One Shot Wednesday - A Life Well Lived

Pops in a dress.

My father turned 80 on April 6th. Here is a poem I wrote for him:

When a man looks to judge the successes of his life,
He looks to the things he has gathered about him;
He looks to the things he calls his own;
He looks to the things he has created.
He looks around and he sees,
He has planted the seeds
Of his posterity,
Of his legacy,
Of himself:
His children,
His grand-children,
His great-grand-children.
And in their lives,
He has built generations where
He sees his eyes and dimples in some
He sees his mannerisms, hears his laugh in others
He sees himself stretching grandly on into the future
He sees his life is good; he sees he has done good work.
When a man looks to take his measure,
He sees he is loved.

Dedicated to my father, a man whose family is everything to him, on his 80th birthday.

The tough guy on the left.

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Merry Meet and Blessed Be

One Shot Wednesday - Selfish

I selfishly prayed for my brother’s return, unabashedly asking God to take care of him, not to the exclusion of others (after all, God is perfectly capable of multi-tasking) but selfish because I don’t think I could take it and then the others pushed into my consciousness and the emotions log-jammed in my throat, tears burning my eyes, blood rushing to my cheeks – how will these poor people deal with the devastation – how will it ever be bearable – how will they ever move on – and the guilt swamped me and I knew that was selfish too but I hoped my soul would receive understanding so that I could move on and perhaps do something constructive for all of the voices calling out to loved ones who could no longer hear.

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Merry Meet and Blessed Be

One Shot Wednesday - I'm Tired

I wake up exhausted, the residuals
of the adventure lingering around in
my mind as I try to shake myself
into consciousness, my eyelids
rising like a flag moving up the mast
beyond the half way mark to hang
limp throughout the windless day
no energy, no spark, no caffeine
enough to energize me into mundane
tasks, boring to do’s, the same old
same old people in tan and beige
hours that tick by like minutes as
slow as a watched clock or a
watched kettle boiling away until
the sun begins to set on another
boring ten foot rut that leads in
a straight line from this side of
the bed rolling in and out, out and onto
crisp cold pillows cradling my tired head
filled with a 3D screen and screams
in surround sound, kisses light as
the sighs of a baby rock-a-bye
and good night, sleep to dream

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Merry Meet and blessed Be

One Shot Wednesday - morning

here i am
drinking instant coffee
watching DVR’d late night shows
that i am too old to see
at their regularly
scheduled times
writing what might pass
as a poem
a flash of the moment
filled with the day’s
to do list
wishing for less
entries of milk, bread,
dishes, laundry,
air in the tires
waiting out the minutes
that tick off the tableau
of my morning

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Merry Meet and Blessed Be