warmerhave I forgotten how to
write
and do right? it's just one day perhaps another to the end my friend i feel the laughter now and then, and rhyme i sense a mission is upon me from time to time a calling to the higher place the eight=fold path truth and justice and honesty flow forth like a fountain in the mountain village square sustenance nourishments no charge the joy of life its own reward but more often i'm pulled backward by base desires and and little fires that give no warmth in the death of winter can i pull the plug on the satellite dish? can i focus just long enough on my deepest wish which is to know, to hear, my deepest wish? today is a slushy day neither rain nor snow a good day to start again on the whim of a friend to ask if i remembered how to write i might recall after all i'm warmer already Read More Sat - February 24, 2007mother's dayyou are
resiliant
and resourceful and generally right your children i hope understand the strength feel the love comprehend the wisdom you share every single day whether tired beat or sick you bounce back and give more and then more again as mentor or friend i hope they see it but know that i do and i’m amazed Posted at 02:00 PM Read More on your 50thyou are like an
angel
no, wait, I think not a goddess then and yet on second thought a saint no please that is not you not so exhalted if I must be true your taste in men is clearly suspect so how is it that I can expect such perfection from you and I don’t when you love so patiently this nearly untrainable dolt there must indeed be something within you wrong for your love towards me to last so long the opposite is not the same you see it is my great good fortune that I can be your man for all these years and more forI am blessed to be allowed to adore not angel or saint but woman through and through how rich it is to wake each morning with you Posted at 01:58 PM Read More on our twentiethTo Debra on our
Twentieth
we found the indigo bunting on our private south woodstock trail i said i would not fail you when we travelled that path again and in the pale leafy moonlight we stepped into a piece of paradise silver sliver so sweetly serene we laughed it has been harder to find our way through the trails of our trials tear strewn too often at times to see the way mother and father husband and wife each day together now for twenty years of life you work too hard and sit too little i sit too long and work not enough perhaps that’s our intended dance i say stop and smell the roses you say they need to be trimmed i have learned from you i have changed slowly like an aquarian sloth i have given up my boyish ways become at last the man i might have been far earlier in my stubborn existence my resistance might have perplexed a less temperate woman not raised in the ways of this land you trimmed me and fed my soil my roots feel solid at last and even our private agonies and salted tears for the young souls we delivered to life’s door can not rust the bloom of your love for me and mine for thee i hope i have nourished you in return lightened the fears that dwelled within we came to each other not broken but the glaze was surely cracked like fine aged pitchers handed down from those who cast our clay and, like most, knew not the true potter’s trade i have not succeeded as i had once dreamnt someone of greater reknown in word or song but i have arrived where I did not in truth aspire or consider an end to all my desires a partner and friend and lover like no other for twenty full years in the hills of Vermont now most content to garden by your side trowel in hand compost by the shed bee balm smells swell as we weed we add paths and ponds and all is well our own fruit has seen that too not by word but by deed they have seen and lived our love with ups and downs not some perfection beyond their ken but we have lasted sweet lady with true affection our willow vale is small not big i am your gardener and you may tell me where to dig Posted at 01:57 PM Read More valentines 2007we
were
dressed
to
visit
friends
the plans failed and it’s now dinner for two just me and you softly talking and making plans woman and man plans feeling oddly ancient but spry glimmer in the eye love is so much more than we ever can define quiet peace by fire place as rumors of the pending storm swirl the cardinal couple not natural to our winter just outside the kitchen window do they wonder from whence come the seeds we wonder if they do me and you as we sip coffee in the chilly house we try to heat with a stove too small to warm it all our flame must flourish with kindling and tending vents and ash against rough weather we convert cast iron to our sun about which we revolve on occasion in mute appreciation each piece of wood handled five times from stack to barrow to cellar to canvas we move our woodcutter’s tree until we feed the orange glow and so it goes our life’s flame fed many steps and colder nights there will be in our winter it may one day be all we can abide one piece of wood at a time a little heat silent sweet Posted at 01:19 PM Read More Tue - July 19, 2005Toula BalanceAnd so one more little step for mankind
womankind
and all the other kinds of kinds The kinders are moving on and up No more health insurance On this specific day it says so You're not ours in that way any longer It's not a big thing if you stay healthy If you grow stronger from your tears Those years we would walk through town My little backpacker Sometimes on my back Sometimes by my side handinhand Dark confident curious eyes Asking your thousand thousand questions Why does it rain? How do birds fly? Why did Humby die? I'd answer endlessly with as much detail As I could hope a little one could absorb We'd walk on logs or curbs sharks to one side alligators to the other Oh, nooo, you're dead, I'm dead We fell into the sea We lost our balance We invented the little French girl Toula Balance You told the postmaster that's your name "I'm Toula! Toula Balance!" For Toula everything was balance The dance of opposites, dark and light day and night Life is a battery with a plus and a minus Poles that keep the flow Flowing and our wisdom growing Tiny Toula understood We’d climb Mountain Pig Visit Grandmother Tree and leave our gift of leaves and ferns and flower petals knowing it was all balance back to the roots old man to dust, sun to horizon, darkness to wisdom, on it swirls, the spiral within which, somewhere, is my love endless for Toula and thee for she lives still deep within, can you see her and bring her home? Can she walk the log and not fall? Call her, she will come, she will dance The sweet warm true Toula Balance Posted at 11:45 PM Read More Thu - June 16, 2005is this our 20th?we are so bad at this no, wait, i am so bad at this special days and celebrations great and small i’m always late and unprepared for all of them frozen in indecision what can we do for two days? where might we go for a week? can we afford it? what else do we need? i’m beat so home sounds good doing nothing much sounds good what i like best doesn’t cost much but i want you to know yes i want you to know right now thank you woman for all the love and patience you’ve shown this flawed piece of manwork twenty years is plenty for all the cracks and fissures to show and they have yet still our love is strong and still it strengthens i’m beat by our offspring love them so dearly and clearly we have missed something along the way love was not enough i’m beat by knowing my fathership has left them missing something they need to see but i think we’re pretty okay you and me two of woodstock’s beautiful people someone said and they were half right Posted at 07:35 AM Read More Sun - February 13, 2005On Valentines Daywe wake as we do every day to the news of the
world
interrupting the news deep within commentary shared by curling toes into ankles and calf and build up our gumption to set forth from fleecy comfort and warmth and make our coffee fumbling with the percolator and raise our children from their slumbers and turn up the heat to beat the February airs i check the outside temperature see if any coals remain from last night's fire if brave i run en robe to the newspaper box it's the same old day over and over again not like the truly wealthy you and me a trip to Paris or Martinique to break the blahs of mid-winter is out of our league as we are besieged and encumbered with more than our paltry sums can withstand and yet we endure the tired repetition without dereliction for we have our sweet love and Valentines Day will be like all the others for we have our sweet love and that is more than enough Posted at 03:59 PM Read More Thu - July 15, 2004endless messit's not neat, the world, it's
messy
lava flows and flood debris scree slopes and fungi covered logs a village of huts skin covered ready to move in the spring predators and blood suckers one of a kind snow flakes and sun sets only the bodies of heaven purvey precise and even they wobble and even the moon drifts each year a few inches away from the tides that collide with rock strewn seaweedy shores crabgrass pressing through a crack in the concrete and yet not a thing out of place meant to be this way this disarray an endless mess punctuated with love Posted at 12:03 AM Read More Thu - July 8, 2004nine elevenwe all know where we
were
millions of us made aware in a blinding flash of jet fuel and flame only dallas and the assassination of the president of our nation can compare in my lifetime both were crimes that echo on for decades to come some for the crime itself and some for the the facts stacked house of cards the construct around the event who knew who said who asked who lied we will not know the truth surrounding jfk not in my lifetime perhaps never they were clever the smoke worked but nine eleven will out by will of survivors drivers towards the truth and moore has clarified the questions millions asking the questions that we hoped our free press might ask our ultimate repository of freedom the press now the media might ask about these links from saudi to bush this cushy embrace this censored case but the media is not where we thought it was it is us our internetworking logs millions of journalist making sure the facts don't slither by as young poor boys and girls in fatigues die in the winds of babylon it's being called propaganda this one lone voice that looms forth and challenges all the lockstep statements of the corporatii that is not propaganda that is the voice that throws of our blinders to let the light in where it has been so dark we are the victims of propaganda moore has helped provide the key to rise free above the unquestioned the work is now our destiny it is not easy to mutiny i cried when jfk died hard and long i cried when the towers burned and fell what tears will fall if our nation should die and fall there is an answer i pray to whoever hears such prayers that should i might never hear at all Posted at 11:10 PM Read More Wed - July 7, 2004she is asleepshe is asleep now in her bed in the tiny room she
chose
filled with her art and her books and clothes it is silent the house yawns under clear cool skies i am lost and battered again my heart breaks and cries fathers are too fragile or perhaps it is just me i can not see clearly for i made choices as well and lived to recover and learn and avoided the pits of hell what is different from where i stand with my grey hair i compare contrast where she might be here not there she runs from not towards now confidant in her rejection proud that she drifts without aim or direction convinced i see her in a lesser light evidence in her mind that i think she can do no right yet i am trapped by just the opposite view i see only her potential all that she can do but i've shared what i could the die is cast fathers have their time it does not last i can only step aside and watch her wend her way once a god i now stand with feet of clay i'm just as lost some days perhaps more i have few choices i have closed most doors she will not exult in a single gift granted she sees the world darkly and bitterly slanted that was a gift i did not mean to share we give what we have that now is too clear Posted at 11:27 PM Read More Tue - July 6, 2004food firsti miss the food in
provence
the way it was honored and respected and came first not a quick pit stop in the drag race of life but a leisurely love of qualite food first you can continue without movies or cars or soap operas real or televised but a place that puts food in its proper space has its priorities correct and much good flows from that choice if a choice it is americans can not guess how it got to be that way you can't get there from here it's all intertwined the wine the lavender the olives the bread the open air markets and cafes they lean upon each other and the citizen supports them all fresh croissants every day at bruno's little cafe if no one pays for them he would stop but it is inconceivable and so twenty arrive every morning ready for my liberal elite latte and my brutal effort to chat futbol en francais bruno is patient and the shutters against the stone houses matching the doors i miss that as well Posted at 12:42 AM Read More Mon - July 5, 2004i write alonei write alone i ride alone i read
alone
i see movies alone hear music alone watch satellites slide across the sky alone hike the trail alone mow alone and then rake contact with others is illusion yet a pleasant collusion a needed intrusion a loving infusion with accompanying confusion which teaches me to remember i write alone all over again i am my own tap root there is no sharesies on that we can mingle above the soil morning glories intertwined willows bending with the wind but hidden from the sun where the transfer of needed nutrients occurs we stand alone we flourish or starve or are uprooted whether or not the soil is suited to our souls whether or not we have life goals i stand alone outside my house parts are over two centuries old parts are not quite finished a few dozen fireflies flash about one flies high above the trees experimenting in the warm southern breeze Posted at 10:38 PM Read More Sun - July 4, 2004light to the worlddream then of an america still a light to the
world
still based on the principles of the declaration so radical and bold in the flow of a world of kings and despots and powerful lords a break from the past for all time and the world has loved and thanked our land for the gifts bestowed by a few score men two hundred twenty eight years ago words spoken and written and acted upon so it must be asked who hijacked this great experiment? torture of prisoners is not corporals not sergeants not even generals not even an administration so foul we slid this way a long way to reach this point we closed that joint in the philippines and hawaii oh say can you see the grasping hands of the greedy every generation has them they rise to the top and scum up the pond clemens fought them tooth and nail could you have a better champion but he lost and we raised the sail to american empire it has all followed from those first steps our secret fingers placing guns in the secret hands to assassinate any voice that might resemble the voices of our founding fathers ask the cubans to tell you something good about batista ask nicaraguans to tell you something good about somoza ask iranians how they came to have the shah on the peacock throne our agents spreading autocracy oligarchy plutocracy and even monarchy with absolute power so who flicked the switch on the light of freedom we can point to specific derelict men but it's you and me for a hundred years too bored by reading the mundane facts too seduced by the pleasures wafting before us to ask how our declaration of independence and our constitution came to bear the bullet-riddled fruit of allende yeah yeah we beat the germans and saved the world and we honor always those who did so but our story from clemens time to ours is not one (truth someday be told) of advancing those thoughts and ideals so bold Posted at 12:42 AM Read More Sat - July 3, 2004you can lead a horseyou can lead a horse to water but it may be
brackish
and the horse is not so stupid as to drink deep draughts from the bitter pond i was never a whisperer to horses or dogs much less girls or humans of any kind i could never speak so softly or listen cleanly i had a malamut once with blue devil eyes shogun i was admonished by the man on his steed as i chased my disobedient dog yelling and angry i caught him and slapped him he said you'll never train him that way i knew he was right flooded with the darkest self knowledge i knew it was not in me this empathy and not in this life would i free myself this knee and this jerk thing have not worked why did i think it might be different with the life form i love as i love no other i broke those bonds first the watering hole has my tears she will not drink nor should she it will balance out in time i move away from any dreams i had i will be quiet now love must ask for nothing i've rode this disappointment nag long enough the solitary man must find his own way his own center sadness says the world is not right clouds the sight brings the night my dog ran away disappeared one day Posted at 10:22 PM Read More Fri - July 2, 2004sea of perjurfidelity truth transparency
honesty
our tribe does not set the ground for growing the culture of fidelity we are not used to it not trained to be open fidelity is not an act you pull out on occasion it is a way of being a man was killed hiking on katahdin boulder fell from above no time to set things right just swept from the trail by two tons of granite he did not plan it that way was he a man of fidelity? it's either yes or no you can't feign it rare is the man who can claim it how odd to see it reflect in a stranger's eyes no worry nothing to lose tonight i'm just livin the blues much harder in the familiar the long dance you'd think just the opposite but we do not live in the hoop we live as though a rail line tearing up tracks behind us new lands ahead screw up and move on the tribe demands a hoop count on the truth you can be and do whatsoever but do not hide behind your lies we all try or tried some get lost in the sea of perjur never to set foot on the land of truth again truth is not being afraid how did so many miss that lesson Posted at 11:58 PM Read More |
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© 2004 Al Alessi Total entries in this category: Published On: Feb 24, 2007 02:00 PM |
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