On My Desk

Written from a prompt on "Writers Digest" website: Write a scene that takes place wherever you write. Take an object [or two] that is always present at your desk, and make it a key element of your scene.

Little Princess Anabeth, crown and all, comes into the room where I am working. When she visits, I stop whatever I am doing and attend to her needs and wishes, which means play--living in the present. There is no sense of time when we are with children. They are joy-makers, full of sweetness, grace and curiosity. So, I put aside my laptop and bring her up onto my lap for the big hug. Instead of asking saying, "Let's play," usually the first question after the hug, she looks at a framed picture on my desk from 50 years ago.

“Who’s that?” pointing to the image of my husband.

“That, my dear girl, is your grandfather.”

“It doesn’t look like Juju.”

“No, no, it doesn’t,” I agree. “That picture was taken a long time ago when he was young, and that young woman next to him is Nonna.” 

My granddaughter looks at me and then back at the picture, certainly not recognizing that young woman as her grandmother (me either). Then she turns her gaze to the little wooden box illuminated under the lamp, with a carved image of Buddha on the lid. 

“What’s that?” 

“Oh, that was a gift from your Aunt Helen.” I pick it up and hold it in my palm. I tell her that the carving on the lid is of a teacher who lived a long time ago. I take the lid off, and she looks inside where there is a tiny glass fish. I turn the box upside down, and the fish falls into her little hand. She picks it up, turns it over, holds it to her cheek, then puts it back in the box.  

“He’s orange. Can he swim?” she wonders out loud.

“If he were alive he could swim, yes. I bet he can float though.”

My little princess takes off her gem-studded crown and places it on the desk, and picks up another object on the desk. It is a small black-figure pottery, Greek-style plate on a stand, depicting Achilles binding the wounds of his friend Patroclus, described in The Illiad.

“What’s that, Nonna?” 

“That is a plate I bought many years ago.”

“What are they doing?”

“Oh, well, you see him?" Pointing to, "Achilles is putting a bandage on his friend Patroclus who got hurt."

“Funny names. Will his friend get better?”

“Yes, yes, he will,” I say, though in the epic poem he dies of his war wound.  

Satisfied with my answers to her questions, Anabeth commands, “Let’s play, Nonna,” and we are off to get the play dough, the stickers, the watercolors and tea set for our afternoon visit, always full of chatter, hugs, laughter, stories, snacks and lots of other questions.

In the evening, I return to my desk, remembering my simple answers to Anabeth’s questions about the objects that mean so much to me. I keep them as symbols, there on my desk, where I take care of the ordinary but necessary practicalities of everyday life. Beyond their appearance, which sparked my granddaughter’s questions, is their power to bring to my mind a deeper meaning and message, easily forgotten most days.

A depiction of the two friends, one filled with compassion and sorrow, binding the wounds of another who is suffering. 

A little mahogany box with a carving of a venerable soul who taught the way of right speech, right thought and right action.

A picture of young lovers, with wounds of their own, having kept their promises to love for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health.

Today I answered the “what” of Anabeth’s questions, she, of innocence still, would not have been able to grasp the reasons I hold these objects so dear. Maybe on another day hence I will share the “why” of them. For now, I keep them in front of me, as Anabeth does her “golden” crown, unbeknownst to her, also a symbol of inspiration and aspiration.

SELF & PSYCHE

If you live with the myths in your mind, you will find yourself always in mythological situations. They cover everything that can happen to you. And that enables you to interpret the myth in relation to life, as well as life in relation to myth. ~ Joseph Campbell

I am inspired by the wisdom revealed to me in story, though I need to remind myself to translate it into daily living. Because of my life-long love of literature, leading me to a career in teaching and writing, I listen when people share their stories with me. I contemplate the nuggets of gold mined from within their stories, as well as from world literature, sacred texts, the "book of nature," and the starry heavens--all sources of wisdom to be drawn upon, as far as I am able—falling short, no doubt.

Helpful to me has been the work of Joseph Campbell, who suggests that we think of our "being" as a circle, with a dot at the center representing our self or soul, with a line above it through the circle. Above the line represents our waking consciousness; below it the subconscious. Within the subconscious is what Carl Jung referred to as the archetypal realm of images, symbols, patterns and ideas, which are both personal and universal. They exist at the ground of our being, influencing and informing us in myriad ways, and can come more to consciousness as we see or experience them around us, in nature, art, music, and other sources, including our imagination, memory, dreams and visions. They also appear in myths and literature and are felt in our desires and fears.

 

    I associate Campbell's paradigm with what he also refers to in his The Masks of God: Primitive Mythology, a three-volume work in comparative mythology in which he sees confirmation “of the unity of the race of man, not only in its biology, but also in its spiritual history, which has everywhere unfolded in the manner of a single symphony.”  This unity is expressed in a global distribution of such themes as, “fire theft, deluge, land of the dead, virgin birth, and resurrected hero…appearing everywhere in new combinations….No human society has yet been found in which such mythological motifs have not been rehearsed in liturgies; interpreted by seers, poets, theologians, or philosophers; presented in art; magnified in song; and ecstatically experienced in life empowering visions.” This "deep, deep well of the past” is in our cultural/geographic roots, in our biological, psychological and even prehistoric origins. Wired into our psyche and physiognomy is our ability to both create and respond to images, symbols and stories--the metaphors and allegories of our experience of being alive.

How do we become more aware of the archetypal, subconscious realm wherein that ancestral memory exists? By living our own story with an open mind and heart. Life is a hero's journey, as Campbell has noted, comparable to those in the great epics. We all participate in this heroic "quest" which can move us toward consciousness and conscience, as we live through the initiation of life's vicissitudes, challenges trials, loss, ultimately coming to terms with our own mortality. We also are heirs to the gifts of  beauty, wonder, joy and love along the way. Spirituality and psychology weave together when we realize that archetypal images and ideas exist both in us and apart from us. The more we are aware of that realm and explore it, the more we may awaken and begin to be guided to "translate" what we find and be comforted to know we are interconnected--past, present and future with everything that is.

Is this the goal of life? In great part, yes, I believe so. To the extent we are able to think expansively, imaginatively, without boundaries, we may enter that part of the circle which is both individual and universal in wisdom and mystery, sometimes dark, sometimes light. In this way we refine and define our  individuality—seeing and becoming who we are and wish to be.

I have learned so much through what is revealed in story through the ages, my own, as well as others' stories. I am inspired by and in awe of how we may travel back and forth across that line, a thin veil, between the waking conscious and the subconscious to discover that, from time immemorial, we have been, are and will be connected, unified in our humanity, sharing this one precious and fragile planet and infinite cosmos.

    As I said in the opening of this musing, I have to remind myself to translate, not once and for all, but ever and again what I experience, and what I have learned into every day living practice, however meagerly expressed. 

    I am striving not so much to live by story and myth, but to live with them, allowing them to live in me.

GONE FISHIN

Time is relative. Isn’t everything? It’s all a matter of perspective and perception. In reality (whatever "reality" is) time goes faster or slower depending on velocity and gravity. Hello, Einstein, or is it Newton? Not that I understand the theory of relativity or Newton’s concept of absolute time, but I do think we experience time as going by slowly when we are enduring, and faster when we are enjoying. Don't we all believe our time on this earth is brief (if not also nasty and brutish, as philosopher Thomas Hobbes suggests)? I like the definition of time attributed to Mark Twain (or was it John Lennon?). "Time is what keeps everything from happening at once.” Even better is  this one from Walden; or, Life in the Woods (1854).

                                    “Time is a but a stream I go a-fishing in.”

Hello, Henry David Thoreau, American transcendentalist writer. whose thoughts are far easier to grasp than are Newton’s (or John Lennon’s). Seems he is saying that time "just is," and we can leisurely cast into and out its eternal waters,  pulling out what we will, without an awareness of time itself. He also said we live lives of "quiet desperation," living by the world's urgencies, distractions and pre-occupations. Even back then, it seemed to him that everyone was in a hurry, stressed, anxious, and often neglectful of the more important demands and pleasures of our minds, hearts and souls, of each other, and of the gifts of nature.

         What would he think if he saw how things have accelerated since in all directions, with dependence/interdependence on ever-changing technology, misinformation, and conspiracy theories, which make his observations about time and our desperation is even more relevant, except now, there is no "quiet" desperation. It's loud and clear. The pace of life has escalated exponentially: our imagined urgencies; dependence on and addiction to “devices"; wasting, or killing “time” on social media, email, video games, in front of the TV; clicking on apps for everything imaginable—don’t get me started!      

        Yep! We have definitely been cast out of The Garden, having taken a huge bite of an Apple of another kind.

Thoreau saw where we were headed at the speed of light. And yet, how could he (or we)  have imagined that we would be headed back to the future, going chronologically forward in time, but stuck in unaddressed grievances and issues: from the Civil War (maybe even the Crusades), ongoing racial, gender and human rights issues, wars, misinformation and conspiracy theories, the uncertain fate of immigrants and refugees, to name a few? Don’t get me started!

One thing is certain: while we live in the present, our thoughts are more focused on the past or future, often fraught with regrets, anxiety, worries or fears. Remaining in the moment is difficult, which becomes painfully obvious when we attempt to meditate or clear our minds of brain chatter, or even just take a moment to breathe. Being in the present seems more possible when we are in love (with a person or a project). Then no one or nothing exists but our beloved. Being with children can also keep us in the moment, partly because we have to attend to their ever-present needs and activities. Children compel us (if we are attentive and follow their lead) to live and love each moment, mostly in play and imagination where time stands still. To quote another voice: “For the Present is the point at which time touches eternity.” (C. S. Lewis)

Of course, we often live by the calendar and clock for our day, week, month and year: off getting children off to school; getting ourselves off to work or the day’s obligations and responsibilities; catching a flight; preparing a report; paying the bills; looking ahead to a birthday, a holiday, a social event; checking texts; making phone calls; keeping appointments; FaceTiming and Zooming! There is no end in sight, unless we remember to stop and forget time. 

        When I feel quietly (or not so quietly) desperate, or my mind drifts to the absurdity that, here we are—on our little blue planet spinning madly through the dark, cold expanses of infinite space, then I must stop and put up my imaginary “GONE FISHN” sign, and take time to look up at the stars, the silver moon, or a tree in the meadow, feel the warmth of the sun, or the cool of a breeze, hear the sound of the sea, or the crickets' song.

www.robertlouiswilliams.com

    

My racing heart and mind calm in the quiet.

Until I splash back into the rushing stream where, actually, everything IS happening at once!

 

ENDLESS SUMMERS

Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs

About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,

     The night above the dingle starry,

          Time let me hail and climb

     Golden in the heydays of his eyes 

The summer of 2023 has flown by in a flash . . . going. . . going, almost gone, now at the end of August (die she must). Once there were endless summers.

    I do not have any vivid memories of summers after having moved from the city when I was 10 years old, not like the ones I have of the summers of the 1950s. There was no anticipation of endings, just living in the summer "daze." And so my mind drifts back at this time of year, like remembering a beloved book I was sad to see come to an end. 

    All was contentment in the familiar, and delight in the wonder of being a child. In short, it was the opposite of Thomas Hobbes’ assessment of life without “awe.” Childhood is a time of awe, not time for assessment; ideally it is a time for living without care, unaware of the chaos and evils of the world, of suffering humanity, and fearful of danger or death. Life then was rife with simple pleasures and discovery waiting just below the surface of everything. Like Thoreau, I go a-fishing in the stream of that time and pull out the stuff of what are now treasured memories.

    Life was lived outdoors from morning until night, no TV during the day, if at all, or any other screens to distract from the work of childhood, which is play, and just "being," lying in the cool grass gazing at the wispy clouds passing around the world, or at the sparkle of stars. 

    Ours was the only single, detached house on the block with a green fence in the front of our house, which gave it a stately appearance compared to the stoops on the other narrow row homes There were blue hydrangea (we called them snowballs) on either side of the gate. Our backyard was a theatre in which we enacted house keeping, sailing on pirate ships, flew with Peter Pan and the Darling children. We played ball, tag, jacks, or invented new games on the spot. Our backyard was alternatively a classroom for observation of nature, with shrubs, a flower garden and a taller-than-our-house cherry tree. That tree was refuge from sun and rain, and a lesson in the seasons. There was not much greenery in the otherwise little crowded hill town outside of Philadelphia proper. It was all I knew or needed of the great outdoors. And it was lovely.

In springtime, fragrant white blossoms burst forth on our tree. We proudly brought blooming branches to the May Day procession at St. Lucy’s church on Green Lane. The petals fell like snow showers, fluttering in the air, drifting blocks away and scattering on sidewalks like confetti. 

    When my sister and I visited the old neighborhood 30 years later, we found the garden and yard were cemented over, and the tree was gone.

    Was our world really that small?  

    No! That house, that street, that tree, and the endless summers of play were a boundless and beautiful world I adored, living in my mind and heart all the years since. 

When evening came on, we would listen for the circus-like tune blasted from Rodeo Joe’s ice cream truck, with a cowboy on a bucking bronco painted on the side. Favorite treats were water ice, fudge pops or orange creamcicles.  Neighbors were out on their stoops for the evening. Mrs. Pickel would buy an ice cream cone for her dog, Midnight, and feed it to him on her front stoop. Mr. Wheeler, a former boxer, would chain smoke cigarettes and watch the world go by.

         Sometimes my father would send my sister and me to Jack's Pharmacy and Soda Fountain at the corner of Baker and Gay under the El for for ice cream for the family. Walking back the short distance up the hill, carrying a bouquet of cones covered over with wax paper, we licked our own dripping cones, arriving with sticky butter pecan, chocolate and orange sherbet fingers.

After sundown, it was all street games with neighborhood children. We clapped and cheered when the streetlights came on, the signal for the revels to begin: hide and seek, card games of go fish and rummy on the warm sidewalks, jump rope with accompanying songs to keep the rhythm:

           Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, turn around

   Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, touch the ground

    Truth or Dare was a game of choice: answer a question or carry out a dare. Once a shy boy, who was usually too sick to come out to play, chose a dare, and was lowed into a city culvert by two other boys! Learning to roller skate and to ride a bike on our steep hill was thrilling and dangerous, resulting for some of us in May though August bumps, bruises and scabbed over knees. 

    

    Where were our parents? 

    No one had a swimming pool, but on the sweltering days of summer, an adult would take a wrench and open the nearest fire hydrant. Then, a flood of gushing cool water and a riot of children splashing in the water flowing into the cobblestone street below the curb, where children sent leaves, sticks or paper boats down the stream—our very own creek in the city! 

On a occasion when the neighborhood kids did became aware of a recurring danger, we would scrambl to duck on the side of a stoop or into an alleyway to avoid being hit by the car of Nick Caruso. He was my father's cousin, who, already inebriated, would periodically make rounds to people he knew asking for a shot of whiskey. Then he would get into his car (we had already taken cover), and make his reckless way up our street, swerving onto the sidewalk from time to time. It was exciting and frightening, but also funny, and we nervously laughed at the sight. I think the older kids knew it was sad too, for him, and for us to have seen it.    

    At the glimmer of the first star in the twilight sky, it was:

    Star light, star bright,  

            first star I see tonight,

      I wish I may, I wish I might

            have the wish I wish tonight.

I don't remember what I wished for back then (when I still believed wishes came true). I suppose my wishes changed over time. In my earlier years, I may have wished for more ice cream. Then later, waiting at the green gate, I wished the boy with the Elvis hair would notice me as he walked down our street each afternoon. He never did.

We played outside well into evening until we heard our mothers' call, “Come in now. It’s getting late.” On steamy summer nights, after tub baths (never heard of showers or air conditioners), my sister and I roasted in our second floor bedroom, with just a fan at the window. We talked and giggled, about what I haven’t a clue, until my father would yell up the stairway, “Don’t make me come up there. Be quiet now, and go to sleep.” 

We eventually did settle down, without stuffed animals, without stories read to us, without being tucked in—all of which we did with our children and grandchildren years later--no worse for the lack thereof, our having experienced magical moments now lost in the mists of "once below a time."(1) And through our window we could see the moon rising, and the last few fireflies, or hear the crickets' lullaby in late August, “so thin a splinter of singing."(2) We said prayers “to the close and holy darkness,” (3) and drifted off to sleep.

                                               Time held me green and dying

                                            Though I sang in my chains like the sea.

Quotes at beginning and end from Dylan Thomas's "Fern Hill

1. Dylan Thomas from "Fern Hill”

2. Carl Sandburg from “Splinter"

3. Dylan Thomas from” A Child's Christmas in Wales”

PANDEMIC POEM

Twelve full moons
Twelve new moons
Four seasons 
One orbit around the sun

500,000 souls lost 
to the “undiscovered country”

Solitude found for:
questioning what was
reflection on what will be—
our world, our selves

No going back

And America still waiting 
to be discovered

to be recovered
from a pandemic

in ignorance of Logos

MY FAVORITE THINGS

Reivised: Orignailly written for of the 2021 Call to Artists   - for a Studio B's literary and Art exhibt,  Boyertown, PA

 My Favorite Things

         Beauty, Goodness and Truth are not just a “few" of my favorite things, but  very precious things for everyone.  I strive to understand and reflect them in my life--falling far short most times, no doubt. Although they are not just “things,” rather they are qualities, or states of being; nevertheless, they are manifested outwardly and inwardly, in oursleves, in others and in the seen and unseen world. They are recognizable in people, places and life situations. We can understand and experience them, or their absence, in so many ways and places. In our own thoughts, feelings, intentions and actions, we can see, feel and be affected negatively or positively by them: in  others' gestures, speech, tone of voice, and actions. 

        The words of a song from The Sound of Music only begin to suggest the effects of my favorite things, “When I'm feeling sad / I simply remember my favorite things / And then I don't feel so bad.” There is so much more than remembering and feeling better. Beauty, Goodness and Truth each has the capacity to convey various levels of meaning, and engender gratitude and even joy, day to day and throughout a lifetime.That this trinity exists affirms life and inspires  as touchstones and guides.

Beauty

        In William Wordsworth poem, “Tintern Abbey,” he returns after five years to the banks of the River Wye in Wales. Seeing  the abbey again, and the surrounding landscape, he realizes that, “These beauteous forms, / Through a long absence, have not been to me / As is a landscape to a blind man's eye.” The scene havinglived in him all those years, was, “Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart; / And passing even into my purer mind.” I, believe Wordsworth that Beauty has, “no slight or trivial influence / On that best portion of a good man's life / His little, nameless, unremembered, acts / Of kindness and of love.“ And that when Beautym, seen or  recollected, “the heavy and the weary weight/ Of all this unintelligible world/Is lightened.” As a young poet, A.E. Housman is also affecting by 

Beauty in  "The Lovliest of Trees," where he estimate he has "threescore years and ten" to live life (70 years), and realizes that " . . .Twenty will not come again /And since to look at things in bloom / fifty springs are litle room/About the woodlands I will go/To see the cherry hung with snow. Wordsworth and Housman describe Beauty and how it affected them. As eloquent writers often do, they also articulate our own experience.

 

        Wow! Does beauty have such power? Yes!  As newly weds, over 50 years ago now, my husband spent a year in Florence, Italy. I recollect,  golden memories of being young, a life ahead, and the beauty all around in a city that, to me, was a work of art in itself: the architecture, gallaries, cathedrals, and the sunlight falling on red tile roofs and ancient stone, tall cedars on azure hills of orchards and vinyards, the green river Arno, the gardens and fountains, resounding church bells. All are "living" memories.  

      
What is beautiful we love, and in loving, we respect and protect. Whether Beauty in the moment or remembed brings peace and lightens the heavy and weary weight of the world.
A thing of beauty is a joy for ever / Its loveliness increases; It will never / Pass into nothingness; ... (Keats)

Goodness 

        Under the umbrella of Goodness are many qualities to consider: ethics, honesty, civility, patience, kindness, compassion, integrity, actions and deeds for the common good.  Goodness comes in many forms: Simple—paying it forward to the next person, when the person ahead of you at Starbucks, has paid for your coffee at. Or profound, as the story goes that, when one of Mahatma Ghandi's Hindu followers was distraught when his son was killed in a skirmish between Hindu and Muslim mobs: Ghandi advised, ”Go and find an orphan child born of Muslim parents, adopt him as your own son, and bring him to worship Allah with the ideal of non-violence.” A saintly lesson in Goodness.

We do not always see Goodness or are able to adhere to it when we most need to, It is often compromised, or intentionaly or uninentional perverted in personal agrandisemnt, conspiracies and other professional, political, cultural and even religious distortions. It can be, and is often is, difficult to live up to its  demands, yet examples are all around  if we but observe with with clear eyes, heart and mind. We can also contribute, to Goodness in our lives and in the world in significant ways, large and small, for the benefit of another, or for the common good, which fosters hope for, and faith in humanity and the future.

Truth

Truth is relative, it is said, which mostly refers to “our own truth,” specific to us as individuals, having formed opinions and beliefs, based on perceptions, experiences and the information we have (or do not have) at the time. It is often  hard to say what is and who has absolute truth. Only such truth that is irrefutable can be absolute—such as in science and mathematics  (i.e., the earth is round and 2 + 2 = 4, though some see to dispute the former, (maybe even the latter!). My understanding of the probablility of living truthfully (again, I admit to falling far short) has to rest in a commitment to striving (and recommitment) to seek truth by observing closely, listening with an open mind and heart, knowing how to think critically and employing it, then speaking honestly, acting cautiously, and as kindly as possible in all of our relationships and interactions with others, which helps create respect for and trust in one another.

Then there are those “significant if unverifiable truths," involving the transcendent, though discernable truths"" in spiritual teachings, in psychological principles, in philosophy, myths; music; literature and art, as well as in nature and the inscrutable universe. All have the capacity to inspire, motivate, enrich and sustain us beyond measure. 

                        Beauty * Goodness * Truth

    Often, Beauty, Goodness and Truth are interwoven for us to decipher what we see, read, hear, reflect upon, and attempt to understand the meaning and mystery within them and of what and who we are and wish to be. My three favorite things are often separately indistinguishable, as are the threads of a rich and brilliant tapestry design, yet, each with the power to pass into our purer mind, lightening the burden of this world, rendering it more intelligible.

DOUBTER MANIFESTO

Written after my mother passed away on my 60th birthday 1/2/08

I am still a doubter, a non-believer.

though I am faithful, reverent, and believe in a greater reality.

Call that what you will—even God,

but not the one I don’t believe in—

“micro-manager” with a plan for every one of his children.

Wait, that’s me!

Maybe He/She/It is more a Creator of Necessity

providing circumstances meant to raise consciousness

and engender actions based on the Golden Rule.

Also me—enough said!

I’d rather there is nothingness after death—oblivion 

preferable to another journey (or a judgement).

I am a coward,

but consider life heroic—just to struggle through.

I don’t believe in prayer

though I pray without ceasing.

I am no longer a romantic or naive,

usually in "ubi sunt" mode, wondering

“Where have all the flowers gone?”

I am waiting to be saved, delivered, handsomely remunerated.

I am a thinker, inspired by great ideas

realizing there is nothing new under the sun.

I wanted to be somebody.

Do you know who I am?

“I am nobody, who are you?”

I have lived long enough, learned enough to be a wise old crone.

I am afraid I only look like one.

I am always giving advice. 

I know it is futile.

Thanks for listening with a straight face when I do.

I love humanity.

It’s individuals I want to change and make more like me.

I want to live to see world peace and harmony.

I have not done a thing to make it happen.

I know it will never happen, until the rapture (which I don’t believe in).

I don’t like change, avoid it, grieving over remembrance of things past.

I am a worrier about things that will never happen.

Some of them have happened—

family and friends lost to addiction, accidents, illness, suicide.

I carry the weight of knowing that existing at every moment are:

poverty, pain, injustice, corruption, crime, torture

war and “rumors of war”

infinite and endless suffering.

I have not done a thing to ease it.

I have a hole in my heart—an “ancient injury that will not heal.”

We all have one, 

life being a rock and a hard place.

I am fortunate to feel, receive and give love,

sometimes conditionally (just ask my husband).

I am not my parents, who did everything wrong, well not everything.

They did the best they knew how--me too!

I wished never to see my children suffer

the hurt of rejection, separation, disillusionment.

They have and will suffer, being human.

That is how we become human—

the reason we are here.

Pain is consciousness.

Holes in our own hearts create collateral damage

in our children and others.

I wonder how much.

I hope they will forgive us.

I never forgave my parents

that is until my father became a child

and my mother drew her last breath.

Have you forgiven whomever for whatever?

WARNING: futile advice ahead:

Don’t wait until it is too late.

I am grateful for so much—

for LOVE—shared with

my extraordinarily gifted and faithful husband,

though I must escape from time to time or go mad;

for my children and grandchildren: rare gems

good, beautiful, true, creative, loving, caring

brilliant shining stars

to eclipse the dark matter in my heart;

for my exceptional friends

some have already left this world.

My perpetual light shine upon them.

Others remain with me to speak the language of spirit.

“Besides words, allusions and arguments 

the heart knows a hundred thousand ways to speak.”

I look forward to the rest of my life,

even if smaller and increasingly unmanageable,

except for LOVE. 

What else is there?

Until . . . THE END

(and maybe beyond?)