“People will do anything,
no matter how absurd,
to avoid facing their own souls.”
–Carl Jung
Our Shadow Selves
Give One Yielding Hour
Give one yielding hour,
All forgot in the moment.
Pretend to care not, if you must.
But you may be believed not.
Yet be.
In that hour, completely.
Then turn away,
Step again onto the twisting path.
Choice is loss.
A Dab of Bly (Robert, That Is)
“I know men who are healthier at fifty than they’ve ever been before, because a lot of their fear is gone.”
____________________________
“Tonight the first fall rain washes away my sly distance.
I have decided to blame no one for my life.
This water falls like a great privacy.
Letters sink into the desk,
The desk sinks away, leaving an intelligence
Slowly learning to talk of its own suffering.
The muttering of thunder is a gift
That reverberates in the roof of the mouth.
Another gift is a child’s face in a dark room
I see as I check the house during the storm.
My life is a blessing, a triumph, a car racing through the rain.
What If?
What if we weren’t the responsible ones, for a change?
What if we weren’t the ones who let someone else screw up and
Kept on doing the right things?
What if we … could just run away for a while—just for a while—
To some anonymous, peaceful place where email was banned, the phone
Didn’t ring, the air was warm and we were all alone for an afternoon?
Where my heart didn’t ache,
Where there weren’t the old problems and worries,
Where we could be carefree children again, with no grownup cares?
This Old House
This old house is made of wood and paint and memories, but
Lately, the sense that our time here will end has hovered on my shoulder,
A faint melancholy of knowing that one day I will walk out one last time,
Hand the keys to someone who won’t know any of it.
That spot in the dining room wall where a teenage
Tantrum left a divot in the plaster from a chair tossed in anger.
Where the same child discovered the internet, found a girl
In California and talked up a huge long-distance phone bill.
Where B&B guests gathered from around the world
To chat at the table over Bismarks and sausages and coffee on
Their brief swing through this old house, and our lives.
What Are The Odds?
What are the odds
Of that one seed
Falling at that precise instant
(Not a second earlier, or later)
On that particular day
On just the right side, facing the sun,
In just the spot where there was an opening
Where there just happened to be enough soil
Where the mason had left a gap last year
Because it was time for lunch and
He was in a hurry.
When the breeze randomly moved in just the right strength,
In just the right direction
And stopped at the right moment.
So that when the rain came by
in just the right amount
And then, just in time,
The impossible became probable,
And mere potential became actual.
One seed out of millions.
Just enough.
HemmingPlay 
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