Morning

My feathery friends in the morning wake
Share playful songs of praise
attesting to the suns brilliant rays
Arising to await the joy
Of another day

When I walk into your space
that gentle look upon your face
your soft blue eyes stare into mine
And with a warm caress
our arms gather each other close
In a love filled embrace
Causing our two hearts
in synchrony, to race

This gives worth
To my day

Filling the Void

Alone; I used to be saddened by the concept.
I used to see it in my mother’s eyes,
in her tears when she wouldn’t know I’d see her crying.
I would think about her life and how our father left her
abandoned us, me, never to see him or hear his voice.
Mother gave us a picture of him one Christmas
when I was already thirty three.
She tried to share her life with other men
but we were of a different culture and too many of us.
I don’t think they truly cared for her or us
so they, too, abandoned us and I ‘felt’ her being alone.
When I could not have new shirts, pants
or shoes but only ‘used‘ and ‘hand-me-downs
I wouldn’t talk in school and walk home alone.
Later, too soon, I realized an emptiness filled our home
when once we had shared space, laughing and fighting,
singing and crying, now all have gone their own way.
Life has elucidated so, that ‘friends‘ are like leaves in trees,
they come and they go. Should I take this personally?
My lovely wife sometimes loves me, I know my ‘kids’,
Jules and Jaz, our two miniature poodles, do.
I now read prolifically, quite often living vicariously
in the written words of others.
Traveling the world, it would be fun, not just to visit
but to live as ‘Romans do“ and somewhere doing something
selflessly. A replacement to an emptiness, to the feeling of being alone.
Alone, we are all alone, it is ’the reality’!
I am no longer saddened by it,
but accept and understand how to fill the void.

Possum

It seemed to be hobbling slowly, as if inebriated, across my neighbors front lawn. Not knowing what type of wild life it was, I carefully walked toward it as it persist to stumble, aimlessly, without fear of my approach. Then it gingerly sat its haunch on the ground starring at me with its narrow snout, Grayish was its hair with a long leathery tail and leathery looking black ears. Sitting there it just stared at me as I approached closer. A blank stare almost of wonderment as it, with a preceding head wobble, fell side ways onto the grass. Laying there, all of a sudden it raised its upper torso and turned its head once more to look at me. It was a look of bewilderment staring at me almost in a query asking ‘why?’. It then slowly rested its head onto the grass and somehow I knew it was its last life effort. When it looked at me I felt sad and at the same time guilty that I couldn’t do anything to help not knowing what its situation was and also being inexperienced at rescuing this type of wild life. As it lay their for a moment, I now approached closer to see if there were chest or stomach movement, indications of breathing. I notice the belly moving about and at first I thought it was still breathing. At closer observation, I noticed a tiny little clawed foot and a tiny long prehensile looking tail, pink color like a new born baby’s skin, attempting to shimmy out of its pouch. This is when I deduced it was a possum marsupial. A mom that had just taken its last breath because it just lay there without chest breathing movement and now its eyes were wide open and glassed over.

Earlier, I had called animal control when first I saw it gingerly ambling across the front lawn of my next door neighbors house. They had not arrived yet and I felt helpless and surprisingly saddened to where I felt a tear trickling from my eyes and tickling down my cheek. It was that last struggling look toward me that had been impressed upon my human empathetic memory. When, finally, the wild life officer pulled up and observed the now stiff body laying down I pointed out the movement in mamas pouch and explained to him the movement of her stumbling about that I had observed prior to her expiring. He said it sounded like it had been poisoned. As he picked her up from the tail, a now stiff body, he proceeded to say, seeming sympathetic, that some wild life whose carcasses had been found recently showed indications of poisoning with anti-freeze. He stated that if this was one of those indications, even though they would try to keep it alive, the little one in the pouch would probably not survive.

As he pulled away I recalled that wide eyed life ending stare from ‘mom’, taking her last breath, was more a look at me as a human species rather than as an individuals inability to help another living being. I, unabashedly, sat down in my front lawn and soulfully cried. This, a dark cloud on an otherwise beautiful sunny warm Spring day.

Spring Dance

Warm, your breadth arrives
of lavender lilac and white wisteria
it awakens all from a wintry sleep
Your welcoming presence evokes
a dress of colorful freshness

sounds of feathered flocks
cast shadows in the sky
and terrestrials rustle and scamper about
filling the air with the sounds of flirtatious whistles
and teasing chirps and caws

The mirrored ponds long hard and still,
now wave and dance in step
with the gentle swirling breeze
causing its inhabitants
to peek out above and observe
the dance of Spring

'just think'n'

On this canvas where I am but a small spatter
where a paint brush is spontaneously flung and
I hang on with dear life onto the fibers till I dry in time
and that brush then paints with different strokes and colors
around me and I become integral to the scene
captured by the creators eye and in his
imaginative vision I exist

Simple

Simple is the man who sits outside to sell his wares.
Throughout the day he sits in rain and cold
with a back that aches, legs and fingers cramp,
complaints are few for his eyes have seen what wars can do
and this, simply, he does in order to eat and share
with those for whom he cares.

His wife who bears their children
and makes the wares he sells,
cooks the food they buy
and warms the home they all sleep in,
she truly is the ‘telltale heart’.

The arduous daily tasks are made simple
with smiles and embraces attempting to hide
the struggle and strife of Life’s woes
and man’s soulful lamentations
with its constant struggle of understanding
the creation of our Universe whether of chaos and spontaneity
or intervention from Divinity
and Man’s proclivity of a destructive affinity.

Simplicity is that the sky hovers high,
the wind blows and moves the trees, the flowers and the seas,
birds ride the waves of the wind
and sea ferrying creatures ride the ocean tides,
the stars poke the night with tiny beacons of light
until the moon harkens upon the darken sky.

As time travels and it gathers with delight
all that has been sleeping in the night,
the Sun raises it’s head
and its magnificent arms of light stretch out,
it awakens the simple man.

Life, So

Fleeting is Life, so

Memories grow

Friends have become careless shadows

Taste buds taste less without salt and jalapenos

Folds on skin show greater prominence
Like the wrinkles of the sea have splashed upon my face

My eyes gather fog but not of Nature's natural veil
can barely see that light house standing all alone on a promontory
of broken rocks into the sea

Pace of step has slowed with aches and pain
like that aged cherry crab tree that sits alone
in the middle of my front yard with baron limbs
from it’s wintry sleep
stretching out contorted.

Desire for youthful things that I must let go, grow

Lament ascends, tears no longer flow but are captured by my swollen lids underneath my eyes

Pleasures are smaller, understanding more often,
sympathy and empathy runs rampant and free
replacing disdain and judgment
Hope and wish usurp angst

Minutes last significantly longer
Days and weeks become extraordinarily shorter
Awakening to morning sunrises are astoundingly more breathtaking,
refreshing, heaven sent, thankfully

frequency of conversations with God have spawned spontaneously
replacing the once rationalized, seeds of doubt

Blood 'Bro'

It has been said that when the mouth speaks
the ears are at rest and cannot listen
but in the same, silence is deafening
when there are words that should be spoken

Silence sometimes is a defense
when emotions have been assailed
by the sometimes daggers of words
that may have been carelessly thrust
into the shelter of a heart

This will always be the case
when hearts have shared a common place
when they have seen and toiled
through Life’s disdainful mire

But in the same, when they have shared
both tears of sad and joy
have unselfishly shared a piece of bread
and when a needed warmth of hand
in times of destitute and fear,
without hesitation, given of one’s time selflessly

This, all, should be lifelong
even when outside distractions pose challenges
in attempts to interfere with Love of family
and the bonds of kinship, of blood

‘Do not disdain portrayals of love nor feign affection
but receive with open arms and heart
Life’s every emanation
For loves they falter and tend to fade away
and hearts they get scorned and cry from day to day
Do not fold within like a flower at the end of it’s season
but always leave a little room to start again.’

Pedals in the Snow

Pedals of a flower nearing the end of its season
are released and drop as offerings
no longer needed for their aesthetics
though not left unnoticed,
for the soil is thankful
the earth shall give birth anew.

This is not unlike the sacrifice
when youth is no longer the face,
the color of thy hair shall shade of gray
and strength of legs now give way,
they no longer run like wind and jump so high
these youthful things are given up as offerings
and in their place is left a space
for gentle memories of seasons past

Change of seasons come and pass
as sun to rain, the night to day
like colors of the fall and Winters snow
one departs when the other calls
for the other to come forth and play

At Days End

When my day has come to its nocturnal transition,
I am reflective upon time spent
as to whether my presence has influenced
thought or laughter, compassion or empathy at minimum.

Did I assuage a down swirl of sadness
or mitigate for someone the slight of loneliness?

Did my words or deeds somehow illumine
what might have otherwise remained in the darkness
ill fated intentions and has otherwise caused into action
a worthy selfless deed?

Soon my words will be followed by action
when my pain has waned and once again
I can amble about as if my prosthetic hips were my own.
It must follow quickly, though, for I fear
My eyes are witnessing spotted shadows
that may soon fully block the light of day
and my sight must come from my ears
and gentle touch of hands.

I have not much to give in Material things
but will share with whomever wishes to accept
an open hand of care, coming from a never ending
storage of Love, my Heart.

Sunny Shadow

Gray is the day, once again,
ironically my thoughts are clearer,
my understanding more lucid.

My eyes capture the brightness,
the light that hides behind
that veil with the aid
of the reflections arising
from the tiny mirrors
of the mornings dew

After all, gray is the color of the shadows
that help us appreciate the sun.
I am grateful for
this shadowed day.

Wish and Envy

My night time reveries called dreams are cut short.
My eyes open wide abruptly escaping the pleasantries
of my thoughts and memories
for I wish these, again, to be realities.

Like the first time I walked amidst the trails
between those alpine covered mountains
that pierce through the hanging curtains of the skies
and that feeling comes o’er me of gasping air,
with pleased and tear filled, grateful eyes.

Like music when it filled our youthful ears
and all of life before us,
of friends together as we played
in muddy fields or in dance halls
when we would jump about in fearless fray
then hug each other, all, at the end of the day.

Like quiet walks when first we met,
holding hands feeling each others wet perspiration
that comes from the warmth of our desires.
Like all lovers must feel on their initial strolls
down pathways by the rivers bend,
we stop and face each other, place hands on each others waist,
staring in each others eyes without words being spoken,
our expressive swollen lips gently touch
and tongues searching like keys inserted into doors
awaiting entryways, openings, into lust filled spaces.

These moments now just memories
filling my dreams and daytime reveries
with envy and desires that they would be realities
once again and that my eyes would remain closed
enjoying the comfort of this restful sleep
that usurps the pangs of loneliness.

Free

‘Nature’: The everlasting things are these;
The ageless skies and wrinkled seas,
The silvery beacons of the night,
The fickle moon of transient light.
Unresting winds that seldom sleep
Rocks that external silence keep.
Earth’s mighty sons, the mountains, stand
Unmindful of Time’s withering hand.
Indifferent to the worlds brief woes,
The sun, aloof, forever glows.
Though mortals yield to Death’s decrees,
God’s everlasting things are these.

E.G. Beaudry

‘Love’: That gasp or gulp of air that gathers in the chest
and marries with a smile,
it dances with a palpitating heart,
feels the warmth of an embrace,
human or otherwise,
and in it’s absence nurtures
it’s memory by the trickle of that
teardrop that slowly gathered in
the corner of one’s eye,
blinks and it's released
yet another will soon gather, in memory.

M.L. Arellano

Physical Therapy

Doing my inclined leg presses on the ‘total gym’, the name given to the inclinable bench, I was concentrating on the necessary focal point of this perfunctory exercise, my newly replaced prosthetic hips. It was my last day of physical therapy after my second total hip replacement and twenty four weeks of physical therapy, twice a week twelve weeks for each hip after each surgery. High angst and many frustrating days getting both surgeries done within an eight month period (“ wah, wah, wah!”). Next to me was another empty, yet not for long, total gym. Feebly yet determined, this small of stature, maybe being that she walked with her shoulders curved pronouncedly forward, came to sit on the ’total gym’ exercise bench next to me. After being assisted on to the table at an incline, she began doing the knee bends. My curiosity of course observed her but only through my discrete periphery. She labored with every knee bend some painful distress as it showed in her cringing of the eyelids, tilting of the head as she rhythmically exhaled with every bend and lift of her legs. As I noticed her facial expression, while exhaling, she would struggle with taught lips and her tongue curling in between the upper and lower false teeth to bring them back in. At that moment it reminded me of my Mother when she would do the same every time we would laugh deeply about the silliest things.
This lady next to me looked to be around the octogenarian age group. I thought to myself as to why at that age would she be getting such a drastic surgical procedure. My curiosity got the best of me so I asked her “….what did you have done“? She very cautiously and without turning her head to look at me said “ I had a total right knee replacement”. Without me having to as a follow on question she continued “ My husband has been pressing me to get it done because of the pain I’ve been complaining about”. “ We finally decided to get it done which was just three weeks ago”. She said that with resembling quiet pride after I had complimented her on how well, seemingly, her progress was coming along. She then proceeded to tell me about how her husband has also been trying to get her to buy a new car because her fifteen year old Buick was beginning to show disrepair and he was concerned of her safety. She went on to say, “ I finally got a new, used, Impala, a person that we know who is a car salesman just dropped it off at my back garage”. I asked her well how do you like it? “oh, its ok, I liked my Buick better”. “What does your husband think about it” I asked her? She softly and with a noticeable quiver in her chin said “… He never saw it, He died six weeks ago”. She paused. “ We were married for fifty five years”. I calmly without attending to too much dramatics said “ I’m very sorry”. She didn’t even look my way but kept looking forward, exhaling finally her timer went off for her to go on to her next exercise. Her physical therapist came to assist her off the ’total gym’ and she just looked forward with an octogenarian pride as she was assisted to her next exercise. I could hear her tell her therapist “…phew, that was all I could take of that exercise”.

The Link

There’s a simple link that connects
A desire to live and appreciation of it.
If the strength of its content ceases to hold
the weight and to absorb the tension,
the value of life no longer has that silent glitter
like the stars that hold the night, or
the day no longer grapples with outstretched arms of Sun.
That link must always hold a sense of longing
even amidst the grey and cold
of seasons changing too fast
for even the spirit and heart
to grab and to hold .

We so clumsily handle the link provided
because we rely on understanding
rather than just appreciating.
When we look out upon the ocean waves
we don't attempt to guess how high
or when the next wave will come in
but we watch while they dance and jump
always trying to touch the sky.
We look up into the starry night
and question not what holds them up
but thankful for their sensorial delight.

Some things in life we will never understand;
Like the history of bloodshed man has imposed upon its kind;
Unresolved religious and spiritual fantasies
we wish may have answers to that hunger within,
of the pain, of the tears, of our joys, of our fears
whether this short Life sojourn shall have
meaning in the end.

This link, the breath, the strength of its fiber,
the reason to live, its content is called by the name, Love.

Relationships

Relationships like Life are so fragile. When Life is lived with “verve”; when all the senses are keen and all the challenges in Life are exercised with the passion of a ‘snorting hoof kicking bull’; when their’s conflicts or setbacks, they are felt as if the bull has charged and gored. When one lives passionately all is felt in the same. Like the hurricane winds that blow and the grasses are forced to lay down and then the wind changes direction the grasses do also and with the same force. In this realm of passionate existence when family conflicts arise they are like mountainous obstacles even the small disagreements. Sometimes the passions of conflict revel in their own mire and they sink into its odorous abyss. Relationships with friends many times evaporate if these impassioned conflicts arise. Family members cannot dissipate in the like because they will always be of common genes and blood but the damage of the heart can be so deep that cries of ‘disownment’ can be loudly heard.

Conflicts of political ideologies, religious convictions amongst acquaintances and friends become a bifurcating force that may never be ameliorated. Among family, seemingly,insuperable conflicts separates and creates distance but can never or should ever be a “disowning” lever to be applied. Only death can physically abort this relationship and even then the soul never departs from its mundane or spiritual connection.

The passions of the heart and its emotional character sometimes dramatizes one living a life with verve. The cerebral interpretations of the ‘passionate man’ in many cases have much disconnection and are misunderstood. Those that seldom see or share the tears of the heart, also, seldom feel the warm breath of life and never inhale its exuberance. Their eyes open but never witness the ’sol’ of the soul.

The irony of the ‘Relationship’ between ‘Life and the ’passionate man’ and ‘Life’ and the ‘cerebral man‘; is that when ’Death arrives the ’passionate man’ with great resistance wishes not to shake it’s hand but when the dispassionate or ‘cerebral man’ attends to ’Deaths’ presence, he shakes its hand and does not care to understand.

Sun Shines for Someone

The sun shines today evoking my spirit to once again dance.
The winter and cold this year has been bold
the weather has challenged the souls of man
caused them to question their faith,
dried up the caverns where tears were stored
human hearts truly felt from Divinity, they’d been scorned.

Amidst this dark cloud left from the wrath of natures hand
the humans resilient spirit sang songs in the streets
in the face of the storm with hands around the world
coming forth with a gentle hand of shelter, food and warmth.

The suns wondrous fingers pierce through my window pane
reawaken is my spirit of song lost in the midst of that storm
but depressed is the soul of those still without homes
awaiting relief from the pain and the scorn.

Be mindful, those who read these words
whose hearts they touch, whose thoughts incite;
There are those of us who live amongst the tree tops,
the sun touches and nutrients befall
and those who live in the shadows cast
who can see the sun above
but to share in its radiance, they’ve little hope.

I ask that you not wait for an extended hand
but from within of thy inherent kindness
share thy wealth not just from thy pot of gold
but of thy health, provide the strength and compassion
to rebuild their land

Deprivation

Deprivation

It exists within me now

That which once I had

In the presence of joy

Escaped

A feeling of loss abounds

Emptiness surrounds

Yet this brings forth moments when all my senses are keen

I hear the tones of music in pitch and in key : mellifluous

Baron are the darken branches of the winter tree resting against the grey white canvas of the sky - visual clarity astounds

my heart emotes with anxious appreciation awaiting the love I have inside

Soon to link in a moments time with the heart of those who have survived the lonely presence of my void and my desperation

Lucid understanding of that which soon will come along with times inevitable marriage of its past and present

Until then

There’s that sense of Deprivation

Sometimes I Wonder, If

If mine eyes have witnessed the pleasure
of that gold filled sun that slowly gathers back
it’s fingers it had laid upon the day
and now pulls the night’s blanket o’er it’s head

If the mirror like reflection upon the garment of the sea
slowly waves gently goodbye as the sun
pulls away for it’s rest
as a winged contour of an ospreys silhouette
can be seen trying to find it’s resting nest
flying toward a rose colored veil rolling into the horizon

If the memory of my hearts fluttering as it shares this vision
along with a soft and gentle warm embrace of another
as the day departs while upon the shore the cool wet sand
sifts between our naked toes, we lay together holding hands

If the caws of seagulls fill the dusk
and intermittent roars of the sea
running toward the shore reminding us it never sleeps
and the tiny tinsel pricks of light begin to form those mythical
figures in the blacken space above
and the crispness of the air I breath in deep
so as to save within my heart, my chest,
the memory of this moment;

So, If and when my mortal body shall become
part of the earth and sand and it washes into the sea
and the waves carry what’s left of me
far out to where the sun lays its breast upon its evening resting place,
and my memory of the beauty my eyes beheld,
the passions my heart had felt and the sensual touch upon my hand,
this spirit of mine who has shared all this,
will it live on amongst the ‘eternity’ and the ‘everlasting’
tiny sprinkles of light that hover in the vastness of the night
and as it gives way once again to the waking day,
will my spirit also rise along side the sun from it’s horizon bed?

Time Bring Tears

I say, “I can’t wait”
But now as time has crept,
I no longer look forward.

Now I anticipate with enthusiasm
Yet disdain time past

I’ve polished my eyesight,
Honed my hearing,
More gentle is my touch,
Greater I can feel.

Saline drops fall from my eyes
Seemingly too fast they come
now days.

I seem to cry: when birds can’t fly
or dogs have but three legs;
when my Tetra floats
no longer swimming
their breath is lost,
their fins no longer moving.

I had heard and had read
that seeing sad things many times
would lessen feelings after long
but I have found that with time,
the heart, the mind
the eyes, the touch,
come closer to humankind.

Today, this moment,
Now.
I can hear my breath