Just Around the Corner

Just around the corner 

there is always something 

that wasn’t there yesterday. 

Maybe just a black shiny pebble 

tossed from a child’s hand, 

  maybe a new fence erected 

    maybe tiny weeds growing,

flowering amid drying grasses. 

Noticing these tiny changes 

in a world gone mad 

shows me that 

   the black shiny pebble, 

      the new fence, 

        the tiny flowering weeds 

know nothing of the state of our planet. 

They have no ears to hear the chaos, 

   nor eyes to watch out for a new face in the news. 

But they are always just around the corner.

“There is one thing which gives radiance to everything. 

It is the idea of something around the corner,”

Gilbert K. Chesterton, writer

(1874 ~ 1936)

The Ground Beneath My Feet

Artful dodging through 

sound bites and camera flashes ~ just a little chaos in the moment that makes me forget 

what I believe, 

where I am and 

who I want to be. 

When I blink my eyes 

or plug my ears, 

I feel the ground 

beneath my feet and am glad.

“If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, 

as the old bumper sticker has it, 

dazzle them with bullshit.”

~ Sam Leith, Words like Loaded Pistols

Sepia Shadows

Sinking into sleep, 

where all ambient noise 

ambles away 

where sepia shadows 

ease into dreamland,

body and mind flow gently

into the softness of sleep.

“Sleep’s what we need. It produces an emptiness in us 

into which sooner or later energies flow.”

~  John Cage, M: Writings ’67 - ‘72

Arms Spread Wide

There is no end to balance. 

When I look through an 

ordinary day, I am constantly 

balancing something. 

My physical balance is always questionable, 

but I think mostly of the 

balance of sound and taste ~ 

is the TV too loud or too soft; 

when I make granola, as I did tonight, did I balance the spices ~ I overdid it on the ginger, but I do like ginger. 

And when the sun is slipping 

away for the night, are my lights 

in my home sufficient for writing 

or reading? When my head space 

is crammed full of only that one 

thing, I could have missed the rest 

of life, so we learn as we grow

spreading our ams wide to embrace life.

“Live your life with arms wide open. 

Today is where your book begins. 

The rest is still unwritten.”

~ Natasha Bedingfield, singer, songwriter

Solitude ~ 3

Solitude sounds are soft,

 masked only by the 

  noise in our minds.

“The atmosphere defines the environment of sound.”

~ Bill Laswell, bassist