Waste not
Each morning is a gift, the light unfolding in steady breaths over the landscape, reminding me that time is finite and precious. A part of me feels this ticking inside, a reminder that seconds slip through my fingers the sand of an hourglass. How easy it is to forget! I scroll, I wait, I post, I wait, I watch, I wait. I let moments dissolve in the glow of a screen or the lure of idle worry, but something in me whispers, insists that these choices bear weight. I’ve made the choice to cut the cord to the inanimate world. Who likes what, and who shares what, who know what or learned this and has to publicly show they are better than others.
It’s all a blink, this life we’re given. One day I’ll be someone’s memory, a face in a photo, a story shared by someone who remembers me through their own lens. That’s what it is, really; whether we’re here, vibrant and alive, or a flicker in someone’s mind, time hums along, never slowing. Time cares not for our accomplishment, our titles, our successes or failures.
So I ask myself, what matters? How should I spend the gift of now? I think of the people I love, the quiet morning sun, the sounds of life around me. There are books I haven’t read, places I’ve never seen, parts of myself still hidden even from me. The idea that I’m a work in progress, that I might never “finish” but can still keep moving, creating, is somehow freeing.
No, I don’t want to waste a single day, hour, or minute. I want to feel the wind through my fingers, dig my hands into the earth, speak truth even when it feels like I’m shedding armor and vulnerable to the world and those around me. There are too many shades of life, of feeling, of connection, waiting for me to just begin. My time … and your time is now.
Old soul
My parents say I’m an old soul. They’re probably right. I was accidentally invited on a birdwatching walk for senior citizens when I was university, and I went on it! I joined a knitting circle once, and everyone else there had at least twenty years on me. I’m twenty four years old right now and I feel like my soul is older, like I’ve lived more experiences than twenty four years ought to be able to hold, but perhaps that’s because I lose myself in fiction as often as I possibly can, trying to pretend I can live lives other than my own, that other souls could overlap onto mine like a Venn diagram or a kaleidoscope. Some semblance of more than humanity, of animal or vegetative souls like the sort Aristotle wrote about.
Buds (part 1)
My best friend is a plant.
They're a spider too.
Did you know they could flower?
Now I do too.
They're a little cutie:
Half veriegated and half solid green
With plenty of off-shoots
We make a good team.
My spider grows little,
But grows every day.
They're a good listener
When I have nothing to say.
They bring up good points
To help me see the flaws
When I complain about
Unjust human laws.
I feel balance and peace,
While putting my two cents
On the days' toil and trouble
Of current events.
Spider's heard of Hamas
And mass genocide.
Yet they gave me a smile
When I should have cried.
With so much death and destruction,
With struggle and strife,
My spider brings me back
To the meaning of life.
They talk about growth,
And off shoots and decay.
I see a flower bloom;
They reassure me: it's Ok
My best friend's a plant.
They're a spider too.
They see through the horror,
Now I do too.
Frustration
From a writer's workshop last night. The syllabic form is 1, 2, 3, 4, 10
Why
Do I
Settle for
This madness when
I am worthy of so much more than this
It
May be
True that I
Hide behind my
Past mistakes and sabotage my future
But
I know
There are still
Some redeeming
Qualities that I pass into the world
And
The world
Allows me
To proceed with
Utmost caution, knowing I lack some strength
I
Lack the
Strength to care
At certain times
And cause little implosions in my world
I
Lack the
Strength to hold
Some core values
So that my light gets dimmed by my own hand
I
Lack the
Strength to stand
Against the man
Who snuffs out my life with joy in his eyes.
Not Out of the Woods
In the wilderness
every animal
says
Wiedersehen
into sleep
pulling
caliginous twig
shadows wave
see you again
later, my friends
separation blue
on the horizon
Baiji in dreamscape
shhh... make
believers of us, kin
in the signs shedding
amidst the leaves
long staring swells
beneath, watching
as seeds and spores
float downwind
while we remain
rooted in
10.29.2024
Wiedersehen challenge @CKMunsell
A Humble Query for the Divine Oracle
I ask this question in the stupefied amazement of one who believes that such a thought could not have possibly ever existed before...
"Why?!"
"Why!?". "Is it so fucking hard?" "Why?!". "Will you solidify my ache, capture my Soul as it breaks?".
Is this a method which takes the place of a blind, fervent grace?
Is this what it takes?!
The Lucky Fool
Ulrich Q. Wiedersehen was a most unusual klutz.
His monumental blunders in Germany were legendary, from going the wrong way on the Autobahn to falling off a turret of a tall Bavarian castle. Yet he always survived to screw up again.
Long-staring Germans called him “Der Glucklicher Dummkopf” (“The Lucky Fool”). Yet most believed that the spectacular feats of stupidity were signs that his luck would run out, and that Mr. Wiedersehen was doomed to go the way of the Dodo, the Great Auk, and the Wooly Mammoth.
When Ulrich died, no one knew the cause. He departed this earth without saying goodbye, but throngs of Germans gathered for his funeral and shouted, “Oaf Wiedersehen.”
