Better leadership they say
Is what we need
To become greater
Not just here, but everywhere
And for everything

What is leadership
Is it the noun leadership
Meaning better people to lead
Or is it the verb leadership
Meaning what actions leaders take

There’s no doubt we need
Both kinds of leadership
But for me
The starting point is self-leadership
Doing a better job leading ourselves

Every sunrise and sunset
Changes us, restores us
GIves us a hug
When we most need it

Every sunrise and sunset
Touches our deepest being
No promises
Just quiet sweeps of color we become

Everyday
A sunrise and sunset
Yet, no guarantees
Making it all even more important

No use clinging
Holding onto what we borrow
Then must give back
Like the sky each sunrise and sunset

All our sunrises and sunsets
Fleeting reminders
Live a colorful life
Bask each moment in life’s dreamy colors

“We are warmed by fire, not by the smoke of the fire. We are carried over the sea by a ship, not by the wake of a ship. So too, what we are is to be sought in the invisible depths of our own being, not in our outward reflection in our own acts. We must find our real selves not in the froth stirred up by the impact of our being upon the beings around us, but in our own soul which is the principle of all our acts.”

~Thomas Merton, Trappist Monk, 1915-1968

Miracles happen everyday
Extraordinary things–
Like the orange butterfly
That sat on the budding flower
In the front garden till I smiled

For this graceful creature
There’s no pondering the universe’s beginning or end
Only joyful being
Not unlike our own shot at bliss
Without expectation
Intensive anticipation or undue acceptance

Miracles indeed abound
Each day, in every way
Things we easily know
Things we frequently overlook
Like the gentle orange butterfly
Sitting on the pink budding flower
Just beyond…
That point of no return in our imagination

See the picture here.

I think of the sun
Not just any
But the kind waking me
As a young boy
Rising with it
Only venturing to sleep
Long past its setting

I think of the sun
Something magical
Very much inside me
Doing nothing for Marietta sweet corn
Or the ham-like beef stake tomatoes
Sold along two-lane Route 7
Just north of New Matamoras

I think of sun, golden yellow
Kingly in posture
Rising and falling on que
Like some Viennese opera singer
Whose voice rings out
Only to crash suddenly
Leaving us waiting for more

When I think of sun
I remember best the sun
That slipped through the trees
Along the edges of Cloverfield
Where as a boy I dreamed the only dreams
Coming completely true in my life

It’s not clear
What separates us
From nature, each other
Even certain parts of ourself
We never knew existed
Until we fall flat on our face
Flatter than the horizon
On a hot July afternoon

Then we know
We are not who we think we are
And the world doesn’t exist
To serve, or even enable us
In some arcane remote way
Like how truth follows a butterfly
Or how there is no saving a balloon
From the end of a pin

Funny how such entitled thoughts
Like those featuring us
At the very center of the universe
Pop up and dominate us
Like our third grade teachers
Who taught us fresh air
Helps us avoid cold germs
Yet I wonder, even with all this
Can we ever avoid death?

“We all carry within us our places of exile, our crimes, our ravages. Our task is not to unleash them on the world; it is to transform them in ourselves and others.” ~Albert Camus

Those faces…they linger
Like ghosts in some long lost place
That only God knows
That only I wish
I could forget

They flash back
Like sun on silver
Like lost pennies found
Washed up on some beach
After finding their bottom
Only to return to where they started

Where with bent backs
They culled and hoed their rice
Working as though tomorrow
Wouldn’t come unless they gave
All they had and more
Yes more, even their lives

And in one lonely girl’s blank face
I saw all that 38 years could never forget
In her eyes there reflected
So many young men
Lost, hoping to find a moment’s peace
That would take it all back
All 18 months they barely lived
Till the day they die

See this: click on this link

So hard
the afternoon sun beat down
Forsaking all shadows
Blinding us to see
only what is illuminated
What is known
And missing what it hides

So hard I try at times
to see life as it is
All the things I deny
Life’s impermanence, unpredictability
imperfection, only partial accessibility
Even in the best of light
Granted by the penetrating noonday sun

Some say try harder
to see more, to see better
Use the light to focus your mind
Perhaps we should not try so hard
Instead open ourselves, like a blossoming flower
And stop worrying about light, what we see
Then light’s meaning changes and so do we

Stoney
The name of a man
I never knew growing up
But Uncle Hank talked about nonstop
Like some freight train
Coming and going
Without scheduled stops, and
Most importantly, without even a destination

I was curious–about Stoney, my Uncle Hank
And of course what came before all curiosity
Something deeper
Taking us to the ocean’s bottom
Something today that still keeps me up
Well past midnight
Well past all memories

I think of the Antler’s
So many years later
A bar, a place where working men hung out
And dreamed about something larger
Than the lives they lived
The woman they married
The children they fathered
Brought into the world
Like cold rain on some nondescript Sunday night
After seeing their mother
In that hideous, souring smell nursing home
That even death avoided
Till the very last moment

Stoney doesn’t matter
Not now
He’s long gone
He was just a reason
For my uncle to dream
Past the reality he lived
My uncle, childless
Wished for his own
But none came
A man who dropped dimes, and sometimes quarters
Into our sweaty palms
As we stood on the porch
And waved goodbye
Before he walked slowly up the street–
The same street we played on
The same street my uncle died on
And the same street I left
Moving on beyond the dimes and quarters
To some place else
Some place now
Where time grows short
Walking much faster than my long gone uncle
Who now plays with Stoney
In the side yard of grandma’s house
A place I desperately try to remember

There are people
Who stay up
Well past ten pm
These folks–
At least some
Don’t sleep
Until all light is gone

There are other people
Who sleep long past five am
Way beyond when the birds awaken
I don’t see any of these folks
Because I get up at five
And am well into my dreams
By ten at night

The owl was calling last night
Somebody’s name echoed through the dark still forest
I listened for awhile to hear him again
But only silence rang through my ears

When the owl called
My heart shrank with fear
Praying it was not my name
But another’s that he called

Most don’t hear the owl’s call
Until it is their time
Until it is their name
Echoing through the tall dark trees

Those who believe
Say that the owl doesn’t know
Whose name he calls
Only he who bears the name knows

There is no mistaking
When your name is called
We always hear it
Then, it is our time to go

Last evening I took a series of photos at Squires Castle, a castle-like ruin in the forest near us.

Click here to see the photos.

Enjoy!

Inasmuch as we’re in so far
There are…
No beginnings
No endings
No going anywhere, except
Beyond time, which
Lasts only a moment
Just as long as a breath–
Yet so powerful, ever gentle
Just as long as a heartbeat–
Surging through me, the universe
And beyond
Yes, always beyond
Why?
Because it must
Because it exists without reason
Just like you
Just like me

A tossed flat stone
Shatters the pond’s smooth surface
Ripples, extending outward
From the center to nowhere
Eventually all disappear–
The stone, ripples, all striving to rest
Stillness returns
As sunlight graces pink and white waterlilies
And the mind comes to rest
As all thoughts cease

Clouds imagined, clouds so real
Often exactly how we feel
We look about, then it rains
Find the strength, break the chains

Some days are dead before they start
No horse in front to pull our cart
Fret we do about what’s hard
Touchy, sensitive, always on guard

We have a choice, no matter what
No need to stew till we’re hot
This is Friday, not just any day
Give it a chance, that’s what I say

Life
Death
Bigger than us, perhaps
At the same time
Exactly what we are
What we face
Who we are

Struggle, we do
To live, and yes…
To die
But facing these things
We step
Into the abyss
We call home

I think of my father, mother
You think of yours
They were the intersection
From whence we came
They move on
We move on
And, we are left…

Not behind
But to ourselves, with God
To move from where we are
To where we end up
To where we end
And to a new beginning overtaking us
And there, life and death become one

Sunlight toured the garden early this morning
Igniting fire in the flowers and their leaves
I stood helpless, breathless, overcome
By the beauty only garden sunlight can create

I may never be the same
After seeing how a garden’s many possibilities
Become living, breathing realities
When sunlight awakens them from their sleep

Even the lone chipmunk
Who spends her day
Darting in and out of the garden
Stood still to receive what sunlight so freely gives

I set aside my pen and paper
Rushed into the garden to receive
The blessing of sunlight
Now my day has completely changed

Should I come one night
And you find me standing
Alongside your downy soft bed
Know I am an angel watching
Assuring only sweet dreams
Fill your head while you sleep
So when you awake with the sun in the morning
Know God is smiling down upon you

Should I come one night
And the night’s storms
Break your peaceful slumber
Know I cannot calm the storms
But I can fill your head
With a peace beyond
Where any clap of thunder
Or flash of lightning can reach

Should I come one night
And you no longer need protecting
That you alone can face your demons
I’ll know my time has come to go
That another soul haunted by the night
Needs my quiet and reassuring presence
But know my sweet
My memories will always be of you

A tree stands alone
Without notice, reaching out
Touching you, me, so much beyond
Hear its song–
Not so lonely
Watch its breath
Rooted, yet free
Stretched out–
Like the crimson horizon at sunset
A sign, perhaps–
Live each day in fullness

Inspired by this.