I’ve always liked happy endings,

what others have

called unlikely,

even mushy.

And that’s the way I want to take

my leave, waving

jauntily as

the sweet sun sets.

I want to hallow my many

diminishments

with laughter and

a song of thanks,

Seeing in them an opening

as well as a

closing, a chance

to learn anew.

                                                                                                        JDG

If just sitting is wasting time,

I aspire

to be a real

time waster.

A better way to spend these hot

Virginia days

is hard to find

so I’ll just sit

and let the bees and butterflies

flit. I’ll just sit

until a breeze

whispers, “Rise up,”

and even then it may take me

a bit to give

up this sacred

act of sitting.

                                                                    JDG

My granddaughter looked up and said,

“Just now, sitting

there, book in hand,

cat on your lap,

gray hair and glasses on your nose,

you have become

a t.v. ad

about aging.”

Somehow, when I was least aware,

age crept up on

me and, like that

cat, settled in.

My hope is that we (age and me)

will find a way

to purr along

in harmony.

                                                                               JDG

That mourning dove looked up at me,

a question in

her eyes and I

looked back at her

with a question of my own. “What

are you doing

sitting here as

though the road’s your

nest? Fly off before you’re hurt.” She

glanced behind me

at that looming truck

and cooed, “You too.”

                                                         JDG

‘Twas Sunday morning and those crows

weren’t singing soft,

uplifting hymns

or offering words

of comfort to soothe our weary

souls. They must have

learned their discourse

 from talk radio

where there’s no balm in Gilead,

no melody

or, even worse,

no sound of verse.

                                                                         JDG

Morning: work bound, I drive through

soft summer rain.

Overhead, the pale

sky slowly shifts,

and on the ground a wispy haze

settles here and

there. I move slow

and easy down

the winding country road cradled,

for a time, in

understated,

 grey gentleness.

                                                  JDG

Just when I needed them, Wendell

Berry’s words reached

out to me: “It

may be that when

we no longer know which way to go,

we have begun

our real journey.”

Always before,

I had a sense which road to take,

but now it seems

both sense and road

have disappeared.

Basic training in letting go

is what I’ll need

as I begin

this last journey.

                                                       JDG