July 5
The word holiday has such a restful ring to it. Mine certainly was. I hope yours was, too.
There can be myriad ways to fill the span of a day, whether work or whim; though, what freedom in a today where we decide which path we follow, whatever way the wind of our minds blow.
No alarms will chime—only the questioning nudge from the sunlight peaking through the gauzy, white window curtains, asks of me, How shall we follow our hearts today? During a July of humid, hot daylight hours, a welcome front porch breeze woos me to gently wake into the presence of the morning. The resident Mourning dove gifts me a sultry sigh, a reminder that I have in my possession a pocketful of cash to spend, a currency of luxury, a day of whim. We lean into a rhythmic current and songbirds ask me to joyfully join in the choir’s chorus, a prelude of rejoicing before today’s sermon. From hand to hand, we pass the offering plate, placing in it the living, breathing desires our animal heart of hearts, inhaling and exhaling the dreams of hopeful human harmonics.
And, I have another poem for you:
4th of July
Last night I chased a sunset.
With small-minded impulsivity,
I thought I could catch it—
Wrong turn after crooked wrong turn,
as elusive as a housefly,
taunting me with an air of
orange sherbet glory glow,
it mockingly hid
shadowed behind the growing tree line
behind houses and highway signs
while the coverlet of darkness dove in the evening’s
deepest of waters
dampening intentions and excitement with
disappointment
no matter how hard my size 9 and a half lead foot
pressed pedal and accelerator.
Defeated, the truck gave in to whims and
turned towards home.
The eastern sky blackened velvet,
the westerly glow dwindled down
still burning a flushed flesh
with purple-whipped pillows of storm clouds standing against the horizon
less fervently than a mere two minutes before.
As if on cue—fireworks began to bloom over
the silhouette of treetops,
streaking the air,
lives so brief and fantastical:
a painterly illustration of our shared moment of
impermanence,
a lesson in existence
as mere footnotes of
a more expansive narrative—
too much for our minds to hold.
Longing to be seen,
longing to be heard,
longing for lasting legacy,
longing to awe the world with our
short-span heroics.
