Here is the link on my page of the Medium platform or stay here and read here.
I have a great temporary gig in which I monitor students as they take online tests. I selfishly have been able to mine this time for my own purposes. Being confined to this time and this place has been like a nest in which ideas come to roost, and I birth them into poems. It feels like raised consciousness. It feels like I am living a poetic life, seeing layers of meaning in the everyday. It has to do with being forced into this empty space — needing to keep my attention on the students, but also needing to be stimulated. Some of the time, I am waiting for the next group of students. I keep a little sketchbook with me, and lately, I’ve been grabbing, jotting down, and capturing, these little poems, mostly haiku, to sort out the random thoughts that come to tease my attention. I took the bait, and wrote these poems — written in the first two hours of my workday. Poem 1 — It started with the drive to work in the morning: Stuck in traffic I notice The palm trees shivering in the breeze The clouds, pastel-tinged, hovering Over the ocean Dripping its soft shade Onto the wet, gently-rippling surface. On the side of the highway Because I’m crawling by, I see that my dentist has moved to a new location. It’s not my choice That I’m stuck in traffic But it is my choice To notice.
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It feels like happiness
But I know that's not the word I want It's like this realm, this place that I sometimes tap into, and want more of. I feel it when I am enthralled by the sight of butterflies or fairy terns in their aerial dance above me or when the sky is filled with amazing cloud formations or sunsets. Every so often as you go through life
You come to a crossroad It's that fork, that intersection, you have to face And you're not quite sure where to go. You do this weighing on the one hand this And then, that's on the other hand. You listen to friends who you can trust And you hope to finally understand.
![]() Love is logical It makes sense Two people attracted by mutual energies or interests or chemistry. And you experience together a bonding And you want it not to end. So you declare love for the beloved. Why doesn't it last then? Why is it so hard to find and maintain? ![]() Fear is illogical Fear is anti-love Fear causes you to question Whether or not you deserve this blessing Whether or not your beloved deserves you Whether or not there is another better illusory lovearound the corner There will be challenges - Overcoming fears, Having faith, Working through trials, Time and again But if love is good For the most part, Then why not choose love Choose to love one another. I have kept this poem, found doing spring cleaning, since 1979. I know this date because Quest/79 is in the footer on the page from which it was clipped. All my life, I have pondered this question about being in happy isolation from the world, or being an explorer of the world. Islanders deal with this tension a lot, do I stay or do I go? As an adult, a lot of who you are is defined by this choice that you make. My play, Island Space, was about this tension.
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