
Who failed to instill the confidence
You need and deserve

Was it your Father
With Southern Baptist severity
Who drove home your convictions
of Doubt and Insecurity

Now the tide has turned
You've reclaimed your Self
No more will you tremble
Nor hide on the shelf

They tried to break you
But you have the last laugh
As you step out the door
Onto the sunlit Path