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Showing posts from November, 2018

Tempering the World's Chaos

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Snow rests heavy upon the dim blue landscape, tracing and draping myriad outlines. Branches droop in repose as juncos dash through wild-haired shrubs. The waking mind is coaxed into a slow wandering — silence the treasured vehicle. The serenity placates, perhaps medicates. We inhale what we can of it, for morning quickly smothers the predawn hour. Soon it will heave jewels of sunlight across the white blanket, shrinking blue shadows like summer puddles. Snow drips and falls to the warming wet earth. We begin to stir within the transition, lured by its guiding hand. Soon our thoughts will speed, looping, toward the waking day. Routine will take hold. But before we step too far into the busyness, let us sit, selfishly, with one more cherished thought of a loved one, near or somewhere far; or the soft gray juncos, chasing and chattering like lovers' hearts; or a path along a bookshelf, all those soul-building stories and poems; or something else, anything else, to help temper the wor

"In the pitch black of the future..."

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In the pitch black of the future there materialized a pair of eyes — small, childlike eyes void of the slightest hint of judgment. And they didn't look at me so much as past me, focusing on the present state of things and the goings-on all around. Suddenly I was aware I'd failed to do my best, like so many others in our time (yes, there is progress, but that is not to be dwelled upon when there is so much more at stake). And then those eyes, grown familiar, began to glisten and harden and fade into the lightless beyond. And I was left in silence. Just a dream? My imagination? It doesn't matter. What matters is the messenger. Because the eyes were those of my son. And they were the eyes of every child alive and every child to come. And if I'm to truly realize the potential of my humanity, to let rise the best version of myself, then I must apply the change that occurred in me at the moment those eyes departed. Because it wasn't just disappointment that I saw