Even a Child

Family camp-out
and I’m mildly
peeved
that my air mattress
leaked last night
and left
hardpan and stone
as Nature’s bedding.

Night two,
mattress repaired
and airtight,
but at midnight,
from grandsons’ tent,
cheek-by-jowl
with ours,

the five-year-old
shrieks,
terrified or angry
or both.

I confess:
Were I the parent
I may have
shamed him:

“Shush, you’re
waking everyone.”

But his wiser
mother
soothes and comforts
and
the eight-year-old
who, the day before,
announced he
was feeling
“love for everything,”
asks his
younger brother,
“Did you have
a nightmare?”
Which the youngest
somehow knows
is a cue to
laugh,
which he does,
saying,
“you have no idea,”
and giggles.

I cherish
being taught
how
even a child
shall lead them.

(Photo by Margaret Weir; UnSplash)

 

I Knew

For a few
moments,
at 8:55 p.m.,
on a
Monday night,
I knew
I had the
courage
to love
another
without fear of
losing my
Self.
And I
didn’t need
a single thing
in return.

(Photo by Elias Maurer; UnSplash)

 

A Prophecy

It has been said
there is a time
for everything.

Of course.

There are
shelves to be
built and
weeds to be
pulled and
checkbooks to be
balanced.

PTA meetings and
Girl Scouts and
family reunions.

But let me be
a prophet
and say
this:

There will
be a time
to sit and
weave a
daydream
and
Just Say No
to the
guilt of
Time Management
schemes;

a time
to pull out
that journal
you’ve been
squeezing in
between
dental appointments;

a time to
Just Say Yes
to shedding
your Persona of
the Practical

and slipping
into the
Persona of
The Painter
or the
Pie-In-the-Sky
Poet
or the
Priest of
the Divinity
of all
Creatures.

Who knows?
You may find
this to be the
most practical thing
you’ve ever done.

(Photo by Johnny Cohen; UnSplash)

 

Which Leaves Me To Wonder

I’m thinking of
throwing myself
a party.

I’d make it
a surprise party
if I could
figure out how
to do that.

A gift or two,
something
that shows
I put some
thought
into it,
something
that will
make me
exclaim,
“Oh, you
shouldn’t have.”

Of course
there would be
a card,
with watercolor
hearts
and a clever,
maybe bittersweet
way to say,
“I love you
just the way
you are,”
even though
that’s as corny
as can be.

Maybe all of
that is
nothing
but narcissistic
mirror worship.

Which
leaves me
to wonder:

Whatever did
Jesus mean
when he said,

“You should love
the other Ones
just like
you love
your Self?”

(Photo by Ali Abdul Rahman, UnSplash)

 

The Stash

I’m learning
to imagine
a little stash.

Mine has
maps of places
I have a yen
to see,

stories
I have an itch
to tell,
with oddball,
misfit
characters
I want you to
meet,

lists of
writers and
moviemakers
whose own
quirky
imaginations
I’d love to
sit down with,
on my shady
garden bench,
or my front row
sofa seat.

This stash
has a sacred
purpose:

If I am
being sucked
into the
Black Hole,
you know
the one,
where shame
or alienation
are wrestling you
into
surrender,

your Stash
can be your
lifeboat.

Trust me
on this.

(Photo by Alvaro Serrano, UnSplash)

 

Doorway

There is a
doorway.

On this side
of the door are
chore lists with
check boxes,
treadmills,
paeans to the
Puritan Work Ethic,
Codes of Conduct and
corporate
Vision Statements;
entire religions,
in fact.

On the other side
of the door are
songs that come
to the singer
in a dream,
stories that
come through
the teller
and wrap
the listener
in bearhugs of
feelings so
fierce
they contain
deaths and
resurrections,
pictures so
vivid
they rebuild
your eyes
from scratch.

Can we meet
on the other side
of that door?

I call it
The Mystery.
I’d love
to hear
what
you call it.

(Photo by Sean Thoman, UnSplash)

 

Perfect Crimson Blossoms

Imagine two
rosebushes,
planted by unseen
hands,

one in the
palace garden
of a storybook
princess,

one in a
cracked pot
on the crooked
steps of a
maidservant’s
hovel.

Each morning
the maidservant,
who loves the
princess,
places a perfect
crimson blossom
behind the
princess’ ear.

Each morning
the maidservant’s
barefoot daughter,
who loves her,
places a perfect
crimson blossom
behind her
mother’s ear.

Some of us
anxiously puzzle
whether we’re
more like
the princess or
the maidservant.

I like conjuring
the lesson of
the perfect
crimson blossoms,
and recalling that
a wise woman
said
“a rose is
a rose is
a rose.”

(Photo by Carlos Quintero, UnSplash)
(Wise Woman: Gertrude Stein)

 

The Tahiti Button

You know
that moment
when
you know
you can push
the button and
buy the ticket to
Tahiti?

Even though
you’ve believed
you couldn’t or
shouldn’t
a thousand times
before?

And then you
push it?

You know
that voice
that says
you’ve fallen
short,
you’re not
who you’d hoped
to be
by now?

The voice
you’ve heard
a thousand times
before?

And there’s proof,
right?
That towering
pile of
“coulds” and “shoulds,”
but you
don’t or won’t?

I’m starting to
wonder
what those
voices are
hiding.

I’m starting to
wonder
if there’s a
“do” and “will”
button
and

pushing it
is like
pushing the
Tahiti Button.

(Photo by Kristopher Roller, UnSplash)

 

Entitled

“Entitlement” needs a
press agent and
I’m applying for
the job.

Let’s start with
you.

In spite of
bad press
to the contrary,
you are entitled
to be
entitled.

Let me
count the ways, or
at least
a few of them.

You are entitled
to prefer a
motel bed and a
rundown dive
diner and a
waitress named
Beatrice

to a backpack
and a campfire
and a tent.

You are entitled
to stoke your
soul
at the
Spotted Cat Club
on Frenchmen Street,
listening to
Trombone Shorty
and
Leroy Jones,

instead of
hiking the
Pacific Crest.

You are entitled
to sit, alone,
on the business end
of your couch
potato patch,
waiting,
because you have
a poem to write
and
your Muse
is running late,

instead of
going to Roger’s
Super Bowl hangout, or
mowing the lawn or
re-ordering
the garage.

Or vice versa,
or all of it,
or nothing at all,
for a day or
a week or
a year.

You are entitled
to be
you.

(Photo by Vidit Goswami, UnSplash)

 

Pokemon Satori

Walking from
the car to the
Marine Science Center,
with the
grandsons,
eight and five.

Who have insisted
they must be
allowed to bring
Psyduck and Scorbunny,
their Pokemon
comfort creatures,
which they
clutch
with determined
ferocity.

I concede,
not wishing
to have my
grandparenting
license
revoked.
But
knowing
full well

I will soon be
the designated
carrier,
as the boys
scamper
in a dozen
directions
to view the
octopus and
other denizens of
briny tanks and
tidepools.

I lose sight
of them and
hope
grandma is on
tracking duty.

Now there are
looks askance
and
side-eyed
glances

at the old dude
who apparently
carries
stuffed animals
for security
purposes.

My heart throbs
with joy
as I realize
that being seen
as a man
who would
saunter about
brazenly hugging
toy creatures,
for mysterious
reasons,
and wallowing
in delight
about the
furtive attention,
probably means
I have attained

Pokemon Satori.

(Photo by Sue Gillard)