Regretfully, yours

My place on the shelf
has turned dusty and old
hands of the clock turn
yet my breath grows cold

Smother me with silence
in this night’s cool air
smooth my rigid corners
for time has not been fair

wind blowing softly
lost in her sweet time
withstand bitter yearning
from this lost soul of mine

Heart, lonely and stale
just as fruit on the vine
left to linger past harvest
like this wretched life of mine

Close off the passage
turn the last latch key
draw breath, so bitter
my captive spirit, set free


Copyrighted by Kentucky Dreamer

Just Something to Think About...

I didn’t write this but wish I had. I like to read it now and then. If anyone knows the author, please post their name in the comments section of this post.

The Daffodil Principle…

Several times my daughter had telephoned to say, “Mother, you must come to see the daffodils before they are over.” I wanted to go, but it was a two-hour drive from Laguna to Lake Arrowhead. “I will come next Tuesday,” I promised a little reluctantly on her third call.

Next Tuesday dawned cold and rainy. Still, I had promised, and reluctantly I drove there. When I finally walked into Carolyn’s house I was welcomed by the joyful sounds of happy children. I delightedly hugged and greeted my grandchildren. “Forget the daffodils, Carolyn! The road is invisible in these clouds and fog, and there is nothing in the world except you and these children that I want to see badly enough to drive another inch!” My daughter smiled calmly and said, “We drive in this all the time, Mother.” “Well, you won’t get me back on the road until it clears, and then I’m heading for home!” I assured her. “I was hoping you’d take me over to the garage to pick up my car.” “How far will we have to drive?” “Oh…just a few blocks,” Carolyn said. “But I’ll drive. I’m used to this.”

After several minutes, I had to ask, “Where are we going? This isn’t the way to the garage!”“We’re going to my garage the long way,” Carolyn smiled, “by way of the daffodils.”“Carolyn,” I said sternly, “please turn around.” “It’s all right, Mother, I promise. You will never forgive yourself if you miss this experience.”

After about twenty minutes, we turned onto a small gravel road and I saw a small church. On the far side of the church, I saw a hand lettered sign with an arrow that read, “Daffodil Garden.”We got out of the car, each took a child’s hand, and I followed Carolyn down the path. Then, as we turned a corner, I looked up and gasped.

Before me lay the most glorious sight. It looked as though someone had taken a great vat of gold and poured it over the mountain peak and it’s surrounding slopes. The flowers were planted in majestic, swirling patterns, great ribbons and swaths of deep orange, creamy white, lemon yellow, salmon pink, and saffron and butter yellow. Each different-colored variety was planted in large groups so that it swirled and flowed like its own river with its own unique hue. There were five acres of flowers.

“Who did this?” I asked Carolyn. “Just one woman,” Carolyn answered. “She lives on the property. That’s her home.” Carolyn pointed to a well kept A-frame house, small and modestly sitting in the midst of all that glory. We walked up to the house. On the patio, we saw a poster.
“Answers to the Questions I Know You Are Asking” was the headline. The first answer was a simple one. “50,000 bulbs,” it read. The second answer was, “One at a time, by one woman. Two hands, two feet, and one brain.” The third answer was, “Began in 1958.”

For me, that moment was a life-changing experience. I thought of this woman whom I had never met, who, more than forty years before, had begun, one bulb at a time, to bring her vision of beauty and joy to an obscure mountaintop. Planting one bulb at a time, year after year, this unknown woman had forever changed the world in which she lived. One day at a time, she had created something of extraordinary magnificence, beauty, and inspiration.

The principle her daffodil garden taught is one of the greatest principles of celebration. That is, learning to move toward our goals and desires one step at a time–often just one baby-step at time–and learning to love the doing, learning to use the accumulation of time. When we multiply tiny pieces of time with small increments of daily effort, we too will find we can accomplish magnificent things. We can change the world.

“It makes me sad in a way,” I admitted to Carolyn. “What might I have accomplished if I had thought of a wonderful goal thirty-five or forty years ago and had worked away at it ‘one bulb at a time’ through all those years? Just think what I might have been able to achieve!”

My daughter summed up the message of the day in her usual direct way. “Start tomorrow,” she said.

She was right. It’s so pointless to think of the lost hours of yesterdays. The way to make learning a lesson of celebration instead of a cause for regret is to only ask, “How can I put this to use today?”

Use the Daffodil Principle.

Stop waiting…..

Until your car or home is paid off.

Until you get a new car or home.

Until your kids leave the house.

Until you go back to school.

Until you finish school.

Until you clean the house.

Until you organize the garage.

Until you clean off your desk.

Until you lose 10 lbs.

Until you gain 10 lbs.

Until you get married.

Until you get a divorce.

Until you have kids.

Until the kids go to school.

Until you retire.

Until summer.

Until spring.

Until winter.

Until fall.

Until you die…

There is no better time than right now to be happy

Happiness is a journey, not a destination.

So work like you don’t need money.

Love like you’ve never been hurt, and

Dance like no one’s watching.

Just Off Broadway...

It was such an odd thing to see. I’m still not sure why I didn’t fall in line with all the others and ignore it or simply pretend it wasn’t there. But I couldn’t. My attention was drawn to it, and somehow it had a hint of familiarity about it. You know the one I am talking about. That strange kind of displaced deja vu feeling you sometimes get and can’t explain away or remember why it effects you so. Maybe that is why it caught my eye while remaining invisible to the rest of the world.

The sun had slid behind the skyline of the tall buildings to the west, leaving the city below cast in varying shades of shadow and light. I guess it had just become weary from its failed efforts at trying to warm the frozen city and decided to call it a day. I hurried across the courtyard of the elegant Aegon building, taking long strides down the well-manicured sidewalk to Broadway. Somewhere along the way, I became the Pied Piper to a group of hungry pigeons that followed the scent of the popcorn I was snacking on.

Reaching my destination, I found myself held hostage in the three-sided glass cubicle of the bus stop. The cocky birds demanded a ransom before allowing me to pass to the curb. They scattered after the rolling kernels of unpopped corn as I flung the remnants of the bag to the sidewalk before me. Relieved of this distraction, my mind was free to consider other things and that is when I saw it.

A movement caught my eye and I looked at it as much with reaction as intention. Old crates and debris cluttered the alley across the street of lumbering traffic. My gaze traveled to the dumpster at the far end. Something had moved there, and my subconscious had picked it up as being out of place. It took several seconds before I recognized what I saw in the darkness of that cubbyhole. Two legs, with feet off the ground, kicked and twisted a bit as the body attached to them leaned over the side of the dumpster. The sounds of the city melded together around me into a noisy silence as I watched and waited.

The feet soon found the ground again, their legs supporting the frail, rumpled form of an old man. I could sense his excitement as his hands fondled the treasure he had found. His shabby coat and unkempt hair could not keep a toothless smile from spreading across his stubbled face. Even at this distance, I could see the look of expectation die on his face to be replaced by that of a disappointed child on Christmas morning. The empty Krispy Crème box fell to the ground at his feet as our eyes met and locked across the way.

His pale eyes neither gathered nor gave any information. They simply stared off into some distant place of thoughtless ether. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it but I knew I had seen it somewhere else before. I knew what it was. It was the look of a soul so tortured and full of despair that it couldn’t even feel the pain anymore. A chill shivered through me as I looked into the eyes of suffering as old as mankind itself. My humility begged me to look away but I couldn’t. I couldn’t do anything but look into his eyes and wonder what had taken him to this place he was in. Wonder what had worn the teeth on the gears of human resolve and dignity to the point that they broke off at bleeding gums. It was not a look of indifference, but rather that of hopelessness.

My trance was broken and my mind stumbled back to reality as the large frame of the bus floated to a stop between us. Stooping to drop my change into the meter, I looked past the driver’s shoulders and into the alley. The old man was gone but his image was imprinted on my mind and stayed with me well into the evening.

It was not until bedtime that the answer presented itself to me. I spit the last mouthful of rinsed toothpaste into the sink and splashed my face with some cold water. Picking up a towel, I dabbed my face dry and stared at my reflection in the mirror. And that is when I saw it.

Copyright © 2007 Mike Lawson