The Path of Less Resistance

I give,

Yield and otherwise capitulate

I mean I surrender give up

Quit

I’m backing off

Selling out

I mean everything must go

You win

You are the victor

And so to you the spoils

Rich and sweet

I taste defeat

I give

I quit

Game, set

Without a catch

We will hold a parade

In your honor

My under belly

I expose

My epitaph I compose

My parting words are written down

And without regret or even frown

I give for certain my gun and sword

You have crossed the goal

Here’s your reward

A trophy with your name inscribed

A ribbon blue so feast you eyes

An “ A” atop your final test

I give up.

(What sweet success.)

Watersheds

The puddle is filled
Drops splashing from above
Small splotches and dampnesses
Joining in rivers
Flowing they grow
And pool
Salty rivulets following along the creases
Etched and folded
Testing the watershed
Looking for the path
Not resisting
Not insisting
Only settling in the low places
Only waiting
Mostly wishing
Probably praying
That a warm breeze and white hot light
Will gently lift the liquid
Empty the puddle
And so evaporated
And so emancipated
Go on.

God did his thing- this thing-
Magnificent
But beseech-able
I think not,
Because it is all there or here
-The prayer already answered-
All about us and within us
To misuse
Or to glorify
In our own magnificent way.
Carpenters and spinners have given us the tools
So that we can build and sew
Then observe
And reconstruct
Again and again
In humble emulation.
~
As beauty breaks its given bonds
It takes a form shaped
By hand and mind
Wind and water
Guided by hope and trust
Challenged by random fortune
Birthed in nature
Bathed in light and tempered in time
Again and again.
Have you come across it?
~
And energy once fused
Then freed
Moves in a hoary race
Though the cosmos
Bound on an infinite self-celebration
Of being
And manifesting too,
In such a timeless dance
Again and again
Wild and provocative
Yet supremely pure.
~
A simple smile
So purged of words
And freed of context
And given freely
In a random moment
Gains in momentum
Grows in purity
When it is transformed
From your lips to mine.
~
The genius said
I do not know so much…
But I appreciate what I have learned
And I am not afraid
-He said with a smile-
To try and understand
A little more.
~
I stood by the garden fence
Stopped by an odd movement of leaves
And saw thrashing -threshing there about
Two sparrows.
And upon casual observation
I notice that they were gleaning seeds from
Broken zinnia flowers,
Browned by frost and bent down to deposit
Their hopes,
Their part of the future
Upon the loamy soil.

And so upon the list I casually keep
I add the fact that these birds eat these seeds
That I inadvertently put there for them.
And that I inadvertently planted
For myself as well
The answer to a question
Of the things I’ll never know.