The morning sun reflects
Across the leaves of the red-tipped photinia,
Flowing forth to accent the brilliant
White of the oak leaf hydrangea.

Peacefulness rests solidly on the scene.
There is time for talk and a chance to listen.

Life is calm, except for the roughness at the edges.
Disagreements suddenly become prominent.

How does one disagree?
When do topics become as rough as sandpaper?
How hard does one scrape the soft edges of ideas?
If rubbed too deeply, do emotions sour, curdling like overnight cream left unrefrigerated?

Can we play with these ideas like juggling bottles in the air?
If they are dropped, are they erroneous, becoming shards swept to the garbage?

Righteousness and reason override relationships. We must think alike if we are to be maintained.

Midday has arrived; sunshine dominates. Hydrangeas and the red-tipped leaves now glow the shade of seafoam,
Shining as clearly as a meadow.

Have our ideas become more lucid, more detailed, more correct?
Were we willing to discard what was deemed baggage, too wrong to carry beyond today?  

What too has become of us together? Did our arguments massage so intently our intellects that the bruising might not heal?

She asked me
If I had ever been
In love

Then I
Realized that I
Had never not been
In love

I realized
I  wanted
Nothing  
Other than love

I think there is
Only one
Off-ramp
From the journey
Of love

That off-ramp
Is judgment

A critical heart
Combined with
A critical eye
Fills one with
The opposite
Of love—judgment

Judgment colors
The mind with
Negativity

Until the sin of
Judgment
Is displaced
By a lust
For love,
One will not find peace

When love invades
One’s heart
The body finds peace

When love is abundant
And bountiful
There is no fear
Of wasting love
Nor spilling love
For love can grow
Anywhere

So am I
In love?

Yes, I am
In love
Excessively
Wastefully and Willingly

Garbled groans
Emanate from
A feeble opposition

Debilitated Democrats
Stunned and still

For want of the right word
For want of a plain proposal

Meekly making
Faint sounds of life

Begging belatedly
“Follow the rules”

Cheating continues
Constitution crumbles

That freshly planted bush
Dries in the afternoon sun
Filtering through an overgrown pear tree
Loaded with an unpicked harvest

Were he younger
He would climb the tree
Were he younger, he would
Enter the house and kiss
The woman
Who says she loves him

That freshly planted bush
Might not make it
Through the Fall
Wilting and dying before Winter

Were he younger
The plant would not die
Were he younger
What would the plant become

Written in 2018
The plant has survived

Turn out the lights
catch the night’s bequest

Train your eyes on the horizon
sunrise is approaching

Notice how blue is shading
from deep to pale

There are no shadows
Cast by the moon
Hiding behind the clouds

Sounds reverberate from
an airplane drifting
to a landing

Morning’s quiet
regains the stage

Until a Robin chirps
a wake-up call

Sunrise is approaching
advancing from east to west
lighting the sky

Rocks whiten to become obvious
against the pallid grass of winter
robbed of nutrition by the cold of January

No orb announces today
the sun is rising, although hidden
behind dense condensation

The orange orb of the sun
will not flood the skyline

The fever of night
has become the pale of the day

Thinking ahead
to those moments
generates anxiety and fear.

It feels like
I might open a box
of dire circumstances,
a basket of hassles,
for tomorrow
is so uncertain.

Similarly, the past
resembles a rug
stained with footprints
of mud, grit, and misdeeds
best described as guilt.

Self-reproach
obscures all awareness
of the present moment.

Peace exists;
it resides in my awareness
of now.

And in those moments together,
God concedes
that sadness and dark times
are assured.

These obligatory struggles,
though arduous to traverse,
are trials
that contain kernels of truth
for me to grasp

if I pay attention.

I sit in a trance as the morning sun sifts through the porch window.  Music from a Carolina wren taunts the world with a glorious tweet.

My wife invades my trance, “Look what Amazon brought me.”

My reply, “That’s nice, honey."

My eyes fixed on a headline, “Colleges are cautious about graduation speakers who might provoke the government!”

Freedom of speech, where have you gone?
Are you hiding in the canyons of the Appalachian Hills?
Concealed in the wheat fields of Kansas?

Will ICE deport the songbirds to Latin America
because they sound like freedom?