Somewhere your child

Is enthralling the day,
Tasting the breeze,
Seeing their way,
Honoring friends
Like it’s child’s play,
Giving all just as you would.

Sitting at home
You cannot know
What you would do
As opportunities grow
And you had the breath
To not take it slow
And could break from a world of should.

But just check your heart
Remember the days
When so many options
Travelled your way
And you chose the ones
That brought you to play 
On the doorstep of this generation.

Struggles remain 
And then they transform,
The trick of a lifetime
Changes the norm,
But there you are still
In the calm before storm,
As your sunset gives birth to creation.

Travel

Travel
Is reality’s second cousin.
You’re not sure
How you’re related
But you cherish 
The connection.

These people sit
At cafes don’t they,
Facing what 
They face
With their thimbleful
Of history?

And yet
They walk,
Smile,
Need,
Rush to watch
The dancers, clowns and spirit animals;
The crowds convulse and change.

Alone you guess
That people can be wondrous
Close your eyes and
Touch your face.
Moi aussi.
A prayer 
Escapes your lips. 

Waking

Woke up halfway thru a poem,
And nothing was rhyming.
Are you afraid of dying, the boy asked,
No, I’ll go on a little while.

Walked to Kansas and back
From my bedroom,
Glinting light bouncing off the walls,
Excavating dreams that made me
More than I’d been before,
Wondering just how large the ego gets
Before it disappears.

The boy sat still.
Don’t expect to be great
And greater you will be,
The gifts that are truly yours
Come through you.

Earth Prayer

Illustration by Khorshed Dubash

Let me sit where the Earth will hear
Though I don’t know what I’ll say,
Where river breezes banish fear,
I’ll sit me down to pray.

Apologies unnecessary,
Yet the wounds I’ve made are deep,
What could I do to make it up
Before She puts me back to sleep?

Honor Her from this day forth?
That could be my ego’s theme,
Think about pollution
That clouds my children’s dreams?

My prayer for Earth
Is simple as the apron of a mother,
I pray that we respect our world
By talking to each other.

Gallop

And the day will come
And then will be gone
And you did what you waited to do
And moved on,

And the reckoning came
And went just as fast
Because nothing no nothing
In this little world lasts,

And you faced the demon
The moment of truth,
But you kept on running
Chasing your youth,

And looking for something
Beyond your nose
The shape of the future
That nobody knows,

And tomorrow will surely
Arrive on the day
And the sun will still rise
When you’ve gone away,

And it will surprise
Looking over your shoulder
That those who remember
Are only the older,

And foundations you laid
And thought to support
Have long ago crumbled
Like some ancient fort,

Defending the freedoms of
Moments that pass
To breathe in the miracle
That cannot last.

Debt

Why do you say father
And not the soil?
Each minute particle
To consciously or unconsciously
Say yes to, but do we?

Or do we preen instead
And abdicate
Knowledge blindly passed
To the other particles

So that no one can
Distinguish his brother
To say thank you.

Language Differences

Men report,
Women engage,
Gossip like velcro
Hook and assuage.
Deepen the dialogue,
Finding the matter,
Undressing some falsehood,
Or harmless natter?

Men on the other hand
Monolog acts,
Contract with business talk,
Moving the tacks.
How many achievements
Those were all mine,
How many badges,
For how much trying.

Women use ground water,
And circle their harvests,
Men shoot their arrows
And only hit targets.

Small Complaint

I have this little ear thing,
It makes me kind of deaf.
If you would like to reach me,
Speak not unto my left.

My right-hand side still hears okay,
Except upon occasion,
When I don’t like the things you say
And need a quick evasion.

I have this little defect
I can’t remember words,
Like ‘regiment’ and ‘labrynthe’,
My speech is quite absurd.

I know it’s not dementia,
My mind is like a trap.
The words get trapped ‘tween
Brain and tongue,
And fear to leap the gap.

I have this little knee thing,
A teeny, weeny pain.
It hurts me when I’m walking,
From jogging I refrain.

And swimming, yoga, making love,
Can’t stand that little ache,
My choice is keep on truckin’
Or start to plan the wake.

There was a Nervous Man

There was a nervous man,
Lived in a nervous house,
He had a nervous dog
And a nervous little spouse.

He had a little tic
That twitched in every case,
And when he raised his eyebrows,
It twitched right off his face.

He cursed his nervous habits,
And his life of nervous need,
But dared not change them,
Oh no no!
Who knows where that would lead!

But sometimes dreamt a universe
In which he played a part,
And peering at that nervous world,
Found his resilient heart.