The Reflection Pool

Our books of self-help
and our generic fictions
don’t tell the epic stories
of our cultures’ heroes. If
those pages are the markers
of our many ways of life and
their growth in all our humanness,
we never moved beyond the obsession
for power, tragedy, and fear.

We’ve existed but did we live?
The records of our joy, compassion,
and miracles are few and far between.
The holiness of life  has fallen into
ruins and rubble while being
replaced with the greed of more,
pile after pile of stuff.

My life is in need of a rewrite.
I don’t need it to be Homeric
in my travels, or Shakespearian
in my loves and familial relations.

I want to give more than I receive.
I want to love more than I hate.
I want to walk, not run;
Climb more trees and rake fewer leaves.

With my head thrown back,
my arms and hands open wide,
I want to greet each sunrise
bursting with the light equal only to
that which shines daily on the
space I call home.

for the elders and the stories they keep

Dust,
in the most primordial meaning of the
word, you and I are found there. Caught in
the swirling wind of dust devils that carry
everything from a McDonald’s burger wrapper
to the siding of our homes. Our dreams, our
passions are but slightly less temporary
than our bodies.

Our refuse, its presence may well surpass
the existence of our planet. Sheets of bubble
wrap and styrofoam coolers will float amongst
dark matter, nebulae, and the space of the
universe around us.

One day, our world will end. Not due to
the pollution and the trash that will
bury the mountains and fill the canyons.
No.
Our world will end because it will no
longer be recognizable to our spirit and
our eyes. Our memories will disappear
and our stories will be held solely by
machines, inducing irrelevancy in our lives.
Our elders will waste away to dust, the
dirt that floats on the air we breathe,
memories, history, and all.

Watching the woman with the axe,
it’s most likely a tool she should
not be wielding, no matter how cold
it is outside. She holds the small
piece of wood with her left hand and
she swings the axe with her right hand.
How in the world does she have any
fingers left, let alone an entire hand?

When she really means business, she
hefts that rusted axe with both hands.
Lifting it all the way up to the height
of her shoulders. She lets it drop and
it bounces off the top of the already
chopped log.

I cannot hear her
but her mouth, very
clearly, has unpleasant
words for the wood
and its unwillingness
to accept her axe, her
power over it.

I want to open my window, and shout:
“Don’t swear at the damn thing. Put
your back into it woman! Lift that
thing above your head and heave it
down  with every inch of you. Express
your strength, don’t expect acceptance!”

Instead, I turn away, shaking my head
and laughing. The sight of the city girl
who wants, so desperately, to be country
and earthy is today’s view from my window.

(to the rhythm of a childhood tune)

My bicycle wheels go ’round and ’round,
go ’round and ’round,
go ’round and ’round.
My bicycle wheels go ’round and ’round,
so early in the season.

The grass, it grows so bright and green,
so bright and green,
so bright and green.
The grass, it grows so bright and green,
for a very specific reason.

And still the snow falls, awfully cold,
so awfully cold,
so awfully cold.
And still the snow falls, awfully cold,
when’s it time to put peas in?

The birds, they sing their sweetest tunes,
their sweetest tunes,
their sweetest tunes.
The birds, they sing their sweetest tunes,
as they fly about nesting.

In like a lion, and out like a lamb,
the saying goes,
the saying goes.
In like a lion, and out like a lamb,
this March, it is just teasing.

**I do think the cold medicine has played a major role in the development of the above jingle.

Peace did not exist
in solitude and the quiet
places of the world.
It was not obtained in fortitude
nor manifested in extremism.
Comfort did not emerge from
the power statements of I.

No, Peace did not arise
but in the love of families.
It drew near while existing in
the center of, if only for a moment
or two, a life-filled family.

Quiet emanated in the loneliness of
evening dinners and chatter of the
day’s events. Calm emerged from
tears of hurt and tears of
joy. Gentleness emanated from
noisy living rooms, where family
laughed together.

No, Refuge was not sought
in reclusion and self-contemplation.
This time, content was recognized in the
kind of chaos of family life and love. Peace
was regained with you.

What makes me me,
what makes you you,
it lies in the DNA, the make-up
of cells, skin, and organs. It’s our
signature, our fingerprint on all we touch.

But always remember, we have our
bloodlines, our legacies, our donations.
There is always a piece of me in you. That’s
the enduring and perpetual side of our lives.

So when I die, I really, scientifically, am
still here in parts and pieces because some
of what makes me me
is now a fraction of
what makes you you
and can we no longer be separated.

It’s actually quite beautiful, when you think
about it. Makes THIS a little bit easier,
she said as she closed her eyes and then
drifted away into the sky, a dove.

My dove, a white bird of peace.

*Be a blood and organ donor. Someone’s life may depend on it.

It may be that life came.
It may be that life left.

Either way, our souls are clasped like hands
as we dance, breathing in the full moon’s light.

Naked in the old pagan ways of truth,
we spread our roots giving your shoots space to grow.

Some dances are for rain.
Some dances are for sun.

All dances are for you and the hope
that springs eternal in your already passing youth.

Crones and maidens alike, we all are dancing,
our feet bare, not scarring the earth

But marking our souls with the rebirth of all
we have been and all you shall become.

Because you, my lovely, lovely child,
You, my resilient and graceful mother,

You are why we celebrate.