choose joy to be kind

 

it is moments like these where our hearts, our spirits

sit together and share our reminiscences, our sad,

our joy and hopefully we will focus on the nostalgia

of joy

 

for if the flower would hang out only when the mist

and grey hovered, its colors would not be as brilliant

its stem would not be as sturdy, and its stoma would

not flourish to feed the bees and birds

 

if the seas would wave, only, to the the moon at night

then the osprey would not soar and dolphins would

not jump, play and skip o’er glistening ocean white

caps under the gold rays of the sun

 

and so remember this moment of choosing joy in

lieu of the memory of misty grey for our choice will

grasp our hand and lead us, from this moment on,

toward kindness of our fellow ‘man’

wishing for wings

 

i wish i could be gifted wings to fly alongside

life flying by thus i could grab nostalgia by the

hand, grab the feathers of my reminisces to

share life’s melodies and dance with those of  

whom i had intended but never did

 

wish i could do this now while the world is

spinning man made negatives thus I could

replace them with distractions of the hope

my heart once felt, mine eyes once captured

joys on ‘little tots’ faces

 

and these wings, gifted to me temporarily,

would allow me to soar above the swirling

negativity, grab those i love and take them

with me so that we could share the feeling

of flying above the vitriol, the hate

celebration for me with you

 

we enter into the time of year where the mind traverses

through memories, some nostalgic of sadness and some of

joy, In most cases of wishing to bring back the fondness of

moments yet sadness that they’re no longer with us

 

to many it’s a celebration, for but a moment, in a gathering

of friends and family that are still with us but this is why

sadness is predominant because we reflect upon those that

can no longer join us in this come together moment

 

my choice is not to focus on this one moment in time but i

prefer having these gatherings intermittently throughout

the year because life is fickle and very fleeting so i wish to

trick it by bringing together my love ones before they’ve left

 

want to share my love, i want to tell them i love them when

i wish to and not on some historical figure’s designated days

placed on the calendar of their liking, for their reasons and

not for the same purpose as mine

 

i want to dance with my choice of music, wish to flail my arms

and stomp my feet with my steps, to sing the words that come

from my heart, that lifts my spirit with the joy of laughter and

praise the spirit of my conviction

 

so to this, i say to all who read these, my words, hold your spirit

high, dance and sing, have those that are with you share in this

moment of joy, not because it’s a designate day of rejoicing but

because it’s your and your love ones day of celebration with

each other for life has wings and soars by quickly

 

my footprints remembered

 

i sit still, quiet, but with soft instrumental

music streaming, surrounding me, my heart

and spirit join as one in this moment of

solitude and introspection

 

the vibrations of the soft violin and acoustic

guitar strings incite my brain waves to traverse

thoughts about the footsteps left behind and

the path where they have taken me

 

realizing that the grass blades that had entwined  

under my feet as i traversed on my life’s sojourn

will never be pressed under my feet again and i

wonder if my avian friends that sang to me as

i walked by, will they remember me?   

 

a reflection

 

a brisk cool has pierced the warmth of my abode,

it has chilled my uncovered bare feet, awaken me

and interrupted my nocturnal reverie as i open

mine eyes to witness the beginning of one more

day in the Gregorian calendar, and so in a few

more weeks, another annum of trying moments

will soon come to rest in my memory, in history

 

and like many, many others having tussled through

these last few years, resiliently pushed on with a

mindful conviction and personal commitment that

life shall provide better days ahead with choices

of surrounding oneself with kinder people, with

those that have common convictions of creating

our future days filled with kindness, love vs hate

my heart beats on

 

when the fog of shadows lift, mine eyes see light

although my shoulders ache and my legs struggle,

still with verve, i move about

 

there are moments every day, every sleepless

night where my body wishes to cease to move

but my mind trudges on, so too my spirit

 

i seek not the tentacles of happiness for this concept

is nebulous at best, although its elements, joy and

contentment, are the fibers of the cloak love wears

 

recently, I’ve had moments where the shadows have

obscured the light but my spirit has been rekindled by

hands reaching out with love and so my heart beats on

 

and it’s this beauty of Nature that mine eyes doth

witness making my heart flutter, my spirit dance,

grateful of the fortunes in my life

hues of my life

 

another Monday arrives in this month of October,

awaiting the soon to arrive November’s brisk and cold.

once again Sunday’s nocturnal stay battled and challenged

my sleep and dreams. three a.m. came along and i carried

my elder mini poodle outside to relieve herself. I place her

on the grass and like always, i look up at the sky, into the

noir of night to witness the smile of a bright and proud

moon and its twinkling friends. it seems that the star that

first captures mine eyes is one that i have seen so many

nights of my stay here on this floating rock. i think it now

knows me from my youth and thus returns my look.

as i witnessed this star a few times more, i named it the 

same as the loving nick name Mamasita had bestowed on

me, 'Nene’ and i think this star is her…

 

today i shall make ‘time’ my friend, not my nemesis

,all the years i’ve now left behind, have melded into

me and the moments of my life have molded me

 

i cannot change any moments of my past that may

have painted my life’s canvas with nebulous colors

at best or those that left shades of dark shadows

 

but like all aged, light damaged paintings covered

in a film of dust and suet, they can be renewed by

cleansing and refreshing the canvas by the same

hand that held the brush

 

the choices of which i make from now on the colors

i use shall renew and refresh the rest of the time on

this mundane canvas and i will choose my colors to

paint my life’s canvas with bright and positive hues  

becoming

 

if one pedal of a daisy or leaf on the stem of a sunflower is

discolored, it does not mean the whole flower is waning of life

but it then drops that one pedal or leaf and the life of the

flower will live on

 

when a snake sheds its skin, this does not mean it is dying but

it is purging of its former self and becomes anew and when a

caterpillar leaves its multipedal terrestrial shell, it transcends

into a miraculous mariposa

 

when the earth spews hot lava through a mountainous portal

and the arboreal canvas is burned to ashes and new seedlings

grow or when winds and storms uproot living flora then once

again, Earth’s Nature rejuvenates   

 

if this be the case, then cannot a human being depose its less

than stellar human moral foibles and transition to becoming

a flower that is reborn, or like a caterpillar into a butterfly or

the rejuvenated landscape, thus, to eschew ‘hate’ and become

a spirit of love?

unmitigated love for you

 

how many more ‘I’m sorry’ do i have left in me,

more important is how many more will you accept?

 

you accept that i am ‘human’ with many foibles

but will your heart begin to wane of forgiveness?

 

my love for you is endless and when i make mistakes

that hurt you, i am less likely to forgive myself than you

of me

 

if some day my mind will understand my heart and visa

versa, it will show that of all my human foibles, my greatest is

the unrelenting ‘sorry’, but not of the love i have for you

our need to be loved

 

what must i do to escape from the tethers of my vices, so

that my spirit can dance without restraints or constraints,

my heart can love without obstruction and my chi, will

and shall witness peace and calm?

 

i am fond of living, love the morning sunrises, love the

Moon that glows with mystery and the stars tickling

the noir of the night sky causing crickets to chirp, cicadas

being relentless in piercing the silence of sleep

                                     

and as i sit in my chosen corner, in the dark, alone with

thoughts of who i am, what i have become why i’m here, who

shares of this love in my heart and if the gift of tomorrow

arrives once more in spite of my human foibles, will i still be loved?

 

Love never sleeps

Love, i wish to breathe you with every breath

i take and scale life’s fascia with your presence

when i begin to feel the angst and see the

careless and wanton slings of pain and hurt

man thrusts upon each other.

 

do not desert me, love, but grab me, embrace me

with your strength from the beginning of the day

when the sun first shines light into mine eyes and

the dusk brings forth and clears the day for a smiling

moon that's on its way bringing along with flickering

friends of the of the night sky whilst my eyelids begin

to wave hello to the reveries and dreams of sleep.

 

so lay here next to me, oh love, and hold tight my soul

until i wake so when first mine eyes open, they will

be witness to the beauty of nature’s hand and the

feeling of you caressing my heart

joyful dawning of today

 

The cool in the first days of September are made

more memorable when the sounds of crickets pierce

the silence of nocturnal sleep of all that is life through

an open window and through the noir of night until

this morning’s delight

 

and i wait till the horizon’s light of a rising sun ascends

to the transitioning chorus of cardinals, wrens and

robins that remain behind to awaken the day giving

pleasure to my ears and soon my restless eyes

 

my heart begins to flutter with joy that i am present

amidst all this, one more day, and soon to feel the

warm embrace of my lovely wife followed by a gentle

kiss and the soft greeting of her voice, ‘good morning’

 

i cherish that i can, one more day, carry my aging mini-

poodle outside, now eighteen almost nineteen, because

she can no longer climb steps, then comes the sound of

little paws from our other mini-poodle scampering down

from the upstairs bedroom where she sleeps with my wife

 

i am joyful for the dawning of today

i shall recover

 

my heart hurts and my spirit is injured

i hope that both can recover

if the flower can sleep at the end of its season

and evince as new the next spring

then i should be able to, also

 

if the sun sets, rests at the end of the day

lets the moon have its stay

then arise from its sleep the next morning

then i should be able to, also

 

and even if my incarnate being, my body

goes to sleep to rest, to allay its time from

this mundane sojourn, its spirit shall once

again rise, maybe in a transcendent realm

but i should be able to, also

unmitigated love for you

 

how many more ‘I’m sorry’ do i have left in me,

more important is how many more will you accept?

 

you accept that i am ‘human’ with many foibles

but will your heart begin to wane of forgiveness?

 

my love for you is endless and when i make mistakes

that hurt you, i am less likely to forgive myself than you

of me

 

if some day my mind will understand my heart and visa

versa, it will show that of all my human foibles, my greatest is

the unrelenting ‘sorry’, but not of unmitigated love i have for you

 

Remember me

 

when my body will no longer hold me inside

and my feet no longer can walk and dance

my arms are not able to hold you any more

my heart will remember the love i held within

 

will my soul remember my incarnate being after

it has been set free like the flower to the tree,

the river to the ocean, the moon beams to the sea,

the wind that blows the autumn leaves and like

all of this, will you remember me?

Hola Septiembre

 

O’ September, i welcome your change of attire from bright and bold,

to where leaves shall fall from trees and paint earths canvas of verdant

fields to a sea of browns, rustic red and gold, your breath will

titillate my skin with some cool by day, by night, cold

 

your bouquet of flowers will soon drop their pedals, that shimmied

with morning dew, and sleep at the end of their season, while

Starlings, Cardinals, Robins and Turtle Doves join in a choir

of song giving praise to a crimson horizon but soon to

fly south to a more warming sun

 

Yet

 

i could see myself wandering, walking about, yet distant is

my mind as to where i am, where i have been and where

i am going

 

back in the days of my youth, the hours were so long, the

days even longer and the weeks, months and years

seemed forever, as yet, i was wandering, searching for ‘me’

 

now that more years are behind me than those before me,

i try to slow down the weeks and months by not looking

toward the next moment, the next day or week, yet, the

evincing beauty of Spring flew by and the Summer came

and has too quickly passed

 

then my eye lids open and i come to the realization that these

wanderings were not just of my reveries and dreams, but yet,

of my reality and mundane sojourn and time passing me by

 

knowing this, i will welcome the wondrous colors of Autumn

but not so much the cold of Winter, yet, i will embrace it, and

if my longevity permits, mine eyes shall behold again the

beauty of Spring that will follow, for then i will be grateful,

accepting of the aches and pains on this aged body, yet

my spirit will remain youthful, my heart never tiring of love~

unwitting tiny wave

 

many years of my life, i have felt t’if i was but a

tiny wave in the grandness of the sea, and storm

after storm would develop, arise in the middle

of its vastness when then it would roll ominously

onto shore, with tiny me enmeshed, when then

it would crash violently upon promontory of rock

where tera-firma begins and the ocean ends

 

this, symbolically, is life and how my life will most

likely resume. we all begin as tiny ripples in the

sea, forming from stardust that fell from out in

space, and we all will ride the larger wave of life

as it will continue to crash onto the rocks on shore

 

as i recognize this reality, i will embrace all that is

within the realms of my being, my heart, and so

I shall gather all these moments, wallow in their

Presence and place them in the cornucopia of life

then trudge on forward with the spirit of hope

and the heart of love, wishing for all to do the same…

 

 

my insatiable spirit

 my spirit is insatiable, mine eyes never tired of

Nature’s intrinsic smile, my sensoria of smell,

touch and taste are never sated even as my time

for nocturnal rest arrives as my spirit remains

awake, heightened with delight by dreams

and like the tree and flower who remain awake 

when all else are asleep, to embrace moon beams

as they do sunrays, for rivers still run and the ocean 

tides still ebb and rise under the noir of night with 

glistening energy from reflections of glittering stars

emptiness of loss

when a flower sleeps at the end of its season,

a bird flies o’er or a cloud soars by, we assume

the flower will grow next spring, that another

cloud will soar by and the bird will come back

to perch on the limb of a maple or oak

but when we lose a love one to heaven, the

loss leaves us so empty, we wish to see their face

one more time but we know this not to be, though

deep in our hearts and in our minds, we keep them

alive, hold onto the memory of their smile

we must shed tears from the depth of our soul,

not lose sight of their face, remembering their 

gentle touch, how smooth and soft their skin, waft

of their hair, how deeply we loved and our hearts

feeling the beat of each other’s in a warm embrace.

This is dedicated to the nine who lost their lives in

the tragic helicopter crash, to the Bryant family,

to Kobe and Gianna and, also, in memory of those

who were also in the helicopter and tragically

lost their lives. 

before

 

before these bags underneath mine eyes,

the wrinkles and the folds on my brow

 

before my two prosthetics, my displaced

shoulder and my broken digits on hands

and toes

 

before my shaggy white beard, the sparse

hair on my head covering where there is none

 

before the many days, months and years that

have passed me by, i was naïve, innocent,

i was young

 

and now i sit here, grateful for all this time,

this gift of life, mostly that i found you, my love

 

 

must love more

 A sudden absence of something or someone we cherished and an unforgivable amount of time was spent taking it or them for granted. A sudden absence, manifesting in a gasp, a deep grasp for air to breathe, an abysmal void, then, an unrelenting sadness.

We try to be 'strong' not for ourselves but for those that we care about that are also survivors of the painful loss and sudden absence. We can assuage the impact of our personal subjective and individual pain by leaning on each other, by sharing...

Behind this smile are many tears and to this end, we must love more.

gentle beginnings of the day

when my eyelids open this morn

does not mean i had been asleep

for my spirit never does nor does

my breath that breathes as the

wind blows and moon beams give

light to the night

 

the beating heart in me ceases not

for now and until it has walked on

the pathway that love has, it shall

beat in rhythm with the vibrations

of life for love never ceases to be

 

the aviary choir will awaken from

their nocturnal rest those who sleep

and excite the verve within to greet

the gentle beginnings of the day

empathic

 

there’s not a day that goes by that I don’t lament

for the pain, anguish and sadness of someone else

 

sometimes tears just begin to trickle down my cheeks

and not always do i recognize from whence and why

 

being an empathic individual is sometimes a burden

but i do not regret my heart, my caring

 

someday, those of us who are of the like, will change

the world for the better

 

a bovine accepts its journey, a foul, a fish, a caterpillar into

a butterfly, a canine, an eagle, all know of their journey

 

we, humans, still question why and for what reason

we exist in this mundane sojourn

 

we do have a purpose, if only but an open hand, a piece of

bread, a smile...

today i am grateful

 

today i saw a bird whose wing was injured,

t’was rustling about couldn’t get off the ground

 

saw my neighbors canine child that couldn’t walk

for neuropathy has stolen his gate

 

a child being pushed in a wheelchair stroller by mom,

child’s hand curled like a claw, neck and head bent

 

an elderly woman shuffling her feet with a walker,

and i opened and held the store door open for her

 

as i was driving home, went passed a graveyard, noticed

a young lady sitting at a head stone, a U.S. flag draped

 

made it home this day, sat at the base of my maple tree,

 pondered, wherefore is my heart and spirit not to be grateful

 

love does not wane

the subject of your love is fleeting

only because all things mundane are

transitory, although, love itself is eternal,

it is ever-present and is not a possession

of any one thus it does not wane, for it

 is the intrinsic make up of all, the ’one’ 

will i be remembered and carry on

 

i am in the midst of my introspection and

 reiteration of my ‘being’, my heart my spirit,

 what will the impact of my presence be and

be in relation of  this worlds sojourn

 

what of, when i befriend by my whistling with

the birds on trees, when i give the squirrel

peanuts and smell the waft of a wildflower

while gently touching its petals without felling

 

when i walk by a mother and child and i

smile at them and they smile back at me,

so that this friendly gesture will hopefully

make pleasant their day?

 

and as i take a stroll to find a tree to sit at

its rooted base, i lean against its trunk for

support while i lower mine to sit for a quiet

 pondering of all this

 

and when i pass onto my next sojourn, will

my intentions of my smile, my touch, whistling

with the birds be remembered ‘here’ and will

this carry on to my next transcending journey?

 

a smile and a tear

when the day becomes night

from the light to the black

and the smile that once was

now turns to a flow of tears

 

and the heart beats faster then

abruptly slows to a shallow pace,

it feels of something that no

one else knows

 

once, not too long before,

the spirit was full of life’s verve

and now it has waned to the

slight of tear drops falling

 

but i regret not, for once

not too long ago, a smile did

evince upon my face and for

that moment, i am grateful

 

dream of a smile

finally, i slept last night and i dreamt

that no matter which way i turned to

the faces i’d see all had smiles

 

those, that before, had tears in their eyes

the one’s that had sadness and pain

all of them had smiles

 

the bird whose wings were broken was

now mended and it flew high and sang

with other birds and they formed a choir

 

the wolf who no longer had to fear the

gun of a hunter and the dolphin not afraid

to swim without being ensnared in netting

 

i dreamt that i saw my Mamasita, now

in her heaven, singing and dancing, saying

to me ‘i’m okay, estoy bien, mi hijo’

 

and the greatest dream of them all, that

my love, my wife was cleansed of the big

‘C’ and we smiled together

 

it was nice to sleep again, nice to dream

again and when i awakened next to my love

we opened our eyes and smiled at each other 

my heart whispers

 

whispers, i hear whispers and i

listen closely but as i look around

i cannot discern from whence they

come or what they’re saying

 

i stand still and quiet, slow my breaths

i can feel my heart beating more rapid

and as iI listen more attentively, i can

now hear it beating

 

as i listen with closer attention, it is

my hearts murmuring sounds that are

the whispers and i begin to understand

what it is whispering

 

‘be passionate of what you choose to

do today, what words you say or put

on writ but whatever you choose, be

kind, say it forcefully, make your words

resounding, but above all, be truthful’

 

this is me

 

i dare not close mine eyes to sleep

for my waking may not come

not that i fear the absence of life

but i wish to breathe and laugh,

witness the sunrise and sunset

for more days to come and listen

to the songbirds, the roar of the sea

 

when i’m asked from whence and

where i came, i ask of them to listen

to the wind that whispers behind me,

look at the grass and daisies at my feet,

listen to the rustling of leaves in trees,

the howling of the wolf, the squeal of

the eagle soaring above, this is me

evil by the human hand

 

there’s a hell that has reared up from the depths

of where the flames of anguish and death reside,

the face of this demon has infested lands where

no human is insulated from its pathogenic grasp

 

of how its permeation into the human population

began we’ve yet to understand but until we do,

we must battle the insidiousness of its intent by

gathering our human resources of mind and tech

 

we must not allow for this interloper’s invasion to

wantonly assail the existence of human beings and 

degradation of our comfort and peace of mind let

alone defeat the existence of human life form

 

this demon, from whence it derived, must be found

and if by chance its inception was by the human hand,

much like the destructive nature of nuclear annihilation 

was deemed necessary to be controlled, nefarious intent

of creating these insidious pathogens must be, also

 

we, as a human life form in this mundane existence, the

proprietor of this floating rock in space, must delineate,

discern, and decide on how best to perpetuate ‘life’, our

primus responsibility, in the context of human morals and

ethics vs scientific experiments antithetical of ‘life’

 

my mention of morals and ethics has nothing to do with the

institution of ‘religion’ and conjured excuse for why life vs death,

spirit vs soul, and also in recognizing that our cognitive capacity

of the human ‘mind’ is also miniscule relative to the expanse of

knowledge in the ‘universes’, our sciences are at best, sparce

happy joy contentment

 

it is written that happiness is the goal in life

and so we search and search, gather and gather

thinking that searching and gathering things and

people, we’ll find and attain happiness

 

in our quest we do find occasional moments of joy

we embrace theses joys and recognize they are

short lived but we, if fortunate, attain many of these

moments and store them in our memory

 

as we trudge along this path of our life’s sojourn,

if happiness is yet to be found, though in our quest,

we have sated our hearts with the memories of this

journey then we become content

 

contentment is the azure of the sky, the gold of the sun,

the verdant fields, the multi-colors of wildflowers, the

tree, the eagle and the wolf, the orca and the dolphin in

the ocean’s dark blue as the moon beams kiss its waves

and waking up to all this