You’d think at sixty-nine I’d know
some things and yet
by all accounts
I still have much
to learn or so my grandkids say.
They were amazed
to discover
that texting leaves
me cold. It must
be a geriatric caper
that I prefer
reading books made
from real paper.
JDG
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
“Of course I know I had a part in it,” I will sometimes say when telling someone about a conflict I am in the midst of, but then I go on to describe in some detail all that the other person said, did, or didn’t do and don’t focus at all on my words and actions. Recently I have been rereading ANATOMY OF PEACE by the Arbinger Institute which helps us look at all the ways we avoid really looking at our part in disputes and conflicts.
The profound process of self examination this book presents is framed within a story about parents of troubled teens who spend a weekend coming to understand their part in what goes wrong and learning how to contribute toward helping things go right. While their children are participating in a group wilderness experience, the parents are led together through an inner process inspired by Martin Buber’s distinction between an “I-Thou” relationship where people are seen as fellow human beings and an “I-It” relationship where they are seen as objects. Their learning is facilitated by a Palestinian whose father was killed by an Israeli and an Israeli whose father was killed by a Palestinian and focuses on four main patterns of self deception ( we each have our favorites ) which box us in and are used to justify our perceptions and behavior.
This business of thinking, seeing, and behaving toward others as though they were objects rather than human beings was brought home to me on an ordinary Saturday afternoon several years ago when I was with my young grandchildren. We were stopped at a light that had just changed to green when the person behind me began blowing his horn. This is a pet peeve of mine and I handled it in my usual fashion by driving very very slowly, really just inching along, through the intersection. One of my granddaughters looked over at me, probably having observed this particular response before, and said, “Gaba, stop it. They may have some place they really need to be.” The people I saw simply in terms of their capacity to irritate me, my granddaughter saw as human beings with needs and desires of their own. People still do occasionally blow their horn at me when I don’t move quickly when the light changes, but my granddaughter’s words stay with me and I no longer inch through the intersection and a small bit of peace has been added to this troubled world.
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
