GENTLE LOVE

 

 When it suddenly appeared yesterday ( I didn’t hear or see it form )

I had a chance to experience the quiet of a storm.

I was enjoying a beautiful afternoon…surveying our domain

when in the midst of all the sunshine…it began to rain.

No thunder…no lightning…which, at first, made it hard to tell

until I saw raindrops glistening in the sun as to the ground they fell.

Some raindrops landed on the leaves of many an outstretched tree

and when I stuck my hand out…some found their way to me.

Standing there and watching…not only was I thoroughly entertained

but I found myself mesmerized by the gentleness of the rain.

And I thought how the message we are sending on the wind these days

is so completely wrong….

How it’s not the loud, the brash, the cruel and abusive…

but the gentle who are strong.

Just as there is no soil rough enough that a gentle rain can’t smooth…

there is no heartache deep enough that a gentle touch can’t soothe.

Many a soul has been softened by the gentleness of a rhyme

and even the strongest hate can be mellowed by a gentle love through time.

I have seen the full and heavy branches gently bow

so people can pick apples from their trees…..

and who out there has not been cooled by a gentle summer breeze.

Yes, gentleness is all around us…if we stop to look a while

A gentle walk, a gentle word, a gentle squeeze…a gentle smile.

Perhaps the value of a life is in the way we allow our gentleness to flow…

perhaps we’re meant to live a gentle life…filled with gentle love…

and in the end…just like a summer rain…

Move on gently when it’s time to go.

MORNING OWL

 

One of the benefits to being an early riser…

is I am blessed to hear and see the interplay

between the night as she clocks out

and cedes the mountains to the day.

There is a lonely owl who, if I’m early enough,

from her spot hidden in the trees

sings a lovely nightly swan song and sets it on the breeze.

 

She sings in a beautiful soprano…

clear, peaceful and bright…

as she anticipates the day…

with one final nocturne to the night

I think of it as the concluding song of an opera

and how, once her final song is through,

the birds who wake up with the day

begin their musical revue.

Perhaps she’s singing a wake-up song

A gentle musical number

into the ears of the morning birds

awakening them from their slumber.

And perhaps their singing in the morning

once their music fills the sky…

which to me seems like a symphony

to the owl …s a lullaby.

At any rate is it a wonderful way

for each new day to begin…

watching and listening to the nigh clock out

while the day is clocking in.

CHEROKEE PRESENCE

 

From my perch with a mountain view I try to understand

what this site was like when only the Cherokee roamed the land.

I have an affinity for indigenous people…their culture…

the way they looked at life…and living…

How they understood we are all a part of the land

and the value they put on sharing, community and giving.

They understood everything on this Earth is equal…no one portion is greater…

and how the entire universe shares in the immortal perfection of its Creator.

 

The way they lived, the way they worshiped, the unique way they thought

If only we had let them be our guide…

They had so much to teach us…

instead…we callously brushed them all aside.

We threw them off the only land they ever knew….

We were barbarous, merciless and cruel…

We tried to change the essence of who they were….

We took their children and sent them off to boarding school.

Where to their parent’s and these innocent children’s sorrow and surprise,

they were forever changed by they way they were mistreated, abused, and brutalized.

But as I sit in a cabin that sits on what once was Cherokee land….

and rue the way those before us have sinned…

I can still feel the Cherokee presence in the trees….

still hear their messages floating on the wind.

To those who have forgotten, disregard or never listened to their message…

It’s not too late to start…

There is still time to walk tall as the trees

live as strong as the mountains

and keep the warmth of the Sumer sun in our hearts.

We cannot go back and change the mistakes we made in the past

that course of history has run…

but if we heed the messages still clinging to the trees

still floating on the wind…

we can begin make the future …a better place for everyone.

EARLY BIRD

’Tis the early bird that catcheth the worm…

is a proverb that has survived…

since William Camden first wrote those words

back in Sixteen hundred and five.

It’s a proverb that lately in the morning I’ve been concentrating on…

After all…I’m considered an early bird because I’m up before the dawn.

 

But the early birds who greet me in the morning…

who have waited the whole night long

do not greet me, as many others do

with an early morning song…

No, the early birds in this part of the mountain

when to this porch they come…

are not the birds that sing at all…

they are the birds that hum.

Since it’s early and still dark I cannot see them…

and since they do not choose to sing

they make their presence known by the humming of their wings.

They let me know they have arrived…

and by their humming they’ve declared

They’ve come to enjoy the sweet nectar

Deborah has prepared.

It’s a beautiful sound in the early morn

and I don’t care if they don’t know the words to their song

because the more I hear their happy humming

the more I want hum along.

Which makes me want to amend William Camden’s proverb

this is what I think…

From my experience it should also read

’Tis the early bird that catcheth a drink.

And since I am an early bird…

In the morning from what I’ve heard…

’Tis also the early bird in the morning

who catcheth sight of the humming bird.

 

A DREAM

 

August 28, 1963

On the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D. C.

Martin Luther King Jr. set aside his prepared notes…

his thoroughly planned out theme

and expressed to the entire world watching…

”I have a dream” 

Which became the dream for many of us

who happened to be listening in…

that we judge people on their character

not by the color of their skin

That freedom should ring not for only some in this country

not just for you and me…

but from the mountains of New York, the Rocky Mountains of Colorado

and the hills of Mississippi.

I was 10 years old when Martin spoke about his dream…

a dream many of us hoped to see…

a dream that that remains just a dream

now that I’m 73.

It’s been 63 years since that moment…

when he expressed a dream many of us continue to dream too…

and I will never understand why there are people in this world…

who don’t want our dream to come true.

DID I PICK THE STONE

How many of us have been walking along the shore of a river, a stream or a lake

by ourself or with our partner, our son…our daughter…

and randomly picked up a stone…carried it for a while, took it home

or skipped it across the water.

If, as indigenous people believe, everything on Earth is connected…

every thing…one and all…

then perhaps you picking that particular stone…

wasn’t so random after all.

Perhaps there are time in nature…for reasons we’re not sure why

we feel more connected to the earth, the sea, the sky.

Perhaps there are times we are more attuned when out in nature walking

When we feel more attached to our surroundings..

when we can hear Mother Nature talking. 

Perhaps what we think is a random stone…

actually is not!

What if that stone is telling us 

he or she is tired of staying in one spot…

What if that particular stone wants us to understand….

It feels like going for a ride…or being held within our hand.

And if that stone asks to be skipped across the water…

if we listen…we just might

hear that skipping stone…squeal with delight.

So the next time you pick up a random stone…

remember this indigenous people’s philosophy…

and ask yourself…did I pick this stone…

or was this stone picking me.