Monday, December 30, 2019

My poem for today …

AN AFTERNOON OF GRATITUDE

He sat beside a vase of flowers
and felt filled up with gentleness.
The seeming chaos and distress
of all the world was gone. The powers

he felt were soft and reassuring.
The sunshine through the windows flowed
into him like streams, and slowed
him down, and helped him start to sing.

Carnations were his audience.
He sang a song he’d never heard,
of sunshine and a grateful bird
who didn’t have the common sense

to be unhappy and complain.
The flowers seemed to like his song
and shined more pink and bright. Along
the western hills a single lane

of birds was slowing down to hear
a guy sing out with mellowness and praise.
A squirrel on the lawn in rays
of sunlight stopped and raised its ear.

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

DINNER FOR FEAR
Like many of us, I’ve been fighting fear for most of my life, but now, in my 70s, I see that I probably should have been giving it a good-natured “hello”, and perhaps even setting out dinner for it. Strangely, my resistance to fear has only seemed to enable it to spread and grow stronger. The more I’ve fought to push fear out, the more powerful it seemed to become. So, I guess I’m tossing in the towel. I’m sending up the ceasefire flag so fear can see I’m not afraid of it. In fact, I’ve started putting out invitations: “Please come in, fear. I’ll set out dinner for you. Let’s relax and learn about each other. Linger as long as you want.”
Fear, I’m finding, often disappears fairly soon in the face of simple hospitality.