Eternity is
a slippery slope upon
which to place one’s hope.
Tag Archives: joy
LIVE FOR TODAY
Filed under POETRY
THE NORTH WIND
A fierce wind blows hard and fast
across the tundra’s frozen mass
sliding down south furious and fast
like a feisty child on a slickened slide,
adult control no longer about,
tearing across a playground
with hearty shouts of glee –
I’m free! I’m free! I’m free!
It is a wondrous sight to see
bending, dancing trees in sway
holding tight squirrels’ nests
close to trees’ heaving chests.
The air is alive in ways we seldom see.
reminding us we, too, can be free.
We can cross the frozen, grieving miles
and dance again wreathed in smiles.
We can find a quickened pace
as wind lifts our feet into space
we once thought too weak to bear our weight.
Mother Nature reminds us of our place
in an ever-changing world whose race
to bring us safely round the sun,
with laughter, joy and fun
brings treasured moments of grace.
North wind reminds what we already know –
we….must…. just….let……….. go!
Filed under POETRY
LEAD WITH THE HEART
Lead with the heart
and the mind will follow
a path of peace and hope,
strong enough to carry
dreams and generosity
for all those you meet.
No matter how difficult
the journey it will not be taken
alone, silently, fearfully.
The heart knows best what matters.
The heart knows the best path.
The heart unites us joyfully.
The heart beats life determinedly.
The heart overcomes strife.
Lead with the heart and do your part
to create a world worth living.
Some paths are famous and large.
Some paths are unrecognized and small.
Every path matters to those
who walk it and make it their own.
Every path converges as we move
into the great unknown.
Filed under POETRY
TIME FLIES
Time flies when you are having fun;
even faster when life is nearly done.
Aging compresses memories
weighted heavier day by day,
which one would expect
should slow time down.
Instead it speeds time up as we create
new memories to fill life up
before it, like we, pass on
before we accomplish all we seek.
Months now seem like a week;
years seem like a month at least,
and decades seem like a single year.
How can one compare the age of time?
How can one compare the time of age?
One simply turns life page by page
to finish the book so long ago begun.
Time flies when you are having fun.
Filed under POETRY
COLORFUL GRACE
Nature is a generous patron, and quite witty
She paints our world and makes it pretty
with a variety of colors, none like another.
Yet, each color is sister and brother
on the wide spectrum of light
which turns us away from night.
Not content to withhold her grace
She asks each of us to simply embrace
All the colors of our world,
all the joy her works unfurl.
She asks us to find our own space
among the wonders she has put in place.
HOMELESS SMILES
I had only eight one-dollar bills in my purse that day.
The too-battered man standing at roadside a few feet away
caught my attention with his too-battered sign held
close to his chest, on crudely-cut cardboard dirtied
like him, over time; both dusted clear of all grime.
“Smile today” was the message he carried so closely.
A message so needed, so welcomed, so worthy.
Crossing over a lane to reach his side, traffic waiting
for the light to change, let me and my car, squeeze by.
I passed the dollar bills to an outstretched hand.
Then, the grey-haired man in need of a cut,
leaned in to say “Thank you. God bless you.Have a nice day.”
The phrase a common lingo in the homeless way.
His eyes were lit from inside and he smiled, not trying to hide
his humanity, his sanity, his grace so sublime.
I smiled back and told him that I loved his sign.
Pulling out a second sign he had hidden behind the first,
I read the line, “Always Smile” and felt his thirst
to be seen and recognized and able to offer something to me.
Tearfully smiling in a moment of grace
I thanked him the gift he had given to me,
a smile I had unknowingly needed desperately,
the “greatest gift I had received in very long time.”
a thousands suns lit his eyes and opened mine.
Homeless people need to help others as much as you and I.
They may not have shelter, nor food, nor rest;
yet, they still continue to give their best.
They watch us hungrily as we drive by on the road
They hunger not only for what we can give.
They hunger for what they can give to us.
It unburdens their load.
We are in this world together, one smile at a time.
A message of love from one man, alone by the road.
Filed under POETRY
GIVE US AIR !
Vice-President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz
August flopped heavily
Sweatily
Vociferously
and fully aware of the pressure
building in the heated
air.
Little relief in scattered
rains that shattered
a populace already battered
by heated rhetoric
over the curtained waves of
air.
Two-thousand twenty-five
reasons to despair
the planned assault on our care
of one another and a planet
dumb-soaked without a care for
air.
August is hard to breathe in,
in and out, and in again;
cheering on Harris-Walz
awaiting the slightest breeze of
air.
I can breathe again.
We can breathe again.
The earth can breathe again.
Finally, we can move forward again.
In November we can vote in cooled
air.
THE THIEF
Chronic pain is a thief
which stalks every bone and muscle
including the skull and brain
locking the flow across every sinew
of blood’s strength to reign
with ease and grace
across interstitial space.
Legs and pelvis lock in place
and the body can no longer race
along the path around the ponds.
Knees can no longer bend
to rest upon the earth and pull the weeds
nor plant the seeds
where the garden should grow.
Pain even steals words from where they reside
within the brain’s locked space
where dreams can no longer take hold
since sleep is stolen leaving behind
only grief and disgust at losses too great to abide.
The theft is its worst upon the face
where smiles are forced to hide
behind grimaces and half-closed eyes.
Laughter is the only relief to frozen space.
A sense of humor is the fiercer power
relieving pain hour after hour.
The deeper the laugh the looser the lock
that pain has placed upon the body clock.
Time passes with the pain as laughs invade
the place where pain thought to remain.
Laugh at pain and watch it rush,
pushed away by jokes and a comic crush.
Filed under POETRY
DREAMS OF STATE
Waking in the half-state
within the space where worlds collide
with no need to run away and hide,
where languages merge to help us realize
our old reality has solemnly died,
we are born anew and lifted high
above the horizon and into the sky
in the arms of the ripening sun
where all new life begins.
Every single day, we turn
in the arms of stars to find our way.
How wild this earth-turn
ride around the sun
across our galaxy spiraling wide
into a universe where silent winds blow.
Where we shall land we do not know.
On mornings like this we do not care.
We are content to fly on currents of air,
floating across places yet to be seen,
across new horizons and new sunrises
to worlds we have never been.
We find new courage to open our wings
and finally let our true hearts sing
in praise of the morning sky’s rising
after the night’s long-dreaming sights
to find ourselves newly alive.
We shout with joy, “What a ride!”
Filed under POETRY
POLLYANNA
Pollyanna is misunderstood.
She does not smile because
her world is perfect.
She smiles because
nothing is.
No disappointment finds its way
to destroy her imperfectly happy day.
Filed under POETRY
annarino writes 