Friday, February 21, 2020


Open Hours
Shrinking interludes
expanding horizon a
present challenge
Time shrinks
between waking
and sleeping
Imagination
endows existing
moments
Redesigning
slowness for a
world on speed
Spending time
to practice
breathing
Feeling the contours of
a moral and
spiritual life
I can't keep up
read what everyone
is reading
Know what
everyone is
saying
Fear of being left
behind stresses
the spirit
Revisit the intermissions
remove the
stumbling blocks
Egress from
a season of
enduring
To a chance
to embrace
life
And find new
ways of
growing up



My Dad
1989-1996

Contrary to conventional wisdom, I contend time does not move in regular intervals. To be true, circumstances may determine the amount of time we have, but each one gets to decide for ourselves how to use the time we have. One year when I called Dad to wish him a happy birthday, my mother answered the phone and told me Dad was out back planting walnut trees. She asked me to wait while she went to get him. When he got to the phone I asked, "Dad, you're 80 years old: are you planting the trees for the nuts or the lumber?" He answered, "I've got time." When he died, 17 years later, the trees were bearing and could have been cut for lumber, but that, of course, was not the point.

Wednesday, February 5, 2020

A Penitent's Prayer

I pause on
the borderline
of prayer

My soul
simmering in
sorrow and joy

Searching for
a place to
push off from

Prophets of quietude
distracting with
empty phrases

Declaring love is
without
justice and

Grace does not
require
compassion

Replace the counterfeit
with fresh and
honest words

Challenging
with the substance
of hope

Linking transcendent
myth and
reasoning truth

Tools I can
use to repair
my story