A Morning Walk
Tag: memory
The City Lights with You
Nice sunset to stroll the paved sidewalk
There beside the river
Clear blue skies slowly fading like a rose
Into the soft pearl glow of a city night
Reflected backlight of a hundred street lamps
Stealing away the dark
Holding tight with a lovers grasp
Hands and fingers laced
You and I
Side-by-side together
Go
Your soft grip reminding my feet not to walk to fast
Directing them sternly when they go to slow
The same nested hold
With an awkward bump
Pulls the walk to a stop
And with a warming embrace
Hurriedly turns our path back upon itself
Shivering from the coming cold
Leads us home
A Sunday Morning ConfessionDirect from the Book of Pat
When I was a kid. I wore hand-me-down shoes a lot of the time until my feet grew bigger than everyone else.
Then I got one pair of shoes.
You’d think as an old man I’d buy more shoes but instead I find that I now just don’t throw old pairs away.
I set them by the door and try using them until one day glue and plastic bags no longer work to hold them together. Then I toss them in the garbage.
There are some days I get in a hurry and forget to take off my good pair.
I feed the chickens and ducks getting muck and gunk caked into the soles and tread. Large sticky mats of hay, feather, and bird poop clumping up usually in the arch and flicking onto the laces.
It’s horrible.
On Sunday morning as I prepare for church I inspect those shoes.
I see how well I did in keeping them clean during the week deciding on just how much effort it’s going to be to wash them clean.
Sometimes I can do it in the bathroom sink where under the bright lights every little speck can be seen clearly. Most times it’s so bad that I have to stand over the kitchen garbage can and scrape off the “shit”. (I tried not to say shit but it is what it is.) Then moving to the kitchen sink I use an old worn toothbrush and wooden toothpick to scrub with detergent and pick out the treads all the filth I managed to pick up through the week. Then when I think I’m satisfied I go to the bathroom, under the bright lights to see the grit and stains left behind.
If you skipped the body of my true story, just reading paragraph speaking points, what I’m saying is this…
All week we/I try very hard to respect the foundations your/my parents taught you/me. To cherish and value what you/I have. To worship God and follow His commandments as best as we/I know how.
Many days, weeks, months I do him honor and keep myself worthy to walk into his house. Yet it takes but one unconscious decision for me to fail for there is no righteous man who walks upon this earth that does not sin.
No matter how often I wash those shoes clean, I’ll get dirt on them as I walk through the churches parking lot.
I’m glad God understands and forgives.
… sometimes I just take my shoes off at the door and go barefoot because I know I am walking upon Holy Ground.
Praise God, Praise His Holy Name!
A Beautiful Day
I wander down forgotten trails
Searching out forgotten tales
Weary feet carry on
Beyond each bend and twisting turn
In every moment
I retrace
The memory of this magic place
The Rain Upon the Windowsill
Quiet words echoing
Silent thoughts repeat
Shadows run through empty hallways
Whispering currents blowing dust
How loud the fluttering moths wings sound
When emotions become numb
Fading the Day
Walking away
Into shades of grey
Walking away
Light fades to night
I imagine you there
Never turning to see
Even as the horizon
Blends earth and sky
A dream was all we had
And now even that has been taken from us
Nothing is real
Not earth or sky
The nothing is real
Not you or I
Nothing I feel
Makes any sense
The nothing I feel
Brings back the light
Broken Lament
Those peaceful walks through autumn woods lost in guiltless silence
A frigid heart in solitude remorseful of their passing
Thoughts of you wander free tracing tear stained lines from pallid eyes
Displaced in time I watch you fade even as the last of the oak leaves fall
Last to find deaths release
lost love I linger on
Scraps of Paper
Just a bit of broken poetry
Cast aside – abandoned upon the floor
Words I’ve written
Their meaning lost along with their purpose
Each life carries their own tiny bits
Torn and tattered scraps of paper
Scrawled with half formed thoughts
On the backs of old receipts
Amongst the creases of crisp folded napkins
Beginnings fade
And sentences out of place wait
Until in their own time find a little light upon the page
Check it out
I remember the days before
I remember the days before pouring through the breach from Saudi Arabia into Iraq.
Months sitting idle standing guard, repairing equipment, training over the same lessons.
The season changed but the looming doubt and fear never did. Each day built upon itself like the ever growing dunes that piled up at the tent flaps.
On occasion some other units would become fully activated and ready. The dynamics of our purpose would change. Tents would be pulled down, moved a few hundred miles, then once again assembled. Each time the burm would not be built up so high or as wide. Each trench dug a little shallower and shorter.
We knew. Soon those protections against the world would only be a hindrance in the final day before the breach.
Live or die, most were ready for what outcome there was to be.
You see, those enlightened few had already experienced death, that blissful adrenaline rush over the edge of reality, and now only moved by muscle memory. We knew what we were to do.
Kill and die, live or die, stand up, move again, rinse, repeat. Everyday was the same day. The only difference was the sand and dirt that piled up at the door.
Soon it will be time for those that don’t know to shake back your own tent flaps. Step out into the reality of an endless day, and fight a war you did not prepare for. Those people will believe in Hell that day…
And us devils who know will be there to show you the way.
False Promises Nouveau 