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A precious few will love,
So many more will take.
And think nothing of it.

I’ve known a few Takers
They have hurt me to my core.
Walking away, oblivious.

With a smug arrogance
They smile and nod
While brandishing hidden daggers.

Claws flexed
Poisonous tongues wagging
So long as they get theirs, they’re good.

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I saw a rabbit.

It was curled into a tight little mound of gray fur and protruding ears: quiet, unmoving, lifeless. As I looked down where it lay on the grass, I felt a twinge of loss and sadness for this small animal that was now no more. Standing on our deck, I looked out at the hayfields and sloping hills in the distance, contemplating the cycle of life of all living creatures. We’re born helpless and defenseless, utterly dependent on others to survive. We struggle to master even such basic functions as eating, grasping and clasping objects (and others) for aid and for comfort. We scoot then crawl then hold ourselves upright, learning to walk, to talk, to communicate our needs, wants and emotions. Our lives have meaning through the passion of our pursuits. We must strive to make the best of what we have been given, if we’re lucky and if we’re paying attention to what is important, for one day it – and we – will be gone.

Rabbits, like this little fellow, follow a life cycle of their own, not so similar but not so different either, this one’s apparently cut short by any number of predators. His day had come. Whether animal or human, history or achievement, knowledge or nature, tradition or bounty, the passing of anything beautiful is to be mourned.

I lowered my gaze and was surprised to discover that he had not expired after all. His swiveled head was tilted upward and huge bunny eyes, wide and questioning, looked into mine. An unbroken alliance was formed at that moment for I believe we both realized the day of completion for each of our life cycles was yet to come. There was still time for dance and love and learning and laughter. And the promise of joy, always joy. Dangers and pitfalls do exist. They are all around us. However, we must take care and navigate our paths wisely. But if we are cautiously optimistic there is no reason why we can’t continue to enjoy green grasses of contentment no matter the view, no matter the barriers, no matter the skies.

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A great many things
Cause me shame, angst
And sorrow.

A life filled with regrets
For actions taken
Hurtful words spoken
Acknowledgments left undone.

Today, though, I realized
That my apologies
Sincere, genuine, raw and heartfelt
Were greedily accepted, perhaps gleefully so,
By those who had flung their own arrows.

Their tarnished memories failing to recall
How they excluded
Mocked and judged me.
Looking down on me, still
Yet receiving my mea culpas
While never offering their own.

I wonder: Does this make me unworthy?

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Not long after my retirement in March of 2017, I made a short-lived attempt at what Julia Cameron recommends vis-à-vis her best-selling books, The Artist’s Way and The Right to Write, that being a Morning Pages routine which involves writing, in longhand, three pages each day, every day, preferably first thing each morning.

PSA ~ A Google search of the term ‘longhand’ provides the following description: Ordinary handwriting (as opposed to shorthand, typing, or printing).

Writing, with a pen (or, horrors, a pencil), using one’s own hand on the surface of a clean 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper: What a concept, amiright?

Cursive writing, when your stream of consciousness is babbling at an incoherent rate, makes for some pretty messy scribblings on the page. The anal retentive component of my psychological make-up balks mightily along the way when my thoughts become an erratic composite of loops, lumps and dribbles: virtual screeches against the white, lined notebook paper I’m writing on. My journals over the years, originally all written in longhand, eventually gave way to a neater, tighter script of the printed word so now to revert to cursive has been a bit of a challenge.

But I get it. Printing tidily on the page (remember: anal retentive, here) does lend itself to losing that flash of inspiration that drives someone to preserve their thoughts on paper. In contrast, however, writing in longhand (quickly, so quickly!) helps to scoop it all up (er, down) but where’s the advantage if, upon later inspection, one cannot decipher what one has written?

Hmmmm. What to do, what to do?

Anyway, I’m going to give it another go. Julia recommends a 90-day commitment of Morning Pages, um, paging. With that in mind, I’d best get back to it. Best to strike when the iron, I mean the pen, is hot…

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I would like to live by the sea.
To contemplate
Knowing the roar (and the quiet) of expansive waters
In my everyday affairs.
Waves kissing the shoreline: blue, gray, seafoam green.
Sailboats. Salty breezes.
Watching gulls and pelicans
Frolic in the tide.
Luscious light and sound. Movement. Scent of ocean air.

I harbor romantic notions of a different life.
A quaint cottage, rustic but charmed.
Water on my horizon.
Neighbors and town folk, quirky yet sturdy. Solid.
Good people, just like anywhere.
My days spent in clarity
And purpose, if and when I want them to be.
Sometimes I yearn for the grit and sheen
Of another reality, an alternate existence.

With gauzy vision, however, I imagine
Someone, like me, along a rocky beach
(Or elsewhere)
Contemplating fields of corn, heavy with dew.
Cattle grazing on a sun-soaked hill.
Goats, chickens, barb wire fences. Grain bins.
Sunflowers, wild chicory.
Old barns
And hummingbirds in the spring.

Another dreamer who, like me, also dreams.

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Sleep eluded me
Until midnight
(Mind churning with the day’s activities)
But a restful night nonetheless.

Early morning
Summer storms
(Welcomed!)
Awakened me.
Darkness still.

Thunder in the distance.
My lighted keyboard
Helps me find the keys.
My body says “Rest a little more”
But my brain has other ideas….

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One day a child will return
No longer in shame or chagrin.
There is always a home,
A beginning, initial rays of light, first steps taken.

Night falls in the quiet country
Crickets and critters, shapes and movements among the trees.
The screen door shuts, echoing in the darkness
A cigarette glows fiery red and orange, and then, a sigh.

It embraces you
This homecoming. You could stay here forever.
And perhaps some do, or will.
You either resist or you yield.

No place is Shangri La.
The green is as vivid or lean
As you wish it to be, wherever you are.
So: Will you reclaim this now, again, as Home?

Daily Prompt: Local

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A steady stream ~
Nonsensical faces, words and strides.
In and out of consciousness
A pretty heady ride.

A ghostly pallor.
A dribble and a sigh.
She knew not what to think or say
Her pillows sat too high.

Legs, then arms, akimbo
Satisfied and spent.
Sixty years alone and counting
Alone: She had no gent.

Dreams, unfulfilled dramas
This had become her life.
Afraid to venture beyond four walls
If only she’d become a wife.