The Cycle

He would definitely be there.

The email said so.

It even said that the train station

Was near where he worked.

Now, almost everyone was gone, and

I was tired of gazing down the corridor,

Hoping for a glimpse of someone familiar,

And three full hours had passed.

The smart phone only led me to his voicemail

Did he forget?

Or was this some rude joke?

I pushed the metal buttons on the ticket machine, and

“One-way ticket to San Jose”, it said,

And the coins clanked in conclusion

Of this lesson of disappointment.

As the train whistled out of the station

I started to wonder.

Did I just leave someone behind?

At the Beach

The children squeal in untaught naked excitement,
As the waves crash to a white spray,
And a sharp-eyed pelican plummets into the water
Emerging with a beak full of unwary herring
And farther on the heaving sea,
A lone dolphin reveals itself
In breathtaking black loops,
And birds flap and float in conference
About greasy slime, pesticides and radioactive fish,
While I lay stretched on the peppered sand
Repeatedly running the grains between my fingers,
As if through some universal hourglass,
Admiring the work of the restless sea,
And wondering about the deafening silence.

I must

Climb the hill, I must,
And extend,
A hand to the precarious.
Love them I must,
And smile,
Once at least.
Doesn't a smile light another smile?
Laugh and play in the sun, I must
And sing aloud,
Creating silly memories.
And know someone's pain,I must,
Every day.
Thank them all, I must,
Right now.
For, while I ponder and wait,
It could turn
Windless, silent and dark.

Patience

The earth heaves to yield
The stunning rise of snow-capped wonders,
And pebbles round to perfection
In the womb of slumbering glaciers.
From the crushing might of rocks
Stones with gleam emerge,
While smoldering ejections
Shape the green isle.
The winds pattern the golden dunes,
And the gorges stand apart to lead
The sands to the sea
Where an oyster hides and weeps,
To reveal its misery in a rare pearl.
And those who wait
Find festering wounds healed,
And grow the halo of the wise
All in good time.
Does the awesome ever happen in a hurry?

Rise or Not?

Untold agony pours forth
In a rain of tears.
Words of anger
And the foment of hatred,
Discharge in blinding flashes,
Again and again.
Yet, above the dark clouds
The wails fade into a blue silence,
And the grotesque turns invisible
By the glare of the sun.
Must I rise or not?

Are You That?

The stillness in silence, and
The swiftness of thought,
The infinity in the atom,
The blackness of the dark,
The dazzle of a million suns,
The lion and the fawn,
The formless in all forms,
Moving, yet still.
Are you That?

Gifts

You stood without interrupting
And gave me the gift of listening.
Just a casual compliment
Was a boosting gift of appreciation.
By forwarding that silly joke
You enlivened me with the gift of laughter.
With that kind and helping hand
You lifted me with the gift of love.
Your scribbled " thank you " note
Enclosed the gift of your thoughtfulness.
By letting me shut the door
You slipped me the gift of solitude.
And, what did these gifts cost you?
Please keep giving!