A Measure of Peace

Warm and mellow, 

music softens the hour, 

bringing to the soul 

measured notes of peace

found only in eventide.

“Music is the language of the spirit. 

~ Kahlil Gibran

Swirls and Twirls

No reason 

had the wind that blew

except to whistle 

that cold had passed

 

and to tousle my hair in 

shapes no stylist dared dream. 

Yet I walked in the sun and 

let wind comb my hair today.

‘I was born on the prairies where the wind blew free 

and there was nothing to break the light of the sun.”

~ Geronimo

A Prairie Spring Day

 

Sunlight drifts from the sky 

sparrows and prairie gulls, 

settle and grow quiet ~

cheered by the warm spring.

Caught up in such openness, 

with doors wide; pottering and puttering inside and out made a minute out of 12 hours. 

Leaves and flowers have yet to make their entrance, yet it is the drying puddles, the disappointed and 

shrunken snowbanks that signal a prairie spring. Until now, 

sleepy and content, I am penning 

these few words before days end.

“Spring won’t let me stay in this house any longer! 

I must get out and breathe the air deeply again.”

~ Gustav Mahler

Fly by Night Poetry

There are other poems 

In my mind. 

I see them flying by 

but have yet to catch them. 

The words come at 

inopportune times ~ when 

away from my pen and paper, 

or perhaps in the shower, 

or sometimes when I’m out 

for a walk. These fly by night 

suggestions for poetry never 

stop long enough for me

to get pen and paper, 

but they do cheer me. 

So I keep writing, 

filling notebooks and loose leaf 

in hopes that one day, 

one of the little poems will get 

distracted and slip down the barrel 

of my pen, tracing itself on the page.

“Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance.”

~ Carl Sandburg

Every Day Life

 

Eternally grateful am I 

for the winds of change 

that bring good fortune or bad. 

It may be that I am grateful

to be challenged to reach within 

to find the courage to live my days

as I’ve lived in the before times. 

Turns out that the courage is not 

challenging the wind, but my own 

fear of impending devastation. 

That fear trembles and freezes at 

the same time; the fear that threatens 

immediate destruction in everyday life, 

that fear that only I can deal with. 

The external is way beyond my abilities! 

My fear is where I live ~

where my feet are ~

where my home is. 

If I allow it to knock me over

then I’ll miss birthday parties, 

walks in the sun or snow, 

laughter with my family 

and all the every day

joys and sorrows of life.

“Courage is resistance to rear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.”

~ Mark Twain

Hangin' Ten

Cresting a wave of 

frustration and fear, 

it was ride the wave 

or drown. 

Never having surfed 

~ having little choice 

but to ride this wave ~ 

balance on this slippery 

surfboard keeps me afloat.

“I don’t want to not live because of my fear of what could happen.”

~ Laird Hamilton, wave rider

Colour between the Lines

Nuances that shape 

our lives, are in colour; 

the shading of our words 

slip between absolutes 

Right or wrong, 

black or white… 

forgetting the space 

between is filled with 

the creative human spirit.

“It’s partly true, too, but it isn’t all true. 

People always think something’s all true.”

~ J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye