Month: October 2015

Slow To Sleep

The chill is creeping slowly into the air:

Crisp as apples hanging heavy in trees.

One cannot help but to stop and to stare

while standing still in the autumnal breeze.

Stare at the mountains clad in old forests,

Blazing with fire before their season’s sleep,

As the sun falls slowly into the west.

Soon all will seem dead, but yet do not weep:

It is nothing more than a rest well earned.

Soon the nights will grow long and dwarf the day,

Life will settle down to sleep after it burned

all summer long. Remember as all turns grey

That we are mere months from spring and rain

That brings new life, new joy we cannot contain.

(Trying out this whole soundcloud thing)

You.

Yes, I am the one who lead you away
But you are truly the one who took me,
That sunny afternoon I begged you stay
Just another hour, a minute was my plee

But time got in the way and we parted
And the summer of my life became winter.
And since that day thoughts of you have darted
In and out of my mind, constant and bitter.

I will never forget those cool spring nights
When everything stood perfectly still
And the world ceased to exist. It is trite
But those were the best days of my life, are still.

You will always be a favorite piece of me,
But it’s time to let you go. It’s best, I see.

Written in July 2010

Wasted Breath

The lilac that was our love exploded:
New growth emanating from sudden death,
Brightening my world, erasing my dread.
Without thinking of you, I never drew breath,

But the soil carried blight, no strong foundation,
Nothing to nourish and sustain its life.
Soon, melancholy came from elation
And there was no happiness left: only strife.

But I remembered the first hour’s beauty:
The music of your laugh, the light of your smile.
So I poured in all I had, all of me,
To try to make it last, but all the while

I could do nothing but slow its certain death.
It wasn’t worth saving. I wasted my breath.

Thoughts on love.

I wrote most of this after the sandy hook shooting, but in light of the recent shootings across the country, I felt like maybe I should finally post it.

Dear humanity,

Please, teach your children not to hate. Teach them that it’s not ok to pretend to shoot other people with guns, because guns kill things. Whether you shoot a target, food, or human, guns destroy, and guns kill. That is not something to take lightly. Teach them that violence really isn’t the answer. Teach them that words are more powerful. That that’s the only way to stop pain. Violence causes pain and that is something no man truly deserves. If you take the road of violence, you may hurt your victim more, but make no mistake, you will both suffer pain. Teach them that unkind words cannot be unsaid. Teach them that although they don’t cause physical pain, they can cause emotional pain. Emotional pain is different than physical pain. Physical pain heals with time, but Emotional pain festers and grows. Physical pain can be all consuming in an instant, but emotional pain grows to consume all. Physical violence can end lives, but emotional violence can destroy them just as thoroughly.

Teach your children, instead, to love. Teach them to recognize that we are all part of the same family of men. Teach them that just because someone thinks differently than them, it does not mean either of them is necessarily wrong. Teach them that when they put others down to pull themselves up, all of humanity sinks under the weight of their selfishness, but when we all work together, we can rise together to heights unimagined. Teach them to help others in need, to heal the wounds of others so that we may all, one day, be whole. Please, parents, teach your children to love.

“And these three things remain: faith, hope, and love; but the greatest of these is love.”