Faded

This is the first in a very long time that I’ve missed my own morning requirement to write and post on this blog. Besides visiting in Regina for ten days while meeting my great grand daughter ~ she is quite beautiful, you know ~ I had two days at home, then dashed off to Vancouver for a short, challenging family visit. After a too late night, a too early morning, a choppy sleep (accompanied by a sweet kitty), and what felt like an excruciatingly long bus ride home, I finally had a nap while attempting to listen to Bill’s Brain (about Bill Gates)! This short poem is the residue of this most recent experience.

         Faded

Few words and thoughts

when sleep hovers, 

hide behind sagging eyelids.

Kindness to myself is

quiet, comfort and warmth.

Being gentle with myself is

to slow down, rest and be at ease.

“I think the highest and lowest points are 

the important ones. Anything else is just in between”

~ Jim Morrison

Animal Talk

This morning I was provided with information about why animals sleep by two of my favourite animals:  Eva, my grand-dog and her favourite playmate Purdy, the Cat. Here are their lessons which may or may not be valuable for my readers. By the way, I have been instructed that there are to be no pictures of, especially Purdy, in sleep. Eva really doesn’t care, but just to respect their friendship………

Eva:  When a dog sleeps

it is solid and sudden

because there is

nothing better to do -

no human to accept 

my undying affection.

Purdy:  When a cat sleeps

it is a decision - not just

a decision but my decision.

There is no ‘because’. 

My well reasoned decision

relates to my comfort.

My choice of where to sleep

is in a darkened room

on a human’s large bed, 

centred at the bottom edge of
two, rather flat, pillows

which gives me 

sufficient room to curl up

for my well deserved nap.

“Some people talk to animals. Not many listen though. That’s the problem.”

~ A.A.Milne

Awake

A strange wind seems a-blowing

but the trees are still and quiet?

Only sparse traffic opens 

the fringed curtains on today.

The steady muscular heaviness of 

buses and trucks not yet loud 

enough to shake us all from slumber.

These rumbling sounds of the city

unnecessary for those of us already awake.

“In every sound, the hidden silence sleeps,”

~ Dejan Stojanovic,  The Creator

My Own

To be quiet 

To gather my thoughts

Sort out a ‘schedule’ as

helter-skelter as yesterdays winds.

Sudden spaces of comfort and calm ~ still a bit foreign to me ~ welcome me whether I know them or not.

Progress through each minute

gets to be at my own snail or jack rabbit pace ~ unless

a quirky or intriguing call beckons from any distance from family or friends.

Even then ~ owning my pace is my choice.

“I’m going through life’s cycles at an alarmingly fast pace, 

but my persona has a Peter Pan quality: he doesn’t age.”

~ Billy Collins

On the Island

The south east wind blows cold, flattening long grasses

til their heads bow low

obedient to the whim of this bossy wind.

Brown eyed Susans stand bright and tall, cheerily defiant in these late summer days.

Tree branches wave and bob restlessly in jazz time and tune to this gutsy weather.

Fat rain drops, refrigerated by snowy mountain tops,

are flung helter-skelter onto patient Mother Earth,

into gullied curbs, container gardens and questionably brave umbrellas.

Fall edges closer but is still days away.

Today already feels as though this hilarious

west coast winter is impatient to race in and take over.

“Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get.”

~ Mark Twain

Red Gold

This morning’s words are

stuck in this middling place 

of leaving ‘home’ to go home.

Words not knowing 

which direction to take until

each memory settles like falling red gold leaves ~

gently piling in the corners and edges of my mind and warm spaces of my home and my heart.

I pack my heart on this morning with this new/old laughter of ‘home’ while I pack my luggage with the 

beautifully storied laundry of tomorrow.

“Home is where we tie one end of the thread of life.”

~ Martin Buxbaum, poet

Middling

Caught 

in the middle with 

lives on each side 

jostling and jiving for attention and love while standing on the middle of life’s teeter totter 

edging back and forth so I won’t fall off into the dirt and dust of the old school yard or onto grassy asphalt streets of maturity.

Through it all revelling in the warmth and love 

of family and friends,

wee precious new ones and beautiful, crumpled elders

This middle place where I stand is my own crumpled heart 

expanding daily to hold all my

  memories and plans,

    dreams and progress. 

Each morning as I open sleepy eyes, 

place still strong bare feet on the floor,

I am grounded 

in my own worth and worthiness

from all my loved ones have given me.

“You are, at this moment, standing, 

right in the middle of your own ‘acres of diamonds’.”

~ Earl Nightingale