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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?

Having walked from my parents’ grave,

visiting my step-sister who now lies with them,
I walked the same trail I’ve walked since my step-mother died 46 years ago.

I walked to your grave and once I arrived,
I reached out and placed my hand on your photo

that has remained affixed to your stone for these last 48 years,

And I believed in God a bit more at that moment than I have in a while.
I even contemplated what I have felt as a remote possibility

That there is a heaven where I would see you again and hug you again
And then I realized that if it’s true I will be hugging you and lots of others.

I stood there and prayed that maybe it is all true
And a big part of me hopes it is.

As I look into your youthful smiling eyes, I would love to see the day that you’re looking back at mine.

As I drove toward you,

with the sun shining brightly

and the shadows from the autumn trees playing tricks on my eyes,

I identified you as a vibrant young woman on a brisk afternoon walk.

As I got closer, and could see you more clearly, I saw you to be older,

still vibrant, but with a less brisk pace.

And I felt as if I understood in some vague but important way the mutual beauty

of both of my impressions.

Benign benevolence bursts forth with hippie hypocrisy

Because the simple mindless kindness falls far and timidly from the targets.

In my darkest hopeful fascist fantasy,

I see the courageous seep into the complacent

and defeat the disastrous dictator

just before the light would have gone out

on life as we knew it.

Because that’s what happens in the movies.

While devout documentations speak inconvenient truths to empty seats.

My ghosts are not really ghosts.

I know that.

But those closest to me when alive

Seem to never have left me.

I feel their presence in a song that a friend and I happily ruined by dancing and/or singing.

I close my eyes and I can see the two of us making goofy gyrations

And in my ears I hear a melody turned into a mishmash of miscellaneous notes.

I eat a meal that I shared with my brother and I can hear him chewing,

And I try to make him laugh because I enjoyed it so much when I could make him choke with uncontrolled joy.

I see my sister when I see I see a grandmother smiling lovingly at small children running wildly in a yard,

Or swinging as high as they can on a swing set.

And I smile inside, and totally feel her presence.

My father speaks to me constantly.

We resemble each other in body type, voice tone, and choice of questionable vocabulary.

I can’t escape his image and I celebrate this.

If these are ghosts, they are friendly ghosts.

They can visit me as often as they’d like.

For Sonnet 59, Shakespeare stole the often-attributed phrase,

“There ‘s nothing new under the sun”

from Ecclesiastes, which is included in both the Tanakh and the Christian Bible.

Nothing could reaffirm that sentiment more than that it be copied into a new literary work

published many centuries later.

If Shakespeare ironic theft doesn’t tell of the futility of being a writer,

I don’t know what does.

We struggle for fresh, innovative ways to say over and over again, what has already been said.

We trot out old ideas, old important observations, lessons learned and bridges burned.

We shine up the antiques of what we see as the best hopes and try to give them new light.

We do this,

following our own insatiable urge to try to put out there

that idea,

that hope,

that elusive illusion just one more time,

That things can get better.

That while what we are saying is not new under the sun,

That someday there will be something new.

Something newer and more beautiful

And that our attempt to twist a phrase to fit the world today

And find some kind of audience, large or small,

And reach one person,

And instill new hope,

New inquiry,

Share common ground,

Offer help through mutual understanding,

And somehow at least hope that our efforts,

Was worth at least something.

So we trot out the old ideas,

Shine them up,

Put a bow on them,

And re-offer the gift of something slightly new,

In the shadow of years and years of saying the same things

Over and over again.

I am sorry for this reflection. No, wait, I am not…

In these moments of jubilation

(even in my waking they continue, even if I had not put on the news),

I am struck by the trauma that ripples through by body from the fear and terror that I have not directly experienced,

also in just the last few days.

I am aware that the same phenomenon of feeling that which is not mine is oddly similar.

As I see the joy in the faces of my team and fellow fans,

I will not forget the horror of what it must be like to know someone sent a bomb to me,

Or what it must be like to be shot and killed at a grocery store because of the color of my skin,

Or what it must be like to be a person of faith and tradition, praying, only to be gunned down.

While I experience the joy of victory vicariously for the success of others,

I will not deny that I am still shaken by the tide of hate.

Today,

As I slide between these extremes,

I feel like my mind, body, heart, and soul are not only my own.