As one chapter ends

and a new one begins,

we hold our collective breath.

With each breath that follows,

may we the people vow

to do what we can each day

for love and reason to prevail

so we don’t lose our way.

                                                                          JDG

Stumbling through a fog

of self-concern,

I bump into you.

We have a choice:

extend a hand,

raise a fist.

move on with indifference.

                                                                          JDG

Hope springs evergreen,

its roots planted firmly

in what is,

its limbs outstretched, reaching

  for what still could be.

                                                                                         JDG

Just as I’ve showed up

each day to write a poem,

I will show up each day

for Joy Meditation.

I will begin slow,

not take on too much,

and be patient as I learn,

taming my American way

of wanting to hurry

and arrive, not today but, yesterday.

                                                                                                        JDG

For those of you who might be interested, the Joy Meditation practice is

on pages 342-345 in THE BOOK OF JOY, an account of the week

Archbishop Desmond Tutu spent with the Dalai Lama

in celebration of the Dalai Lama’s 80th birthday.

There’s nothing tidy about our world

though we might wish there were.

Just when things seem

sorted out and in their place,

there’s a shift, sudden or otherwise,

and we begin

once more

to impose order on a disordered world.

It’s not fruitless; it’s just the way of us and things.

What’s fruitless is our demand it not be so.

                                                                                                                      JDG