Elasticity

I noticed
meditating yesterday
the elasticity
of time,
how one moment
lingers around
for a seemingly
eon,

while another
whizzes by like
a hummingbird.

We say, "see
you in an hour,"
yet, depending
on circumstances,
might be
a second or eternity.

Fireworks

We awakened in the
night with the loudest
bang of thunder I've
ever heard.

I glanced out the window
to see the aftershocks
of bright flashes of
lightening.

No trees had fallen,
though I couldn't be
sure until daylight
came.

The explosion was
followed by a torrential
rain, equal, I'm sure,
to what one might experience
in the tropics.

Now the wild party is
over. The oak tree still
has its leaves on one branch.

The leaves swing gently
in the breeze, not able
to describe the fireworks
they had so recently experienced.

Art Time

One hundred and fifty representations
of time before my eyes.

What is time?
Merely a tool
to measure itself?

But what is time, really?

We can't think about time
because we can't abandon it.

I see so many expressions
of time:

time past
time moving
old and new
clocks
more clocks
time space continuum
death
motion
decay
waves
speeding
curves
memories
more memories
events
passages
squiggles
changes
transformations
corrosion
aging
Phoenix
burnt

crude time
and
wonderful time

Time to do this or that
timelessness
Old things representing time.

Your time is not my time,
but is our time to settle in
and settle down.

We all have different times.
Mistakenly we say,
what IS the time,
as if there were only
one time (we know
from Albert E. that
there are many times.)

Motion
is an object moving
through space in time,
but what about a
still object. Can it
not move through a
space that is constantly
in motion?

The clock runs away with time
measuring our precious moments
that never existed before,
and will never exist again.

No One Home

He arrived early,
and no one was home.

The door was unlocked
so he walked in, thinking
this will be a nice
time to be alone.

The floor was cold,
chilling his body
through his stocking
feet. Shoes weren't
allowed in this
sacred space.

A nice caretaker
came in and turned
the light on, not
knowing the dim
light from the windows
was perfect for his PDA.

He thanked him, and
before he knew it,
others came in, crushing his
moment of solitude
but providing good fodder
for this picture poem.

The Soccer Game

It seems like
the wind has been
blowing for days.

The tall grass is
facing northwest, tired
of the indecision surrounding
the upcoming election.

The leaves appeared to be
playing soccer this morning,
with the players tirelessly
running back and forth
on the field.

The wind chimes
cheered the leaf
players along,
encouraging them
to keep running
despite the bitter cold.

Now it is dusk and
the field is almost
cleared of the leaves.
They finished their game
and decided
to spend the night
next to the wood pile.

The Last Resolution

Four days
into the new year
and already
I'd like
to start anew.

If I had
made the last
resolution "don't
follow any of the
above"
I would have
been fine.

What is it
about resolutions,
apparently a
secret weapon
of the devil,
to make us feel guiltier
than sin (what does
that mean?)?

In fact, it seems
one way
to be sure something
is not going to be
done is to make it
a resolution.

How about you?
You can comment
below — click on
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you click on
"comments."

Sharp Shadows

Finally this morning
my dogs decided
they wanted to go out.
It was a short bout
with the elements,
and then they came in, hoping
that my wife would give them
some scrap.

The shadows are sharp today
as the the wind is cold.
The wind chimes ring like
a siren, inviting me outside.

The bird incessantly bites
his mirror, letting us
know the meaning of the
phrase "bird brain."

The oak tree leaves open up
in the sun and face its
warmth like good soldiers.

The oak tree itself is not
worried about growing during
the winter. It is deep in
thought about one year past
and another year to come.

Two Worlds

The pond is frozen over,
except at the bottom
of the waterfall.

The old bird taps against
his mirror as if he has
found a new friend
who he doesn't
quite understand.

I woke the dogs up
too early. They went
out in the cold and
came right back
in to continue
their sleep.

The oatmeal on the
stove simmers,
provoking an
aroma that fills
the kitchen.

Nothing other
than the tall
golden grass
and the occasional
passing cars
dare to move
this cold early
morning.

Oh, yes, the
curled leaves
on the oak tree
still defiantly
dance in the wind,
determined not
to hit ground
until spring.

In the other room,
there is a philosophy
book, filled with
"deeper" subjects
like "what is piety?"

Socrates

Poor misunderstood Socrates,

indefatigable in
his search for
the truth, and
a gadfly in his
dialogues.

His subjects
were too busy
to talk to him,
especially
when they realized
the shortcomings
of their ascertations.

He never published,
so he wouldn't have
a chance getting
a university job,
but he didn't think
teachers should be
paid, anyway,
especially
since they didn't
know anything.

In the end,
perhaps the wisest
and most influential
thinker of the West,
was sentenced
to death for "corrupting
the youth" and other
serious infractions.

Happy New Year Grinch

In keeping with this special
day, the one that closes
the year, we should go
to a party, or at least
open a bottle of champaign.

But we'll just stay home
and I'll draw a picture.

I remember, when our kids
were young, our baby sitter
was upset with us for not
celebrating a good year.

She brought over a bottle
of whiskey for us.

I want to retain
my full resources when I
celebrate. And luckily
we don't have to stay up
until midnight, since Times
Square is on a different
time zone, and,
obviously,
we are dead beats on
another wave length.

The Chair

He found the small metal
chair with the red seat.

It allowed him access
to all that was just
out of his reach.

He'd carry it around,
climb up on it, and
rearrange our world
to perfect all kinds
of skills.

Looking on were
all of us, totally
clueless about
what was going on
in his golden head.

Waffles and Milk

He doesn't exactly
know the words for
waffles and milk,
but we read
his moods, from happy
to hungry, and then
start trying out this
or that, hoping to hit
the nail on the head,
eventually.

He seems to get his
needs met, somehow,
without an ability
talk. I wonder how
much of our talk
in the bigger world
is really needed
for our happiness,
or even, just our survival.

Toys

Maybe toys came
from the days when people
didn't have much stuff,

or even when all
that they had was
human sized.

So the Indians
would make a
little bow and
arrow to teach the kids
to hunt,

or a doll to
teach the kids
how to take care of a
baby.

I've noticed my grandson
is much more interested
in my things than he
is in the toy closet.

Lucky he has my spare
cell phone. It is one
of his favorite pastimes.

Thanks, but no Thanks!

Sometimes
I ask for help
and regret it.

Not that the
helper was
not well-intended
or even skillful
in their craft.

It is just that
sometimes we want
the job done,
and we don't want
to do the work
involved.

So I asked my
former accountant
father-in-law to
help me set up
a financial system,
only to realize
that I'd have to
rebuild my mental
transmission before
I could shift that
many gears.

Pecans

My daughter brought
bags of pecans for
everyone, carried from
her Texas pecan tree.

Her aunt brought
one gadget for breaking
them open,
and her grandpa brought
another.

We worked feverishly
to crack open enough
to get a cup of pecans
for a pie or whatever.

I drilled a new
hole in one of
the gadgets but it
didn't do much.
The pecans were too
slender and long.

In the end, hours
later, we were
failed piece
workers. My daughter
said that next
year she was going
to rake those
nutty nuts into
the compost pile.

An Hour

In an hour my son, daughter-in-law, and
grandson come for the holiday.

The plane is now in the air, heading
west at record speed, I’m sure.

I guess the pilot gave up
or at least delayed
his XMAS for the occasion.

We haven’t seen my son and his
family for a couple of
months.

I don’t expect that they have changed,
though certainly my grandson, not yet
a year and a half, will be into new
things.

The XMAS sun blasts through by
bamboo shades, reminding me
not be somber on this day.

Their plane arrived early so
I stopped writing and went to pick
them up.

As soon as we were home from the
airport, my grandson went to the
toy closet and picked up a cup.

I think he was more interested
in a holiday drink than play.

'Tis the Season to be Jolly?

Christmas eve, and I went to the grocery,
two hardware stores, a bookstore, and the
car wash.

I didn't go to all these places to
to check that everyone was jolly.

I knew that some
of the Christmas hype is just that,
and some people have a mean and
tired look on their face in this
special time for celebration.

I didn't want to write about
my disappointments,
from the squenched up faces
to the aggressive driving
of shopping carts and automobiles
because I didn't want
to perpetuate the sourness
I was experiencing.

But then joy came
as one woman
passed me with her cart
in the grocery store.
When she saw that
I was looking at her,
she broke into a smile
as big as they come.
I smiled back.

Yes, it is the season . . . .

No More

I"m not going to write
a poem today, I thought,
until my dog started to
bark in protest.

I tried one about the
holiday trance
we are all in,
"getting and spending,"
but that is old hat,

and then the phone
rings, and it feels
like it's my daughter,
but it was the
wrong number.

And sometimes the
honeymoon is over
and friends tell you
what they really think
and you feel like shrinking
to the size of a
head of a pin,
wishing you didn't say
or believe this or that,

and then you escape to the
country to see how
the trees survived
their first snow of
the season and you
see them basking
in the sun, and loving
the bitter breeze, with
their dark brown bark
glorified by the bright
blue sky and accented by
the fluffy white clouds.

On the whole, the trees
always stand up straight,
don't they?

The Bed of Rocks

I'm not sure what a rock
can see, nestled in a bed
of sister and brother
rocks.

There isn't the option
of deciding to jump on
a bus and take off to
the west or the east.

Though, inadvertently,
the bus might pick up
the rock in his tire
and take her to some
unknown place, to
find a distant
bed of rocks.

We had a dog who
was called to separate
certain rocks from
their neighbors.

She would spend countless
hours picking up this
rock and that, dropping
certain chosen ones into
a new pile.

Though we tried,
we could never understand
her methodology, but
believed there was
a method to her madness.

When her back was
turned, however,
we returned the rocks
to their next of kin,
only to watch the
dog patiently extract them
once again
from their families.

Memories

How often we think of
things past, like the
milk man who drove his
horse and buggy
down my street in
Chicago or the time
my friend got bit
by a cheetah.

Our lives seem to
accumulate
these events
some educational,
some fun,
and some we'd give anything
to erase from our memory bank.

Are we this
volume of stories
that fill our
minds and hearts,
or are we here, now,
listening to our
inner voice and
looking out the window
noticing every incident
that shaped every branch,
every bent browning blade
of grass, and every dent
in the cars and trucks
passing on the road?