July Weekend

Practicing presence
7/17/21

A summer shower reined in my desire to go walking
calling me instead to linger in the magic of this day
Spent crisscrossing the city like an open sunflower
With its eye always facing toward the bright sun:
Visiting in prison was like sharing communion
and listening to the anguished dreams of immigrants
became a desired pass into the realm of shared lives.

Along the way I became a disoriented hitchhiker
Covered in the dust of memories stirred up
by passing through my old neighborhood,
its stagnant aura refreshed everywhere
by old houses popped or scraped, and
clusters of new apartments jostling for a perch
on the edge of the gulch like preening parrots,
while the bright white paint on my old digs
gleamed like a time-lapse flash in a dream.

May the freely flowing abundance
belong to everyone,
each sharing what has been given,
receiving what each needs.


Three Pennants
7/18/21

A different path led me back into the subdivision
searching again for my friends

Summer Triptych

Memories of Green

 
Spring green tripped the memory switch
setting loose long forgotten moments --
searching among the cul de sacs for the home of  
a backyard pig roast with a crowd of hippies
rowdily playing beneath the bright green hills.
Lost in the past, I roam in the greenness
finding refuge at the verdant arsenal
where I used to wander in my olive drabs
while others gave their lives in Vietnam.
The soundtrack booms