As laughter filled our
throats and shook our bellies, we
met on the solid
ground of connection and checked
our differences at the door.
JDG
Heat Soaked
These heat soaked days take me back
to my first days of teaching. It was late
August in newly integrated Alabama,
pre-airconditioning. I was twenty seven.
Suddenly a fight broke out between two guys,
one white, one black. It was the end of the day.
I had had it. I stormed over, pulled them apart,
and yelled, “Stop it. Just stop it.” A stunned silence
filled the room as they sat back down. The silence
grew even stronger when I added,
“You just have to understand.
I simply do not do well in heat.”
That class never gave me any more trouble,
but from then on, even in the cold of winter,
one of them would ask how I was doing in heat.
JDG
An Encounter To Ponder (illustrated by grandentity, Samwise)
For a while now,
each evening
a brown toad
hops up to
our sliding glass door
and peers in.
Every evening
our cat Murphy
waits for him.
She does not
cry or paw
at the door.
She just sits
and peers back.
What if we humans
met those different
from us with
equal curiosity?
JDG
Each Day
Life invites us to
its grand sing-a-long even
if we can’t carry a tune.
JDG
The Singer And The Song
Whatever song fills your throat, that’s the song
your body wants
to sing. Just
listen
close.
JDG
Standing At The Corner
Though I don’t control the traffic,
when a word, a line, sometimes a poem,
approaches the intersection
of conscious and unconscious,
I bear witness
and write down what I see.
JDG
Peripheral Vision
While attending to
what’s right in front of me,
I spot, off to the side,
two cardinals
tiptoeing through the clover –
a bright reminder of what
I yearn to do .
JDG
