Your smiling face tells me all I need to know.

That the love, that you’ve pledged,

is a love that will grow.

And there’s no doubt in my mind.

We’re in love for a lifetime.

Your tear speckled eyes glimmer of love plain to see.

And I’m overjoyed that that love is for me.

A love so warm and kind.

We’re in love for a lifetime.

And I’m happy that things couldn’t be better,

Happy things have turned out this way.

Happy because we’re doing it all together,

Happy for this beautiful day.

Your smiling face tells me all I need to know.

That the love, that you’ve pledged,

is a love that will grow.

And there’s no doubt in my mind.

We’re in love for a lifetime.

I worry that my thoughts aren’t original,

Yet I feel compelled to share them anyway.

I do try to check to see if there is a clear path to attribute the one or the many who thought, said, or wrote it first.

As I walked many years ago on the path I still walk,

I heard the symphony of song that happens every day everywhere when dozens of species celebrate the dawning of a new day.

I thought that it would be wise for humankind to realize that it was the bird who taught us to sing,

Not the other way around.

One related thought that occurred to me was that this was about putting the humility back in humanity.

If humans have dominion, why is it that birds sing more beautifully than almost any human?

Would any human sing if there had never been a bird song?

This world is tough enough.

What if we never heard a bird sing?

When does a fog become a mist,

And a mist become a drizzle,

And a drizzle become a light rain,

And a light rain become a hard rain,

Which of course is gonna fall?

When does a hard rain

Turn into a hurricane?

Or then precipitations take on its other personalities

Of snow, ice, sleet, hail and slush?

All to return up to the clouds or seep into the ground.

And then rinse and repeat and rinse and repeat,

In a never ending spin cycle,

Necessary for the permanently pressed,

And interminably stressed.

It is at this point that we just begin comparing one miserable day to the next.

What is the level of miserable today?

Is the cold wind blowing more today than yesterday,

Reducing the “real feel” temperature to a ridiculous below zero

And even when the thermometer on the corner of the shed says 12 degrees?

Does the newly fallen snow, which some have the stupidity to call pretty,

Have that helpful crust that at least catches the crunch of your foot,

So that you don’t fall flat and dislocate the same hip,

Again?

Does the sun come out as a cruel joke and heartless reminder

Of your pleasant summer days running on the beach

And taunt you with the sad remembrance that running on the beach days are long behind you

And shatter you with rapid realization that you may have seen your last beach?

Do you increasingly hope that if you think of an eventual spring long enough

The misery of the upcoming winter will melt away, even temporarily?

Do you find that you wish you were anywhere but here,

Alone in this cold, cold world?

I think the songwriters I really like

are merely poets who can carry a tune.

That is, sing on key.

I’m okay with that.

But I concede that I am a poet by default.

When cornered by a question when I was a featured poet,

I stumbled to name my favorite poets.

Out poured the names Mary Oliver, Wendell Berry, Walt Whitman and Langston Hughes.

Before I was able to breathe, I was asked to name more woman poets.

I panicked. I said Joni Mitchell, Rickie Lee Jones, and Laura Nyro.

I had been found out.

The cat was fully out of the bag.

I stammered, and for men, I love Dylan, John Prine, Kris Kristofferson, Guy Clark…(dot, dot, dot)

And  I could’ve gone on and on and on.

But I didn’t because I was interrupted by a hilarious heckler,

“What’s the matter? Can’t you sing?”

NOPE

From a distance I saw two small vessels on the bay.

I noticed a single fishing rod wedged in the back of each small boat.

Then I noticed the boat closest to me was being propelled by the man moving his feet.

He was pedaling this boat well into the middle of deep waters and far from shore.

I assumed his buddy was also pedaling.

I thought of how oddly brave this was,

relying on only one’s stamina.

Moving far off shore based only on one’s strength and motivation to move this small craft.

But the courage is not only believing that somewhere out there, there are fish to catch,

but also in the believing that you have what it takes to get all the way back.

Hungry Deer Have No Fear

I share this ocean path I walk nearly weekly with many deer.

It seems that they know and trust me,

and many other frequent visitors.

They usually tentatively look at us.

Sometimes they go scampering into the brush.

Other times they move hardly at all.

It seems as if I could reach out and pet them, but I don’t.

Today I noticed several deer truly meandering in front of me.

They would go side to side on the path,

chewing on one tree and shifting to the other side to a bush.

Back and forth, side to side they would go.

It didn’t matter how close I got at all.

They just did what they needed to do.

Their urgency was obvious.

I sensed their anxiety.

The berries were gone and they were left with brittle branches.

They were determined to not starve, at least not today.

So they had no fear of me walking near them at all.

They couldn’t afford to stop eating, lest they would starve.

They knew that unless they single-mindedly did what they needed to do,

they would hasten their death.

I observed one deer in particular.

Its focus was unrelenting.

It couldn’t take a moment to worry about me.

It had to suspend any fear of me and not worry at all.

It was just doing whatever it needed to do to survive.

Just another of God’s creatures placing fear aside in the interest of survival.

I could write all day about this horrible world

in which we live

and how the only constant is futility. 

Who could argue?

Who has not heard EVERY day

of the endless suffering 

all over the world,

but also in our country,

in our counties,

in our towns,

on our streets,

or have had such suffering visit us directly

– personally –

maybe even in our own homes?

Who does not know

of the suffering of the child victims – 

of hunger,

of poverty,

of abuse, 

of rape,

who grow up to be

– if they live long enough, 

hungry adults,

homeless adults,

traumatized adults?

And we know with that there are those,

even most,

who go on to try to love someone, 

who try to live with someone,

who try to raise a child to have a better life,

full of hopes and dreams,

because really such dreams don’t die on their own.

These dreams would survive and perhaps thrive

if this was shared vision of those who struggle to keep the dream alive

joined by those who have the means to make it happen.

But now my only reprieve from my own constant agony

would seem to be to stop writing about this futility.

After all, it is in itself a futile exercise.

But I won’t.

I sit in meditation.

I hear the sounds of the Tibetan bowls,

And I let the sounds flow into my contemplative efforts.

Yet, I notice an annoying vibration humming at a lower pitch

But it is matched by pleasant melodious ringing at a slightly higher volume.

My mind wanders to a thought about how this is like life.

The sweet and good happens at volumes louder or softer, intermittently,

with the incessant rubbing of elbows

and clashing of ideas

and the sometimes 

horrendous pangs of hurt feelings.

Then my phone buzzes and I stop and look at my phone,

It is a brief text comment from someone I love dearly despite

a relationship that has become more complex and challenging.

I think to myself is this interruption of my meditation

an annoying vibration 

or a pleasant and melodious ringing?