It’s so hard when you know you’re right
and the other’s
so clearly wrong.
How do you fight
bullheadedness when it’s so full
of bull? I guess
it never hurts
to turn away
and take another look and as
you stare into
the air think, “Could
the bull be me?”
JDG
Along the path, a splash of white,
a tinge of pink
comes forth to greet
each passerby.
Spring’s harbingers, they beckon us
to step outside
sans scarves and coats
and seize the day.
Such promises, prematurely
made, lie shattered
by the harsh truth
of winter wind.
JDG
Is it possible to keep an
open heart while
closing a door?
Sometimes we have
to go inside and wait until
we hear a tap,
a gentle knock,
a seeking sound
that lets us know there is a way
to hear and to
be heard, to see
and to be seen.
JDG
There’s a short view and a long view
and who’s to say
which matters more?
There are many
ways to look at things and many
things to see. Cells
and stars and all
that fall between
are worth a real examining
with any scope
that lets us see
the mystery.
JDG
When I feel crowded and confined,
I remember you
who freely danced
in that small space
no bigger than a changing room:
a gentle nudge
that I could change
the way I see
to note not only walls but space
and thus would find
an inner ease
and maybe grace.
JDG
What remains are only remnants,
but from these bits
and pieces I
will quilt a whole,
reworking all that used to be –
steps and stumblings,
was and wasn’t,
first words and last.
What will be made is something new,
uniquely mine,
shaped from the old
and left behind.
JDG
“I’ll tuck myself in from now on,”
Dakota said,
turning fourteen,
breaking me in.
” In just two years, I’ll be driving.”
She looks forward
while I look back.
I see her step
onto that bus and turn and wave
her first school day,
just yesterday.
She leads the way.
JDG
There’s what happened and then there’s how
we tell it: when,
to whom and why.
Over time we
further edit, emphasizing
first this, then that,
revisioning
what happened then.
What counts in all this recounting
is only us
and what we choose
to see and be
JDG
This pausing stuff ‘s not so easy.
The old patterns
of non-delay
fire away,
leaving me stuck on “go” even
when I push “stop”
and try to let
the system cool.
I guess I need rewiring,
an inside job
requiring
patience and time.
JDG
To walk the pathless path we have
only to pause
here at the gap
between our breaths
where there is neither in nor out
and see what’s there.
We then can step
into that space
where freedom lies and we unfold
and both the path
and we become
an open way.
JDG
aholdingplace 