If I feel my fear,
but don’t fight, flee, freeze or fold,
I will discover
resources I didn’t know,
ways that couldn’t be foretold.
JDG
All That I Survey
As I survey my
to-do list, I wish I felt
the sparkle I see
in early morning sun-light
dancing on lingering dew.
JDG
As We Make Our Way
As we make our way
through thorny thickets, may we
remember to take
refuge in small clearings and
to celebrate sweet pickings.
JDG
Little Bit By Little Bit
It began with the body, but ended
with the mind – this
noticing
that set
a
trapped
part free –
a part caught
running the wheel
of similar stimulus-old response.
JDG
Finding A Way
Yearning for a patch
of open sky, that tree bent
’til it met its need.
JDG
Natural Selection
My mood needs to dance
with a different partner. I
pick that small, yellow
butterfly and ask it to
teach me what fleeting things know.
JDG
Self Expression
Our young cat has mastered the fine art of
the mournful cry
when something’s
not right
in
her
small world.
I think I’ll
give it a try –
At the very least, I’ll get some relief.
JDG
A Beacon In The Night
Even though sometimes
her eyes filled with tears and her
voice shook, her courage shone through.
JDG
Orienting Memory
It was just an ordinary day
in an ordinary town.
I wasn’t on a journey or a quest,
but, in retrospect, I see
the events of that day
became an orienting memory.
“Let’s just look at this, Joanie,”
my grandfather said,
and sitting there on the stoop,
his arm around me,
we looked and I saw clearly
the discarded cigarette
I had pretended to smoke,
the dirty street where I found it,
my mother’s look of horror,
and my grandfather and I
sitting side by side…looking.
His unplanned gift to me
became a touchstone
to which I return again and again,
especially in times of
confusion or high emotion:
First the love, then the looking.
JDG
Defense Of The Indefensible
Alternative facts,
children snatched from parents’ arms,
boastful UN speech,
injudicious judiciary committee –
just a few things that make
America grate.
JDG
aholdingplace 