Sunday, December 29, 2019

My poem for today …

ALL IT TAKES

He saw some branches shaking in a breeze,
and clearly knew that all the force that frees

the branches isn’t in the branches, but in
the breeze itself. The trees receive the spin

and whirl of a breeze, and it remakes
their lives. For patient branches, all it takes

is letting breezes do their swirling dance
with them, and soon the branches start to prance.

He saw what he had rarely seen, that he
could do the same, could be a patient sea

that rolls or sleeps as wisdom blows across
it in the storms of life or in the flow and toss

of daily living. He saw that he is not the one
who does the work of life, but that the fun

of living comes from letting go and letting
Spirit do the work. He saw that getting

free involves allowing forces even larger than
the universe itself to swirl and roll and fan

his life. Like branches in a breeze, he’s in
the best of hands, and cannot help but win.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A WHATEVER KIND OF GUY
One day, visiting my grandchildren at their house in the countryside, I started messing around with some small stones on one of the many stone walls on the property – just seeing what structure I could create in a few minutes. I had no design in mind, only the desire to do something spontaneous and set the stones wherever my hands wished them to be. If someone had asked me what I was building, I might have said “whatever my hands wish” – or maybe, like so many young people today, just “whatever”, perhaps with a suitable shrug. However, there would be no spirit of indifference or exasperation in my “whatever”, as there often seems to be when I hear the word spoken. If I said “whatever”, it would be because whatever I build with those small stones would be something special to me. I guess, in a way, I’m a whatever kind of guy. Whatever a day brings, I try to see what it has that can help me. I know that whatever happens a minute from now is the truth for that moment, and whatever thought I have at any moment helps me, somehow, be exactly who I’m supposed to be. It’s a good word for me. I’m more likely to smile than shrug when I say “whatever”.