I Taught Myself To Live Simply

I taught myself to live simply and wisely,
to look at the sky and pray to God,
and to wander long before evening
to tire my superfluous worries.
When the burdocks rustle in the ravine
and the yellow-red rowanberry cluster droops
I compose happy verses
about life's decay, decay and beauty.
I come back. The fluffy cat
licks my palm, purrs so sweetly
and the fire flares bright
on the saw-mill turret by the lake.
Only the cry of a stork landing on the roof
occasionally breaks the silence.
If you knock on my door
I may not even hear.

Anna Akhmatova

one perfect morning I was all alone
listening to the blaze of summer
drifting
I was falling
I was floating in a golden haze
breathing in the sky blue sounds
of memories of other days

The Cure - To The Sky

"Next time a sunrise steals your breath or a meadow of flowers leaves you speechless, remain that way. Say nothing and listen as heaven whispers, 'Do you like it? I did it just for you.'"

Max Lucado

"Once you start to see through the myth of status, possessions, and unlimited consumption as a path to happiness, you'll find that you have all kinds of freedom and time. It's like a deal you can make with the universe: I'll give up greed for freedom. Then you can start putting your time to good use."

David Edwards, Nothing to Lose But Our Illusions

"The small things of life were often so much bigger than the great things...the trivial pleasures like cooking, one's home, little poems especially sad ones, solitary walks, funny things seen and overheard."

Barbara Pym

Colin Pereni, Seascape Artist

Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's

"Just living is not enough… One must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower."

Hans Christian Andersen

"After a day's walk everything has twice its usual value."

George Macauley Trevelyan

"Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

She's So Innocent

If she was a flower
she would be a Tiger Lily.

If the air and grass were not a stage for her
then her heart would have a window.

If you could distinguish between the devil and angel
in the movements of her eyebrows,

or whether or not she twists her foot so slowly
unintentionally,

then there would be no more
fun in uncertainty, no more risk in temptation.

If she was a note, then
she would slowly bend up a whole step

in a minor key, softly sustain it,
and fall, as in a gravity of sound

as strong as the pull of the twist
of the arch of her foot.

If she was a simile,
she would be a dress.

Nick A.

Zen and the Art of Saying Goodbye

I
She was so happy she could have cried,
she said. And he believed her.
He was taken by her honesty.
The room now felt as naked as they were, and new.

The radio alarm clock began its song perfectly.
Sinatra was signing "Fly Me to the Moon,"
And their laughter danced its way to the stars.
This morning the sunlight was not intrusive, but perfect.

II
But just as light breaks night falls,
and just as life wakes death calls.
Everything comes and goes.

There's a transitive nature to all things,
lovers, friends, ends beginnings.
Faith is a dog's nose.

"You fool," he said, but how could he be blamed to trust sincerity.
Words are words. Just words, just words.
They're glass they're masks, they're fire, they're swords

I know no other way to feel.
I tell you because I can.
Yet, I'm afraid to say I miss you.
You may not understand.

III
Still, in the darkest, most hidden corner of my soul
there is a hunger for the shadow that falls
between the soft curve of your back,
for the missing weight of your hand on my chest.

Nick A.

Speculation

If he had merely smiled,
she would certainly have smiled back.

Or if he had offered, say, an orange,
a pleasant waxy glove of color,
a burgeoning world of pith and pulp
plucked unexpectedly from its citrus orbit,
then too, with yes please, thank you,
she would have smiled back.

Or if it were a joke, a joke
which had just then occurred to him
as his eyes scanned the effect
of waning light stretched out before them,
even a joke he had known for years, perhaps
one his grandfather had told him
on just such a gathering autumn evening,
if he had merely offered a joke,
surely then her generosity
would have proved magnificent,
and her smile, magnanimous.

If he had but thought,
had not let that slight phrase slide across his lips into the space
that formed the gloaming distance
between their bodies,
she just might have smiled.

Emily P.

"Where did the year go? We all ask that, eventually. But it's like a rock in the middle of the stream asking where all the water went. There's still water on the way. There's still water all around you now."

James Lileks

"Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life."

Red Auerbach