New Growth

There are tree experts that 

could tell me what these 

crusty brown growths are. 

I suspect they are buds 

~ for new leaves? 

Rather like all of us 

as we grow. We get 

crusty with new knowledge 

mixed with old lessons.

As leaves and blossoms 

emerge the crusts fall to the 

ground, the protection for 

new growth no longer needed.

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud 

was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”

~ Anaïs Nin, author

Steadfast

Too fast

Too much

But never enough

Do the trees ever wonder?

The green grass just grows.

And beneath the soil

Life goes on.

Slow walk

With grace

There is always enough

“True inward quietness…is not vacancy, but stability 

- the steadfastness of a single purpose.”

~ Caroline Emelia Stephen,
(1834 ~ 1909)

City Trails

Easy to follow along, 

leaving no footprints yet

imprinting your energy 

as you pass under trees 

lining the street.

Solid grey paths that lead 

to a library, a park, a store, 

or museum where life is 

bought and paid for with 

plastic or coin or the time 

it takes to make a path 

under ancient trees,

down to the restless water; 

skirting spring geese 

searching the murky shore.

Returning home, following 

a new cement trail that boasts 

cracks that heave from 

winter freeze and spring thaw 

under trees lining the street.

“I took the one less traveled by and that has made all the difference.”

~ Robert Frost

A Little Nonsense

 

Pulling words from thin air, 

air so thin 

they barely materialize 

into the light of this screen, 

and when they do 

they make little sense. 

Merely black marks, 

easily deleted 

as though never there, although 

once out there they will hover 

and who will read all these hovering words 

and thoughts and ideas and 

do they have a life span 

of a year or maybe a millennia

in this clouded world of I.T.?

“You are hurrying to the sweet place, 

To the nonsense chasing your spirit 

And in the nonsense you look for answers.”

~ Dejan Stojanovic,  Circling: 1978 - 1987

When the Rain Came

Brooding grey skies 

offer tears revealing

deep inner beauty.

“We need never be ashamed of our tears.”

~ Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

Keeping a Promise

I had to talk myself into 

going for a walk tonight. 

Not because it was evening, 

but because it had been raining. 

Grey skies and rain are not the 

best companions for a walk. 

But the rain had stopped.

I’d only be out for a short walk.

I had promised myself……..

the air was soft and cool, 

the rain merely a mist 

so fine it was invisible, 

only made real by its

gentle caress on my cheeks, 

and dark spatter on grey cement 

Hints of new growth on bushes 

and greening grass was a gift.

“Sometimes people don’t understand the promises 

they’re making when they make them.”

~ John Green, The Fault in our Stars

Easter Thoughts

When my thoughts stray 

   to Easters past, 

I think of church services, 

 singing in the choir

  Sunday School,

   families with food and fun. 

Colouring Easter eggs and 

  searching for Easter baskets 

    with previously forbidden candy;

       Easter bonnets and new dresses

And all the joy from these times 

  fades into the distant past and 

    yet is in sharper relief with  

       each turn of the years.

When my thoughts stray 

   to Easters past, 

I remember those things I believe.

“The reappearance of the light is 

the same as the survival of the soul.”

~ Victor Hugo