20170613.0442

I have to wonder
If I have been clinging
To a past that likely never was
Because I missed something
Through my own choices,
And now I feel
I have to fill in the gaps.

20170612.0450

The morning quiet is something I prize,
And because I do, I early rise,
Waking ere the sun surmounts the skies.
This time, I rose in the silver glow
The moon can cast on the earth below,
One I've known the hills often to know.
I smiled at looking on the light-washed trees--
Mesquite and oak, the cedars, cypress knees--
And on the chalk white hills bare to the breeze.
But though I smiled, I had to turn away,
For I must make me ready for the day.
Such, of course, is the expected way:
The work has ever to be done again,
Coming only slowly to an end.

20170611.0843

To watch the sun rise o'er the limestone hills
Clad in oak and cedar and mesquite
Is an act at which my heart yet thrills;
As I do it, I can keep no seat.
Yes, I have lived amid the cypress swamps
Where water stands and flows and bounty yields
And a people exiled twice now romps,
And I have lived where towers rise from fields,
The gridded buildings lined up to the sun,
Where legend in each street and brick inhere.
I have lived on wind-swept plains, where one
Convulsion of the earth did once cause fear
And now is commonplace. Withal,
I still would answer the Hill Country's call.

20170610.0458

Once again, I sit me down to write
As I arise from sleeping through the night
And ponder what all I may bring to light
In measured words arranged so as to rhyme
As they progress in regimented time.
It is no easy task that I've made mine.
The words I use long often to be free,
To run at length as they would have, not me,
And fall as many drops into the sea.
The ocean swells and ebbs with moon-drawn might,
But it is the river that runs right
Which makes a city its people's delight,
And so I trim the stream that I send forth,
Hoping that its levees prove its worth.

20170609.0455

When I woke today,
I did so from a dream,
And it was a good dream.
The memory fades,
As the few I have of dreams always quickly do,
But the impression that it was good,
That remains.
I suppose it will have to be enough.

20170608.0448

I seem to be awake this time.
I got up when I ought.
I rose and left my sleep behind,
And now I have got
To make me ready for a day
During which I will plot
To do somewhat to earn my pay--
Though it be not a lot.

20170606.0447

Thirty-six years
They've shared fears,
Shed their tears,
Held them near,
Held them dear,
Or so I hear.
And so here's
To many more!
Happy anniversary!

20170603.0501

I am having trouble remembering the day.
I know what day of the week it is,
Which castrated infantophagic god of old it honors,
But the number eludes me.
I am not much pleased by that.
I think it understandable.

20170602.0456

The rolling limestone hills
Clad in oak and cedar
Drink in the warmth
Of the kind Hill Country sun
That gives so much
So much
Of itself to all.
What they take in
They give back again
And again
And the mesquite shrouds
Are no insulation

20170601.0459

Another month has now begun,
And I am still at a run
To try to get the long race won,
Or one leg of it, at least.
I'll go again to work for pay,
As I do most every day,
Hoping thereby to out lay
Occasionally a feast.
But I face a daily grind,
Though I know I should not mind,
As it helps me be less behind,
But, damn, it is a beast.