When you have more memories
than dreams in your head
and hope is replaced by plans
and the years are ever shorter
and the children are ever taller
then, dreams of theirs become
yours, and their plans are now
your hope, it is then you realize,
your dreams are coming true!

Happy New Year 2024! 

May all of you near and far
know that this Christmas Star
is the sign of a time renewed
where all pain which has ensued
can be healed as a repaired-past,
so a new love and peace may last
because we gave it a new start
by letting the Word into our heart.

It seems to be a circular conundrum
that words are needed for thoughts
which beget feelings, and feelings
are needed for emotions, which
are expressed by words for them to
then become thoughts, and without
thoughts, feelings are meaningless
and there are no need for words for such
meaninglessness in life.

Except that feelings might have
begat the need for words to express
emotion in ways more than just action,
which then led to thinking,
and therefore feelings invented words,
which clearly caused thought, which then
adds meaning to what otherwise
might be the meaninglessness of life.

So then, is it the poet who is
full of words which come from feelings,
but are different from, but the same
as thoughts causing confusion or
rather the fusion of thoughts and
feelings into a commitment to
to the meaningfulness of life?

… and by now you might be thinking
the poet is quite full of something else!

The act of being joined in
politics,
in harmony,
in mutual benefit
in the strength of numbers
in the financial value of more than one
in the coupling to make a longer pole or pipe
in the state of a merging of interests and purpose
and mathematically … the set that comprises all the elements and no others contained in any of two or more given sets … bet you didn’t see that coming 😉

The ubiquity of the molecule is the ubiquity of life,
it is everywhere, in everyone of us flowing through
life, flowing through the Earth and the atmosphere,
being scarce when it’s needed the most, being overly
abundant when we cannot have any more of it,
elusive if it chooses to be but yet ever present.

Water kills and brings life and it tells its story
if we should only listen. It tells of when it was so very
young at the very start of everything, through
the life eruptions, the middle turbulent times,
on to the present and into the future, for it is
constant, and transformative, and indestructible …

and it is us.

If we have no scars then we know not of life,
for to risk life, risks failure and this then
makes us better for the experience
and these lessons which leave marks on us
give us the stories to tell to all who may
listen that we lived well.

If your day begins something like this
then how could you feel anything but bliss?
For the rain is clearing as the sun rises
to begin its journey ‘cross azure-painted skies,
and family and friends find time for you
because of a birthday for you know who.
And I am surely blessed for such a day
because of all those who took time to say
they wish the best for someone like me,
awed by the rainbow I was fortunate to see,
and by those whose love is alive in me,
so I may understand  the story we’ve been told
that life and love is the very real pot-of-gold.

The scent of open air grilling, frying,
and the mingle of hundreds just trying
for a bit of heritage, a taste of the past,
of flavors, and music which continue to last,
because it is beautiful, joyous and we long
for it, we hang on to it like a child’s song
ancestors long-ago would surely know
and sung with gusto we’ll rarely show
today in our staid button-down worlds
and they’d dance, with swinging and twirls
as a community of language, music and food
recapturing the feeling of a happier mood
and of times log ago, in lands so far away,
except for the fortunate, who still sway
in their hearts to the beat of ancient times
bringing them in touch with ancestral minds.

There are arid lands, with impossible
palm trees and rocks and lizards and
things which scurry and people build
growing farm lands and cities with
the water from below.

There are flat lands, with fields followed
by fields, where crows scour the earth
and mice run, and crops grow skyward
as people use great machines to plant,
harvest, raise cattle … here water is life.

There are cities, paved, with mountainous
buildings, and artificial light, and pigeons
scavenge and dogs and cats fight as people
live and work in industries never before imagined,
as water is piped and pumped.

There are forests, grand, evergreen,
stretching for miles and miles,
where deer frolic and play and bears
and raccoons seek easy meals from
people camping along bubbling brooks.

There are mountains rocky and purple
in the sun’s slanting glow where
goats and lions find their keep with
majestic eagles that people watch, as
they hike and ski on frozen waters.

There are coasts by the seas and great lakes,
where fish maybe found in huge numbers
and great and small vessels ply the waves
as seabirds twirl and dive and people live
watching daily the sun rising and setting on the water.

This is America, the majesty of our heritage,
millions and millions of acres of beauty
and diversity for us to enjoy, as We The People
of this great land celebrate and protect our
diversity washed in the blood of patriots and
the waters of our great fortune.