Loud Hope

There are times when I speak as one with authority out of hope that my words are true. Words about a loved one’s success and well being spring forth from my lips in the midst of much evidence to the contrary. I can hope. Even when everything around be screams otherwise. I can hope and forgive me if I hope loudly.

I believe there is a Divine power working against the odds and since I am powerless over this one, whom I adore with every ounce of my being, I am proclaiming that which my heart cannot feel.

Be victorious my child!

The Last Cicada

The last cicada sings
Into the crisp fall air
A final call of
Fall’s end, winter’s era

Leaves cling
To branches high
Not one wants
To release and die

A father dreams
Of his son’s flight
But silence returns
From this season’s night

[Chorus]
Seasons change
Seasons go
Season remain
Ever so slow

Summer leaves
To find its fall
The stillness breaks
Upon us all

The last cicada sings
The final tear falls
We are cold
We are so small

A baby cries
Her first breath of life
Mother’s arms are gone
An women will live in strife

[Chorus]

Sometimes we must burrow
Deep into the earth
Waiting there, searching
For the matter of our birth

Remembering when we can
That as this begins
We can return as
The last cicada sings

[Chorus]

The last cicada sings
Into the crisp fall air
A final call of
Fall’s end, winter’s era

Leaves cling
To branches high
Not one wants
To release and die


NOTE: in the depths of a hike in SC, i heard a lone cicada. while only weeks before i had heard the deafening noise of thier community screaming, only one remained. the words above come from that last cicada's song.

Hiking It Off

The earth under foot
Passing
Thoughts fade into
Absence
Embraces singularity
Feels
Effortless striding
Forth
Coming homeward
Bound
Less of me resting
Heavy
Burdens dripping
Soaking
Into the soil beneath
Me

Wisdom

An illusive wisp
Sophia dancing
From our grasp and swirling
Into brief awareness
Remembered only as afterthoughts
Insulting epiphanies
Propelling us to the next level
Of incompetence

An Evening of Musical Empowerment

Saturday evening I had a disturbingly wonderful night of music thanks to the folks at Mack and Mack Clothing, Triad Acoustic Stage and the Queen of the Eighty Eights – Kelley Hunt!

Ok, I must confess that prior to this event I had never even heard of Kelley Hunt. How my life ever had the illusion of completeness without knowledge and experience of this woman’s music, I shall never know. Her art, passion and superb talent reached deep into my spirit and shook out, up and over my blues and boogie-woogie.

Google her up and take a listen. You will be glad you did – otherwise, completeness will remain beyond your grasp.

Be sure and check out her songs 'Mercy' and 'Love.'

Enough Gloom Already

As much as you do or do not consider yourself an artist, you understand the following – I feel intensely and often, and more often than not my creative expressions are moved by the 'dark side' of my feelings. It is more often struggle, pain, fear, anxiety or despair that will propel itself through me and into the words of these pages. Joyfulness, peace, love, contentment – these are not so demanding of a voice. I am usually content to just feel them. The others, those 'dark side' feelings, I usually want to get them out and go beyond them, so I write. It helps.

If you are wandering around here, this concept of self preservation through expression is important as is the tendency for those expressions to be a bit – well – dark. Strangely enough, if you were to speak to me, even on the days I wrote the darkest words, casting gloom, despair and agony on me (be sure and catch the reference to HeeHaw), I would not appear unusually troubled.

I guess what I am trying to claim here, is that I am a positive and hopeful person. I literally ooze hope and faith. I do. Those overflowings of hope don’t always make it here.

Please accept my apologies for being so one-sidedly creative here, and that is what I do.

Now, follow the rules and leave a comment or else I’ll get depressed and launch into poetry.

Relief

Wandering in the woods

Or In the mind

Of seasoned 'scapes

Brings reasonable

Lavish dreamers

Hopeful clarity

I Feel, Therefore I am

Sympathy

Empathy

Solitude

Sometimes feelings are so deep and personal that all that can be done is to feel them.

Nonsensical?

Why is it that we insist, and I do mean “we” for it is my plot as well, in making sense of life – our life? Making sense of it all is a feeble attempt to remove the inherent mystery of life. Life does not ‘make sense’ if we mean by such rhetoric that life can be fully understood and explained in the same manner one might give directions to a favorite restaurant.

Myth, mystery, paradigm are words more akin to describing life, one’s life, one’s journey. Yet, we persist in trying to explain and reason our way through this existence and hope that we can find enough solidity so we may linger for another moment in the vain and frail belief of a life that makes sense. When in fact, are we not confounded by our attempts at truth and fact?

We are left with nothing more than the necessity of surrender as we fall into the chasm that reason cannot grasp and find there not a plummet to the death, but rather a descent of rapturous delight engulfing the senses that plays ever so amusingly with our spirit and carries us aloft, not down, and sets us once again on the seemingly solid ground of tomorrow. There we can imagine that we are secure, safe, and reasonable – until life comes passing again and we are unable to understand, forced to believe in and then against reason, again.

Ours is a riotous ride of delight.

Good Morning Life

Virtually, each morning I am the first awake in my household. I shower, dress for work, feed and care for the dogs. In the quiet of the predawn dark, I check my email, print my work schedule, and perhaps, if time allows, visit a blog friend or two.

The dogs rush with me back upstairs and are off to nestle in bed with my wife. I wash a few dishes from the night before, make coffee and in rhythm to the churning drips and gentle aromas, prepare my breakfast. I usually have a bowl of cereal topped with some fresh fruit and a little protein powder. In the dim light of morn, I walk out front to retrieve the paper, scanning the headlines as I settle back at the table to eat, sip coffee with a touch of cream, and begin my day.

Shortly, I make my way back upstairs, walk quietly into my bedroom, and into the bathroom. I shut the door in darkness and turn on the light. A moment spent brushing my teeth and then I turn out the light. I pause, just allowing my eyes to adjust, open the door to the bedroom and as much by touch as sight, find my way to the bedside. I follow my touch, finger tips tracing the mattress top, over her pillow to the top of her head. I lean over slightly and kiss her.

“Have a great day,” I always say softly.

Sometimes she will whisper a similar greeting, words finding their way through sleep’s veil. Sometimes she will remain silent, perhaps unconscious of my presence, captured still by the arms of deepest slumber. Yet, always, always, she will stir a bit; snuggling toward the sleeping dogs.

In that moment I know why I work, why I strive to be a better man, and why I am so determined to succeed today. In that moment, I am alive as much as any man can be, and I am grateful.