At day’s end I pause
and offer thanks for pauses
large and small that let
me rest from busyness and
find my way back to center.
JDG
Philadelphia Bequest
To be fully seen,
accepted but not excused –
invited to look
at an act of foolishness,
not alone, but in
communion with another –
that was the lasting
legacy given to me
all those years ago
by my Irish grandfather
on a stoop far from
his native land. May I have
grace enough to pass it on.
JDG
To Be Great Again
Two hundred years old,
that African Methodist
Episcopal church
in South Carolina, shows
every one of us
how we can be great again.
We must embody
love, wisdom, and courage -all
three – simultaneously.
JDG
Higher Learning
“I’ve
come home,” she
said, her face alight
with joy, her voice filled with relief.
It was in these Virginia mountains that she first
learned she had the grit to see hard things through. Now,
four years later, she’ll bring that learning into her college classrooms
as she is strengthened and challenged by these mountains to see more hard things through.
JDG
Survey Results
Another middle of the night survey
of all that’s wrong
with the world and me –
and another chance to practice.
This time I’ll try that ancient form
of meditation, tonglen.
I’ll breathe in fear, foolishness, and hate
and breathe out their antidotes,
courage, wisdom, and love.
When the air is filled with these,
perhaps I’ll find my way to restful sleep.
JDG
Osmosis, Anyone?
Surrounded by words
at Barnes and Noble, I search
for my own words in
hopes that I might fashion them
into something like a poem.
JDG
On The Road
On the road to change,
it may have been a turn too sharp
though in the right direction.
JDG
Beneath and Beyond
When the bare bones
of being show through,
we see both
beneath and beyond
to the wonder
and terror of existence.
JDG
Doubters, Take Note
At seventy-three
I’m slowly inching my way
to maturity.
Who knows where I’ll be when I
reach the age of eighty-three?
JDG
Why?
Why search for meaning
when it’s right here before us
if we’d pause and look?
JDG
aholdingplace 