Shifting Snow

The shifting snow
swirls behind
the horseless carriage
I follow,
moving too fast
for me to appreciate
each moment's new pattern.

And even if each moment
were captured in pixels,
I could not live long enough
to view them all.

agd 2.16.15

Send Off

The Dalai Llama has said that dying is just getting a new set of clothes. Here’s an interesting take on what it may be like for the newly departed, casting off their burdens and moving with enthusiasm into the next world. Kathleen Aguero lives in Massachusetts. 




Send Off 

The dead are having a party without us.

They’ve left our worries behind.

What a bore we’ve become

with our resentment and sorrow,

like former lovers united

for once by our common complaints.

Meanwhile the dead, shedding pilled sweaters,

annoying habits, have become

glamorous Western celebrities

gone off to learn meditation.

We trudge home through snow

to a burst pipe,

broken furnace, looking

up at the sky where we imagine

they journey to wish them bon voyage,

waving till the jet on which they travel

first class is out of sight—

only the code of its vapor trail left behind.

Kathleen Aguero

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2013 by Kathleen Aguero from her most recent book of poems, After That, (Tiger Bark Press, 2013). 

Valentine's Day

You have never told me,
"I love you"
in words I can hear.

But you have provided for me,
protected me,
inspired me,
embraced me,
sent angels to help me,
and have given me
vision to see.

You are ever present,
ever loving,
and what more can I do
but love you in return? ....

when I help you in my brother,
give you freedom to roam the field (meow),
smile at you on the street,
when I show compassion,
when I play my harp for you
when you are sick or dying,
when I pass up a penny in the parking lot
so you, as a child
will be thrilled to have found money -
what luck!

Thank you, my love ... for everything.

agd

Thanks

So many passing minutes,

busy days,

and fleeting years -

But all we need is 

a moment in time

to remember

the good people

on our journey

and to bless them

on their way.

agd 2.13.2015 

Burning Skies

Today,
The burning rose
   Of evening mirrors
The fiery rose of dawn -
   Sun singeing the edges
Of night and morn -
   Bookends of fire
For a bland day.

agd

A reminder to those who call themselves Christian

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love.
Where there is injury, pardon.
Where there is doubt, faith.
Where there is despair, hope.
Where there is darkness, light.
Where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,
Grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console;
To be understood, as to understand;
To be loved, as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive.
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
And it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.
Amen.

A Franciscan Prayer (not written by St. Francis of Assisi) Explanation

Reality

And when one realizes 

who is in charge, 

one can guide his or her journey 

through Life's hazardous maze 

to it's end, 

though often

not without scars. 

agd

Let's get drunk...

"Let's hold hands and get drunk near the sun
And sing sweet songs to God
Until He joins us with a few notes
From His own sublime lute and drum."
                                       
                                                    Hafiz

OMG

With every sigh,
Every jolt,
Every raindrop
      falling upon a leaf, a cow, a stream,
With every laugh
      and every tear,
With every footstep and wink,
With every aching orgasm,
      every popping seed
and bird's wing flapping,

God gasps
      with ecstatic emotion.

agd

The Snowfall

Each trunk,

   Each branch,

      Each twig,

So carefully traced 

In sugary white.

Frosted limbs sparkling

In the noonlight

Like crystalline lace

Draped upon the forest’s dark

Until the sun’s kiss

Shall melt the iced shards

And finally quench

Silva’s winter thirst.

agd 1.26.2015

What are you?

"We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience" --- Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Age

Age makes no excuses, and often delights in surprises.

Love is like that....

Even After All this time
The sun never says to the earth,
“You owe Me.”

Look What happens
With a love like that,

It lights the Whole Sky.
                         
                      Hafiz

.....without needing to rest....
and it is always Day....
                       me