I learned much from you, my brother,

about freedom

on that day when

we were weeding

and I made  Daddy mad. He said

you were free, but 

I had to stay 

til all was done. 

 You stayed too –  even when a friend 

stopped by and asked

you to please come  

and swim with him.

                                                                        JDG

Weave a net and catch a minute.

It doesn’t have

to win a prize,

Pulitzer or 

otherwise. It’s just a way to

nab some feelings,

capture a thought,

hold an image.

Folks do it all the time. It’s where

reason meets with 

rhyme, where common

becomes sublime.

                                                                                                 JDG

The minute is a poetic form consisting of three stanzas, four lines in each stanza. The first line of each stanza has eight syllables, followed by three lines of four syllables each -thus sixty syllables, one minute. Traditionally the minute is written in iambic meter and the rhyme is aabb, ccdd, eeff, but minutes are often written without a strict adherence to meter or rhyme.

It’s easy to miss the divine

in you and the

divine in me.

We get so caught

by our busyness and snagged by

all that’s wrong. May

I be steady.

May I take the

time to simply pause and breathe, 

to look around,

to see and say

Namaste.

                                              JDG

A tiny sparrow came calling

today, a small

feather in his

beak. Looking at

us, he seemed to say, “Don’t worry

if you seem small

and the task before

you seems so big.

It all begins when you take one

feather and move

on from there.  Just

one small feather.”

                                                            JDG

Distant thunder promises more

rain, but light on

trees at evening’s

close balances

sound with light, signaling a dance

of elements.

Down below we

watch and wait. Which

will take the lead? Maybe they

will simply dance

away, fading

into the night.

                                                       JDG

 A me I seldom see stopped by

today to let

me know I’m all

ok.  “All ?”  I 

thought, “Even the me who yells when

mad, the me who

can take a hill

and turn it into

a mountain, mole and all?” For a

moment, we me’s

met and became,

mercifully, whole.

                                                          JDG

Gentle fire lights evening sky

amidst summer

storm. A single

bird flies through the

ever-shifting light, wings beaten

by the rain. In

the end, the clouds

win out, but not

before the sun, for a moment,

streaks the wet road

and darkened sky

with waves of gold.

                                                          JDG

What draws us to the water, we

who walk on land?

Is it that we

long to be held

and carried for a time, to be

rocked as once we

were, to just float

and skim, to have

our horizon limited to

sun, clouds, moon, stars,

water, and the

memory of shore?

                                                          JDG

In the unspoken talks I have

with them, I’m clear

and eloquent

and kind. I speak

softly and my big stick is tucked

safely out of

view, but when my

lips begin to

move and sound stutters from my mouth,

the talk quickly

becomes ever

so less sublime.

                                                       JDG

Sometimes the words come pouring in

and all I have 

to do is let

them out onto

the page, but more often I sit

or walk and wait

for one or two

to emerge and

sniff the air. If conditions are 

just right , they hang

around and help

me find a poem.

                                                                         JDG