Oh, To Be Heard

Oh, To Be Heard

Miss Communication and Mr. Hard of Hearing walked side by side full of purpose but…..on either side of the street!

Miss Communication chatting merrily.
Mr. Hard of Hearing saying ‘Eh?’

At the crosswalk on the corners of Here and There, they didn’t know whether to turn or keep on going straight?

So they just each stood on separate corners ~ 
a shared vision losing purpose, hanging limply in the air

Miss Communication calling out loudest.
Mr. Hard of Hearing yelling ‘What?!’

“Who you are is speaking so loudly that I can’t hear what you’re saying.”

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

November Morning

Granite peaks dusted with snow
distant vision back lit with 

golden pink glow lining

cold gray ocean
sparkling frost clings 

to cars and roof tops
waiting for warm sun’s release 
from swaths of glittering white
to spreading shiny gloss.

“November always seemed to me the Norway of the year.”

~ Emily Dickinson

Frosted

Vision sharp in the night
breath in wispy clouds
dew gathers and cools
on evening asphalt
on windows of waiting cars
to be frosted ~ sparkling
under the silvery moon.

“But frost, like the crystallized dreams of autumn, 

began to coat the clearing with it’s sugar glaze.”

~ Victoria Steele Logue,  Redemption

Author's note: Edited January 13, 2024

Turned Off

The news was horrific
Every day
All over the world
Clumsy in my kitchen, I spilled my fresh cup of coffee.

People were dying horribly
Every day
All over the globe.
Not paying attention to my life, I broke a favourite piece of pottery.

I turned off the sounds of worry and fear,
stopped watching acute grieving and anguished crying.
Each morning while reading a book, calmness settled.
I took a deep breath and relaxed in safety.

Other world problems, full of angst,
plague my mind and my heart with feelings of powerlessness.
Visions of the broken, bleeding and dying, hungry and lost
too much for a tender heart with limits to help and to heal.

“One ought to hold on to one’s heart; for if one lets it go, 

one soon loses control of the head too.”

~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Author's Note: Edited January 13, 2024

Lamp Light

Lamp Light

*It’s amazing what a little lamp light can do. Trevor had been sitting alone in his ‘man cave’ feeling lost and completely out in left field. He had been fired. Only some of the household bills had been paid. His family had left him alone. He felt they had left him forever. But they were only on a planned holiday.  His wife, Mary and their two kids, Matt and Stephen. Away on a camping trip. They didn’t know about him being fired. It happened after they had gone. Happy and cheering, with Spike, their terrier, yipping and yapping.  ‘We’re going to the lake!!! Yay!! Too bad you have to work, dad!!! Love you!!’ Lots of hugs and kisses from his boys and a big, big kiss from Mary. He had gone to work after they left. Long enough to learn that his job was redundant. He emptied what little he had from his locker and just came home. In shock. 

It had been hours that he had been sitting. Only up once to go to the bathroom. Stood up like an old man. Felt weak and tired and he was only thirty two years old. As the day's light dimmed, he just wanted to sleep but his mind wouldn’t shut off. What was he supposed to do? How was he supposed to take care of his family? He stayed slumped in his chair. He dozed. 

His mind must have kept whirling because when he woke up in the total darkness of his sanctuary, his man cave, he was still worrying. He stretched his arm slowly out to the lamp, just about knocking it over, and switched it on.

All he could see, staring him in the face, was his diploma from University. A Degree in Agriculture. And here he was in the city. Suit and tie jobs. He smiled. Going into university, his young 20 something self had a vision of an organic farm. Small, with vegetables and bee hives, fruit trees and wild flowers, but something he could manage, where he could provide for his family and community. Student loans prevented him from starting on that dream. He always put it off and put it off just trying to keep things together. But he had never stopped long enough to see the dream again.

Trevor sat up slowly. Leaned forward and with elbows on his knees, his chin on his clasped hands. He began to plan for the future.

“No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and 
no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.”

~ Gautama Buddha,  Sayings of Buddha

*From Random first lines: writingexercises.co.uk

Giving the Precious

Giving the precious
A wildflower from the side of the road
A favourite toy or special jewellry
Marbles and shells 
Pretty rocks, twigs shaped into a star.

The gifts our children give us
Are wrapped in their love
With no money changing hands
Ordinary dismissed in little eyes.
Only these precious gifts share the vision of a child’s heart.

“It isn’t the size of the gift that matters, but the size of the heart that gives it.”

~ Quoted in The Angels’ Little Instruction Book 

by Eileen Elias Freeman, 1994

Building Visions

The architect that is life
Builds visions all around us
Pictures of what 
Can be
Should be
Must be
Full of desires and beautiful dreams
Outlines for life’s path
Full of potential for joy scraped raw by 
Cautions about potential dangers all around us
Curtains shading momentary real pleasures or dangers.

“The universe will never force a mindset on you. You have complete 

free agency to choose fear and suffer unnecessarily if you want to.”

~  Kimberly Giles

Conversation

Conversation began slowly 
Like a train just beginning it’s journey
A journey with no destination 
No vision mapped out 
But to go up and down
Round and round 
over well known bridges
Through lesser known tunnels
Picking up speed until dinner was served
Delicious, mmmmm
Yum!
This is wonderful!
I can’t eat another bite.
Birthday cards their own topic of conversation
Amusing, kind and charming, witty and artistic
Conversation slowed
Watches checked, eyelids fluttered
at the journey’s end of a lovely evening.

“We don’t talk, we hold forth. We don’t converse, we expound.”

~ J.D.Salinger,  Franny and Zooey