Cold winter nights, fresh snow softly falling,
Thoughts of warmer days with a pack on my back,
Moving silently through the woods, boots kicking up dirt.
Newly released from winters grasp, each step a promise,
A promise of longer days and peaceful nights that bring
The mesmerizing rush of spring streams and the crack of dead
Winter limbs. As the woods open their arms and embrace each soul
As its own, we long for the simple touch of springs sweet caress.
“Rest but never quit. Even the sun has a sinking spell each evening. But it always rises the next morning. At sunrise, every soul is born again.”
“We need to be reminded sometimes that a sunrise last but a few minutes. But its beauty can burn in our hearts eternally.”
“The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. Don’t go back to sleep.”
“Yet even the brightest of sunrises must come to an end.”
A
Winter
Wonderland
Stands before me,
Untouched and pristine,
The soft virgin snow waits
As the flakes fall, innocent
And silent, singing a song of
Wonderment and love, asking for
Nothing but tranquility,
The scene, full of beauty,
Only to be one,
Forever lost
In the soft
White fluff,
Peace
What is it that connects us?
Do we share the same hopes and dreams?
Riding a plush orange sunset as it slowly melts
Behinds the trees and into the horizon,
Are we connected through time?
The slow measure of yesterday and the quick tempo
of today moves us as our lives touch and then fade away.
What is it then that connects us?
Don’t we all flow from the same fountain?
The fork in the road, the bend in the river,
Our differences should serve as inspiration, but instead we
Let the dagger of the vile and repugnant rule.
When
I look
Into your
Eyes, what do you
See? a mirrored life
Masking tranquility.
Vanilla scented love keeps
Me close, intoxicating in
Its simplicity, flowing freely,
Marking days, the drumbeat of my
Life a silent echo, filling
The void with snippets of time
That continue to tell
Me that I love you.
Seen from afar,
I forget
That you
Breathe.
The eyes of the dying man closed,
Moist with memories, he struuggles to see,
Blind and held captive by the past,
He stumbles through the years
Silently asking for nothing but more time, a second chance
To reclaim what has been misplaced by the ghosts of time.
Darkness envelopes him, a small light in the distance calls out,
Peace.
I look in the mirror on the last day,
Wondering what awaits me tomorrow.
Another year has past, another year older,
Another year of loss, another year bolder,
Why do we wait, for each year to end,
Why do we wait, to be on the mend.
So I look in the mirror on the first day,
Wondering what awaits me tomorrow.
“New Year’s Day. A fresh start. A new chapter in life waiting to be written. New questions to be asked, embraced, and loved. Answers to be discovered and then lived in this transformative year of delight and self-discovery. Today carve out a quiet interlude for yourself in which to dream, pen in hand. Only dreams give birth to change.”
-Sarah Ban Breathnach
The sun coming up over the hill behind my house on a beautiful New Year’s Day.
That time of year is here again, in just a couple of days,
When resolutions will define us, our minds are set ablaze.
But why do wait we to change, to make new amends,
When we have the entire prior year, I guess it all depends.
Lose some weight, be a little nicer, these are things to strive for,
But why doesn’t it ever last, despite the steady roar.
So here we are, and in this time of renewal,
All I really ask for, is just a little time, to think and to refuel.
So I hope that when I wake up, in oh so many days,
I’m still on a steady course, to mend and change my ways.
Being lost they say,
Sand slips through empty fingers,
Recalling scenes of
Where we were and where we are,
Found in the grains of today
The Zen Hiker 