Maestro!

I made a surprising discovery! Lets hear it for discoveries whenever, wherever they happen and however large or small they may be.

Due to excessive (!) technology in our house, the main rooms have TVs in them and often they are on in the background at some cable channel. And while I'm scarcely ever giving them my full attention as I work, read the paper, play games on-line, there is a background narrative gnawing away at my serenity - at least ever since November 2016! I find 99% of the news and commentary distressing, even subconsciously.

Lately I have been switching the TV off and listening to our classical FM music station. And, slowly, I realized that bit by bit the crystallized beauty of the ages is not only soothing me, but is adding thoughts, memories, ideals, dreams - building blocks to better spaces. I have been astonished at the difference! Instead of having strands of anger, depression, horror woven through the background of my mind, the music of the masters is layering hope.

This music has abided. So shall we, despite everything.

Filling the void

A favorite supervisor of mine is transferring to another branch. Sadness.

But as I think of it, any involvement with people embraces risk to you. And the more you depend on them for the definition of your personal happiness, the greater danger. People move on. They die, they transfer, they leave. Period.

So note to self. Prepare. One can build walls and never let anyone get close and dilute the joy of the moment. Or - one can say about a beloved mate, child, friend, colleague at the height of the happiness - this is a gift but only a gift. Enjoy it fully but understand you have zero control over its staying power.

Come to think of it - your own life is like that! Embrace the day as though it were fleeting. Give it all you got. Tomorrow may transfer to another branch.

lilacs

The word itself is softness.

The petals are yielding, the colors, even the deepest purple ones have a gentleness. And the scent....well, that's the most alluring of all  - and fleeting. When you enter a lilac bouquet room the pleasure is immediate, but quick. Some scents absolutely bring down the house, but lilacs have the most feathery affect. And maybe that elusiveness is why we love them so much. Their bloom time is so limited - actually their vase life is too. And to my knowledge, I have never encountered a soap or perfume that has even begun to capture the scent.

But then, perhaps the lilac is best left in that whispered fragile beauty whose fragrance we cannot breathe deeply enough to trap within us. It slips through our souls like moonlight and fairy dust.

To me, lilacs are childhood and Mother.... and I can never get enough.

Stop all the clocks

A friend of ours died last week. He was 46. His death came like a stroke of lightning with no warning, no shelter in place, no refuge.

From the words of all the broken-hearted people at the funeral and after-gathering his life had been a perpetual reaching-out, with love, grace, and generosity, curiosity, passion and kindness.

46 seems way, way too young to leave this world. But judging from the tears and laughter, he left an impressive footprint in our earthly soil.

Godspeed, Denis.

in the spring of the year

April is National Poetry month so I thought I should dreg up some of my earlier published pieces:

First Rite

In the early mist
a row of black parishoners
perched on the old barn's ridgepole,
feather folded,
awaiting
the sun's communion.



Haiku

Monarch butterfly
lights on rusty junkyard car-
chrysalis of tin.



Blue jay nibbling
on clustered hawthorn berries,
patriotic branch.



Magnolia buds,
swollen with April sunshine,
close to shouting time.



and last - a one-liner -

Alleluia sings my kite!