Repetition, Renewal and the Return
Sat in waiting
At the end of time.
Repetition stated it didn't matter anyways cause it was all the same.
Renewal spoke and maintained the differences were as vast as the changing seasons.
Return sat in silence,
Like breath held in suspension,
And then spoke
"When I come back to creation
It is as an End."
You call Him a God of pain, a master of a cruel terrain,
But how else does a sleeping soul break its heavy mortal chain?
If the world were only comfort, a soft and endless sleep,
We would never look inside ourselves, nor ever climb the steep.
You say He stands aloof and high, ignoring every tear and cry,
While forcing helpless, fragile things to bow beneath His sky.
He is a loving Father, guiding heirs through shifting sands,
Our training is the molding of His patient, tender hands.
But look closer at the "True Sons" and the paths of thorns they trod—
It was not a cosmic punishment, but the wounding of a God
Who bleeds within the creation, who shares the heavy weight,
Not a tyrant on a distant throne deciding human fate.
The illusion is a heavy fog, the fray is fierce and blind,
But the pressure of the dark is what refines the human mind.
He does not demand perfection from the lost who weep and pray,
But the cracks inside our broken hearts let the light illuminate the way.
For love is not a gentle sun that keeps us safe from harm,
Sometimes it is the winter wind that wakes us to the dawn.
As I began to think one day,
I wondered 'til it made me say:
"What brings to mind a thought and how
can thinking work in fleshy gray?"
Awareness that we are and do,
that I am I and you are you.
And what I read and hear and see
can add to me like 2 + 2.
A wondrous thing to think a thought--
to think "I will" or "maybe not".
We choose to be or not to be,
What not to do and what we ought.
And so my thinking left me there
in awe of how we are aware.
To wonder, ponder, meditate
creates so much that we can share.
The moment begins,
and every face ahead
leaves a trace unseen.
The silent exchanges gather
within the fragile self.
With every passing glance,
a slight shift settles.
A mind that reflects
unnoticed impressions
moves toward a thought
it believes its own.
Light does not return untouched
some parts always stay,
absorbed without notice.
Behind each decision
a thousand quiet influences wait,
aligning the final step
I see a spate of branching paths
before me in the woods,
do not have time to take them all,
so wonder which I should?
Being cursed with real wanderlust,
I feel the dread in me,
if I choose one, not the others,
what thing will I not see?
Will this one reach a waterfall,
mossy rock in a glen?
Will that one reach a twisting gorge
that I’ll not see again?
Does that one go up to a ridge
where long vistas stretch out?
Does this one go down to a lake,
with frogs hopping about?
Or do they present false choices,
going nowhere unique,
just more of the same forest grounds
with nothing great to seek.
But could I live with the regret
if I missed something grand?
Or do I waste precious hours
just roaming normal lands?
I know the choice that many make,
and yet, I still must go;
I guess I’m wired to explore,
and my soul needs to know…
I wandered into an antiquarian bookstore, mind following feet.
My eye fell on a tome most wonderfully philosophical.
I could not help but wonder whose hands these pages turned,
And were those hands turned by these pages?
Eye full, mind full, wondering, wandering into a wilderness of thought…
Should this, could this join the shelf with others that I've bought?
The corner was turned… by a young boy, then a young man,
And I focused on the task at hand.
How many more corners have I yet to turn?
How many more pages will I find to learn the things I need to know about this life?
There's really no way to know where a hand will turn,
A mind will learn, the feet will choose to go.
So I placed it back upon the shelf,
Mindful that another self might benefit beyond my ken,
Whose mind, and hand, and feet await a treasure there for them.
Don’t sweat the small stuff,
And it’s all small stuff,
Is sagely advice
For every stage of life.
From birth to death
Everything seems so urgent
As it slips you by
And the next moment
Simply takes its place.
How can it be so effortless
We cry,
As we grasp to hold
What is already past.
(3/10/26)
Laying facedown in the dirt, I exhale a prayer:
Is it wrong to question God on my configuration?
I ask, standing or kneeling on this foundation of
bone. Rising to occasions I never sought, with
proof of divinity yet to be shown.
Would you laugh if I were to tell you that the
galaxy were made of milk? Or that faith is made
of cheese? Time weathers while burdens erode,
and it’s best to appreciate the sediment, for it builds
over time to your version of God, and it’s for the
best you better believe in it.
Otherwise you’ll find yourself laying in the dirt,
asking silly questions and thinking silly thoughts,
scrambling up to get the mud off of your jeans.
What a mad world this one must be.
Mad, mad indeed.
Let the sunshine come
And illuminate each life,
With kindness and peace.
If deathless prose there be, forsooth
In poetry lives on more truth
Through life in soul which outlasts all
Whose breath is life, and death is small
As stone will claim what bones remain
And all ends in public domain
We taught the silence to wear our name,
called it tomorrow, a fragile frame,
hung every heartbeat on a melting seam.
hours sag like sleep from a wounded tree,
minutes forget who they’re meant to be,
the past hums heavy in the ribs of me.
then two lost clocks began to align,
your breath finding time inside of mine,
as if our souls had rehearsed this climb.
I followed my shadow through folded air,
measured my worth by the depth of care,
until your presence answered the prayer.
meaning arrives when the chase stands still,
when love interrupts the force of will,
and yet here we are.
I spoke to silence once; it became my interlocutor—
in an incongruous sunset, January:
gold transmuting to red, saffron-orange
then to violet
the color grief contracts to
pressed through winter's
alchemical
sieve—
the colour that comes before silence.
Loneliness is pigmented.
Sky renders loss—light waning.
grey restless sleep
Is a barber or scissors the snipper?
A shoeless man, or sock, the slipper?
Why was mom, not a housewife, but a stripper?
You may as well ask a dolphin - Flipper?
Cosmic Consciousness
What should I live for if love was cut into
minute pieces?
When in a blinding flash human emotion
instantly vanishes?
Washes up along the edge of emptiness
amidst timelessness?
Wishes to be rescued by a vigilant angel
guarding ethereal spaces?
With pure bliss...I shall bathe in the holy
sea of cosmic consciousness!
10/12/2025
Aboard Vision of the Seas
Cruising toward St. John, Newfoundland
First person: "We are always like this... don't you find it boring?"
Second person: "We are what we are and we deserve everything here."
First person: "Haven't you received a bill lately?"
Second person: "There are no bills here -- only chills!"
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