The Everything in the Everyday
Waves caress the yielding sands
Like two together, holding hands
The sea receives the sun’s last kiss
As gulls cry of forgotten bliss
The tumult that was lately felt
Has faded with the dying day
As night approaches, with its gift
A belle chanson de liberté
(“Near Night” – 10/12/2014)
like me, the grass
stays new by constant shearing,
closeness to earth, sun, and water,
and all that happens
beneath the surface
Take solace where you find it, son
And do not be ashamed;
For many are the griefs for which
The innocent are blamed
Take solace where you find it, lad,
And know this lesson true:
You cannot change a thing except
What you can change
In you
An autumn evening.
But a brief moment the sunset lasts
With a growing chorus of crickets then
Comes the dark
Across the bayou, lights I start to see;
And I hear from far away the sounds
Of the distant high school football game
Autumn wraps its arms around me
Sitting on the side of a hill
Looking at the shadows and lights on the water
Feeling the breeze blow my hair
And a faint smell of wood-smoke is in the air
And the scent brings strong memory
As though reliving moments in the flesh
And not merely in thought
Of bygone days spent by the bayshore
Of your golden hair catching the last rays of sunset
Occasionally, a car goes by
And I watch the headlights trailing off
Around the bend
And life, or at least my life, this life
Has unity
(Photo by me. Originally Posted 11-14-2015. – Owen)
A brief primer on introverts, for you extroverts out there.
The extrovert, whose daily life
Seems naught but dull routine
Will seek adventure when they can
Amidst a crowded scene
For people give them energy
That work just drains away:
And so they need excitement
When they get a holiday
But me, I am an introvert
And people make me tired;
It’s not that I don’t like them
It is just the way I’m wired
So when I get a holiday
From busy working life
I will go someplace peaceful
By myself, or with my wife
For yes — I do like travelling
But don’t like hue-and-cry:
I like to sit and watch the world
Just watch it
Going by
(Inspired by this prompt.)
In childhood, I stumbled on
Adjacent unrealities
Available on books and screens,
And so began dualities
Of what was really lived, and what
Was merely felt or thought,
But more of these
I almost always sought.
This is part of our growth.
It’s hard to know which to prefer —
Though some of these were bought
And others ambient and free,
I could not see that some of them
Were not that good for me, because
Some of them were.
Slow-forward fifty years and now
That battle has been won:
In the age of overdoing,
Everything is overdone.
The heart’s great appetite for play
Is stretched beyond its moorings,
And everything’s acceptable
As long as it’s not boring.
When I must choose far more
Than my capacity for choosing,
I find it’s to my detriment.
It’s my mind I’m abusing —
It is unhealthy living in
Adjacent unreality:
For real life is the road, and
Fantasy’s
The scenery
Day has fallen To her knees, The quietude Is deafening, And love’s a tune That other people hear — She muses on Both light and hope, The way they each Are lessening, And how it is that dreams give way To fear — But lightly, o’er across the lake, An evening bird is singing, One probably no one but her Discerns And isn’t this the way of things, To wander in the shadows As each of us into the light Takes turns
