The Beginning-The Middle

Yeah, I've been absent.
Still feeling punky but no complaints,
it is a process one must endure to
 come out the other side.
If you have no beginning, no middle,
there will be no end.

Much is going on in my small world,
some pretty sad and awful, some glorious,
just like your life I suppose.

Again, another process; 
the good, the bad and the ugly.
All part of a day, a week, a life.


The last buds of the year on my sorely neglected bushes
tell the simple story.


They open so quickly, giving great joy,
and then vanish, as if they had never been.
Yet I am sure the root of them 
will return and visit me again.
I have been equating a lot of my memories
to this phenomena.
As each decade goes by, I discover more far flung 
memories have arisen to the surface, 
showing me my journey.

Remembering vividly the love and passion I 
 had for a boy over 40 years ago; 
the vision of a hillside and a summer night, 
is overpowering.
My Mother's voice, my Father's smile,
I close my eyes and they are within reach
of outstretched fingertips.

How often did our elders tell stories of their past, 
as we sighed and listened once more 
to a song of joy or a tale of woe?
Now, I am the elder re-experiencing
what has come before, and wishing to 
retell and relive while still anticipating
new beginnings.

I have been practicing being still,
and when I succeed completely,
 oh, how the memories freely
return in abundance.
Not all are happy, but then
sorrow was part of the process back then also.



The bruised and falling petals are
reminders of past betrayals,
yet they do not lessen the beauty
of the rose in it's glory, in it's middle.


Perhaps it is merely the season
that causes the melancholy,
yet I embrace Fall with arms flung wide.
I nestle in tight, and I ponder and I fret,
and I relish and I remember.