DRAFT – DRAFT – DRAFT

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Vignettes – Set One

#1

Let me look into your face,

Let me hold you up in a high place.

Let me try to understand.

#2

If I could know

All that is to be known,

I would see thee and me more clearly.

I would see how large, large can be,

I would see how small, small can be.

How dear, so dear you are to me,

I would see all that we have to hope for,

All that we can trust

And all that we should fear.

Yet most of all, even with our pride,

I hope we would see, I would see,

Our ineffably tiny

Place in it all.

I hope that would leave me humble.

Humble before the hearts

Who might let me, let each of us,

Find a large place within them.

For this is, surely this is,

The saving grace

Of how to have pride yet be humble.

In this way, humility decorates the heart

As with robes of gold and ermine,

As with scarves of silk

And ribbons of glitter,

As with buttons and badges

Of angels’ finest tokens

Of our best honors, felt but unspoken.

#3

Tenderly, let us look to see

The varied skies of time

In each other’s mind.

#4

Look with me

Out over the seas,

The seas of water, the seas of sand.

Reach out your hand,

Feel the contours of the land,

The rolling of the waters,

The rocking and flowing of the world.

#5

What do you love,

Is it earthly or above?

Is it others,

Does it include me?

#6

Sometimes my heart

Cannot see beyond my nose,

Even less than to my tongue.

Sometimes it can see as far as

My hands reach.

Sometimes it can see all in line of sight,

And even within all of that.

Sometimes it can see far, far, far

Beyond, to all, to as far as I can imagine.

When I can see that far

I feel made whole.

#7

Come, ride the grey horse.

Dress yourself in the regalia of mission,

Fill the air forward with drums and horns.

Strive to see yourself through to the end

With heart and conscience,

With dignity and purpose.

#8

What is that I see yonder,

Is it singing clouds or thunder?

Let it be something wondrous

To fill our day.

#9

Let me hold your hand,

Reach it out, and I will take it.

I will find in its warmth,

The life that flows through it.

#10

No one can see through your eyes.

Only you could have truly seen

What you have seen,

In the way you have seen it.

Your mind’s eye is your own,

It sings its own song.

#11

What hearts do I touch,

What lights do I shine

With this little life of mine?

#12

I’m not a little ant,

I’m not a little plant,

I’m a great big thing,

For my little bell rings

Like the butterfly’s wings,

Huge and loud to traverse

Throughout the universe.

#13

Come sit with me,

Let us look into our hearts,

Let us do this together,

In the cool of the day.

Of what we in each other see,

Whatever it may turn out to be,

I may not even whisper it,

And you may not say it

Until some distant, silent day.

#14

Come abide with me,

Let us search our souls,

Let us do this together,

To find each other again.

#15

Let me come to you,

Come to you in the rain,

Pouring out my tears,

Speaking my pain,

Baring my soul,

And be, yes, be renewed again.

#16

I’ll turn and sway with you,

At the beginning of the day,

Be there with the morning’s dew,

Be there with the warm, high noon,

Be there with the beauty

Of the setting of the sun,

Be there the whole day with you,

Touched by your heart,

Doing my part

With all I can bring

To make your life dance and sing.

#17

Let me say that I insist,

Let me stand and persist

In the work to see eventually

That all that is harmful,

Ceases and desists.

#18

Who will lift their hands,

Bring them to labor

For family, friends, and neighbor,

To repair the broken, to fill the void,

To offer a boon, to right a wrong,

To comfort with a song?

It is they to whom

We extend our honors

And them to whom our hearts belong?

#19

To all, to all, who come to the wall,

Hear, I beckon, I resound the call

That echoes through all the skies,

Carrying the weeping, the hoping, the cries

Of great numbers of humanity’s tearful eyes.

Let us find a way to embrace,

To cherish and nurture each precious face.

Let us be wise and kind, and find a place

For what history has proven for our nation

Will eventually be.

Look around and you can see

The greatest of all transfers of wealth,

The story of our nation’s riches and health,

The talents that gift us glory and power.

#20

Come stand with me

Beneath the ebony

That holds heaven’s wonders.

#21

To those who may someday

Come to mourn me,

May you gently lay me down,

Lay me to lie

In endless sleep.

May you let your eyes cry,

Yes, let your hearts weep.

Then, remembering me sweetly,

Walk away, live on, and let me go.

#22

Make it your story

To paint the glory

Of the wonders of the heart,

Heart of beauty and compassion

In all its wondrous fashion

#23

The walks we walked

In each other’s company,

Our wistful talks

Lie softly in my memory.

#24

Let me see your story,

Let me hear or see the words.

Let me give you mine.

Let me see if we are

Of the same mind,

Or if not, of what kind.

Yet no matter how we differ

Or what we may or may not

Have and hold in common,

We are all of human kind.

We are all inextricably entwined

In a great caretaker vow

To protect all within, on and about

Our precious blue marble locale.

#25

Melancholy rivers

Paint their silvers

Beneath the bright moon shy.

See it, take it in, fill your heart,

With its splendiferous spell.

Complement its beauty with a serene sigh.

#26

Humanity calls from the human face.

Fill your heart with its song,

Carry it on, carry it long,

With wonder and grace.

#27

I see you approaching.

There in the distance

You come walking.

Your presence flows ahead of you,

Fills the space between us,

Expands its warmth within me.

#28

Come, stand to the task,

Stand strong, stand fast,

Stand to it to the last.

Duty compels it.

Honor demands it,

Grace requires it.

#29

All the Earth cries out,

Weeps soft tears

At the death

Of even a single sentient being.

Listen with your heart,

And you will hear

Its call down through the ages,

From far eons gone,

Haunting, its cords

Mournful, infinitely forlorn.

#30

The waves are wild,

The wailing is loud,

The way is hard,

The winding path

Past the landing is wearying,

Tiring, naught but dark and cold.

I come to you before dawn,

I am drawn to your threshold.

Dare I say I see a flicker of light?

I do, I see it.

I’m renewed, flush with hope,

Again, my heart beats bold.

#31

Smile, light the grey,

Turn it to summer blue,

Cast my shadows away.

Embrace me, pull me in

To embrace you.

#32

Bend down your head

To honor the dead,

For that in part,

If only within your heart,

Means they are restored.

No matter how long ago

They have been gone

They live again in some small way

To touch you with their life’s song.

#33

Think now, feel now,

Do your kindnesses now.

#34

The search light of memory—

A thing of things past—

Turns about inside the mind.

Use it to examine your life.

Fail to do that

And what you see

Is sight without insight.

#35

A heart separate, alone

Pines for embrace,

To behold a kindly face,

To feel the touch of another heart,

The brush of a gentle hand.

#36

Stoke the dimming coals,

The fading embers,

The flickering flames.

Find in them something that resembles

A love lost, a dream forsaken,

A tempting path veered off.

Contemplate your past hesitation.

Feel how it makes your heart tremble

With thoughts of what might have been.

#37

If you leap to soar, wings spread,

And find that flight is no more,

Let your struggle have its rest,

Content to have a timeout before,

Before you again give it your best.

#38

If peace comes to me

In the serene resonances

Of ethereal notes,

I will embrace it

As meditation.

I will bestill myself,

Keep an open mind,

Gather my strength

For what follows.

#39

If peace comes to me

In the flowing rise and fall

Of the voicing of full moments

Of heart-somber events past,

I will bide it, hold it fast, bid it last.

#40

If peace comes to me

In the glimmering of a morning,

The gloaming of a day ending

Or sometime inbetweening,

I will open myself and lean into it,

Let it settle all within me,

Let it make its plea for serenity.

#41

Lost in the darkness,

I am nearly made naught.

Then I am found within myself,

Found there by thinking of others.

There the light

Emerges from a faded dot

To a heart full bright again.

#42

The distance is far,

Yet I dream I am there on the morrow,

Abiding with all for what my heart yearns,

Imagining the sky azure,

From cobalt to baby blue.

My feet in the wet sand,

Or back lolling amidst the ferns,

Or dipped beneath the dappled,

Shaded, gently rippling pool,

The water clear, pure,

It all full, comforting, serene, cool.

#43

The irony of doing

Is seeing all that needs doing,

Yet cannot be done.

This is how all eternity,

All the promise it can contain,

All the light it can shine,

Is brought down by the tears

That fall from the eyes

Of the ones we cannot save.

#44

There is a storm

Roaming about.

Its lights flash,

Its thunder shakes,

It is upon us.

These are the turns,

The paths, the courses,

Life often takes.

It may soon sweep past

Or it may last and last.

#45

Sit with me,

Let us be together awhile.

Let us just sit and be,

Be as one.

#46

Without our sadnesses,

We cannot be whole,

We cannot understand,

We cannot have insight,

We cannot be our best.

#47

Life finds a kinder way,

Or it will go wayward.

#48

Our most profound moments

Are not when we see ourselves large;

They are when we see ourselves small.

#49

What vision is this:

This convergence of transporting fantasies,

This image full over with the connotations

Of the divine like magics of the heart?

#50

Upon the troubled sea of life

Catching us in all its toil,

Vileness and pain,

One can turn that churn

Of trouble to find meaning.

One can find purpose

If one sets sight upon a shore,

Even beyond, to far across a plain,

Perhaps even as far as mountains beyond

And bend one’s back with a determined heart

To row toward with a sense of desire and duty,

To seek to go there to find joy, delight,

Peace, respite, kindness and beauty.

#51

I turn to look back from space.

My heart is lifted by a symphony,

A drama from a murmur, to a whisper,

To a trembling of soft sounds,

To fulsome cords of rising wonder.

I am immersed in a majestic awareness

With the emerging of the sight before me.

It is Earth, great Earth,

The most impossible of combination of gifts.

It is an unfathomable beauty

As if a divine smile from the cosmos,

A wonder of all wonders.

Precious, so mighty yet so vulnerable,

This blue marble is magic,

The magic of all songs surpassed,

Exceeding all prizes imaginable.

#52

The ant waves at me rom the other side

Of my magnifying glass.

What marvel of complications

Is this wee creature.

#53

The new baby arrives.

I will fill this being with my imagination,

Elevate its aspect in whole to sublimity,

Transfigure, reify,* adorn this endowment,

Turning the magic of the moment to the ideal.

My delight is raised to a sacred wonder.

All aspirations fall short of the glory before me.

*(reify definition: to make more concrete or real)

#54

News of the death comes to me.

The words,

O the devastation the moment brings.

The instant of learning of the loss,

It draws all breath out of me,

Crumbling me, sending me reeling.

I am crushed, shattered, shredded into pieces.

All tears of the cosmos

Come raining down on all that I am

All that I was before,

Again and again, for what is no more.

A part of the world has broken off

And plunged into the void.

The shocking sight of the precipice

Leaves me feeling lost

As to what and where I am.

#55

Love, love, love, what light is this,

This beauty, this fascination,

This glowing inside of me?

I will breathe into it,

Nurture it into even greater brightness.

#56

If all is as a child’s old-fashioned toy,

If all is a rolling hoop of loop of ends,

If all is a rolling hoop of loop of beginnings,

I will look to the nudging of it with my reed,

As goes the rolling hoops

Of the running, playful children.

I will strive to joyfully

Push and guide my loop along,

My heart full with some summer song.

#57

Life lived without regrets

Is a life lived too lacking in imagination,

Too deficient in conscience.

A life lived without self-examination

For all the “what could have beens,”

“What should not have beens,”

Is a life whose lessons go unlearned.

#58

Is it love,

This wondrous thing,

In all its wondrous array, that I bring?

Yes, it is, oh yes, it is.

#59

What roads call me,

What shadows beckon,

What horizons pull me on?

What dreams unfold beyond.

What’s out there,

In the future, in time, somewhere?

Do the mountains tall,

The valleys long, call

With their ethereal songs?

Yes, they do.

#60

My shadow trembles,

Bows its head,

Weeps,

Walks into the light,

And is silent and gone.

Now, light is my song.

#61

Lift the child,

Frail, wet with tears,

Completely dependent.

Be the hand that reaches out,

Be the heart

That cares.

#62

Put down your mark,

Put down your part,

Fasten your link into the chain of time.

Be one who raises

And extends the chainy tow line

To pull forward

For the betterment of humankind.

#63

We see your passion,

We know your dreams

In all their varied fashion.

Here, reach out your hand

To touch the fingers of your destiny,

Orphan that you think you may be,

And find your dreams’ family.

#64

The heart is haunted

By dreams lost, unrecoverable:

Too dear to you to let the yearning go,

Too far away to reach within your time.

You are too filled with fear of losing yourself

To let their unrequited visions drift away.

#65

The heart sings on, lasts to near the last.

The words, the strings, the cords still golden,

Living on in the voice of the oldest singers.

The music in the soul

Is the last part to grow too old.

#66

Make yourself the gift of metaphor*

For in the imaginary, we can find purity:

A world of transporting perfection,

A vaporous world,

Freely transformational,

A mental universe

Where guilt and innocence,

Sensible and nonsensible creations,

Enormous extremes and fine subtleties,

Are but fearsome or funny,

Solemn or infinitely sad colors

Just blowing in the winds of our hearts,

Making the music of our minds

Where in spirit worlds and dreams

All things are possible.

*(“metaphor” is used here as an overarching

term for metaphor, simile, analogy, symbolism,

and all manner of objects of speech and depiction)

#67

Fall with your imagination into the eyes

Of the minds looking at you

To see the visions of their lives,

The emotions of their existence,

The sentiency of their being.

#68

When death comes, as it will,

Let it come with an ethereal song,

Draping me in pleasant, shadowy tones:

Come as breezes of somber colors

That in my imagination, carry me away,

Transforming me into a vaporous,

Sleeping form,

Transporting me

As a billowing-robed guest of the angels,

Swept away into the cosmos of eternity,

As of a player on the stage in a grand finale.

Or just let it come in an instant,

Turning my light off, out,

Out without a flicker,

Or a thought or a sound,

Making me not.

Let, then, all who care to take note

Just pause to say or think,

“He is not, naught is he.”

And let the matter be—

Or, I say “or” build a statue,

Make up songs,

Compose poems, glorious ballads,

Strike up the band,

Hoist my remains atop a storied bier,

March fore and behind,

In long and mournful parade.

Whatever, it will be no mind to me.

However, maybe, let’s entertain,

It could happen,

You just do it this last way, I muse,

To amuse my present fancy.

#69

Long sadness comes to the face

Of the ones time has displaced

From inner visions of the future

And the past, interlaced.

#70

To find, to see, to know

The one who strove, and gave it all

To a dream, to a duty, to a lifelong task,

To know such person,

To reflect upon them for oneself,

To feel that commitment,

Whether it came to fruition

To lift them up or they fell

And had only the badge of honor

That they gave it all.

To see that story of toil and travail

Or the celebration of joy in their eyes,

To feel that passion in the face of another,

That, doing that, ennobles the heart.

#71

The heart that is nearby,

The one that is close,

Is the heart that must not be ignored.

That one is the heart

That must be most attended to.

Fail that and we dishonor ourselves

And demean our own humanity.

#72

Give your emotions opportunity,

Give the finer angels of your heart

A chance to be lifted into the wind,

To come alive, to fly, to soar.

#73

What is around the next curve of life

Is always more guess than certainty.

#74

Every revelation,

Every sound, site and sight seen,

Is a form of,

A bit of enlightenment.

#75

That which cloaks

What is anticipated

Expands the imagination

As to that which is hidden.

#76

To save the nearly unsavable,

That is the test of the heart of hearts,

The reward that is the joy of joys.

#77

Most bad people

Think they have a good side;

That is because they have had,

Or they do, or they will have.

That is the reason there is a need

To save everyone:

Stop the bad side, mend the broken,

save the good side.

That is the ideal—

If only life was long enough.

#78

Consider the lament.

It educates the mind,

It elevates the heart

But only for the open mind,

Only for the open heart.

#79

Search for the heart:

The lost hopes, the fears,

The longing, the aspirations

In the eyes

Of all sentient beings.

#80

Need: round, soft, and songful,

Is the purpose, is the sweetness,

In the best of our moments

When our whole-making needs are met.

#81

Pathos calls to the heart.

Yet to some,

It is only captured

As a toy, like a sphere

Of amusing emotions.

Some just bounce it about

As a game ball,

Then toss it aside

After the playing is over,

Not joining it to the heart,

Not changing the heart.

Leaving it as

Just a bit of entertainment.

Don’t be like that.

#82

Good things, too,

But bad things, as well,

Are often soft and fuzzy

On the outside.

#83

It is not just good

That seeks to be admirable,

That seeks to bestow beautification,

To earn glory

And evoke high emotion for

Grandness of idealized

Figure and purpose.

Evil, too, oft seeks to stand tall

In such robes.

Evil loves a good disguise.

#84

Beware of evil

That dresses in the trappings of,

The enactments of,

A showy-ness of honor,

Of respect, of admirability,

Coming as mocking facades

 Of beautification,

As false commendations,

Yet, also, looking no different,

Than truthful beautification,

Than what is a commendable.

Evil needs to lie,

To fake the colors of the righteous,

To paint itself

With the symbols of goodness.

The touchstone for goodness

Is this: not the higher good for all,

But the good to the individuals

Along the way.

There is no evil that cannot be

Rationalized by some scenario

Of some possible greater good.

#85

Music lifts us out of ourselves,

Joins us with what

Is beyond ourselves,

Then folds us

Back into ourselves

Therewith making us more

Than what we were

Before we were lifted out.

#86

Remember me

In ten thousand ways.

Remember me

With longing,

For many many days.

At least let me fade away

No sooner

Than you do.

While I am in your heart,

I will still be, at least in part,

In some dear way.

#87

I cannot hold onto time.

It slips through my fingers,

Through all my being,

Like varieties of colors of

Cold, tepid, and warm liquids.

Time escapes from my hugging arms

With the steady stolidity

Of the setting sun,

With the musingly,

I imagine generously,

Rueful* gaze of its beauty.

Time is inexorably

Falling into the dark.

It will pull me there when it pleases.

*(rueful: wry regret or sorrow)

#88

What most quakes my soul

Are the bells that toll

For that which is

Beyond the horizon

Of my time.

What dismay,

What wonders will be

That I will never see,

Not even imagine?

#89

All loves come to the bier,

Rest in finality from there,

Or, if not, then

On a wish and a dream,

Are thus carried on to

The ethereal in some way,

Or even to everywhere.

For dreams and wishes

Have no bounds.

That is their glory.

#90

If grief be not

The greatest sorrow,

Then pray

A greater sorrow

Be not at all

To ever fall

Upon the human heart;

For the void surely then

Will quickly devour

All life and light

And leave us with

The forever, darkest night.

#91

Do not dance on love’s tears.

First sing reverently to them,

Then, and only then,

With grace and in a spirt of honor,

Trip to the heart’s musical lights

To celebrate the memories

Of what was

Or the imaginings

Of what might have been.

#92

Imaginary friends can be quite fine,

At least, so such can be

As true as those of mine

If they be imbued with spirit and grace

To help carry me from place to place

Where struggle and trouble,

Otherwise too daunting,

Stare me in the face.

Why not lean a bit

On stories and dreams.

Truth can bear

The comfort of spirit dreams

If they be not turned

To rules and authority.

#93

I must go now,

For now is the time to go.

To go is the final duty

Of we all.

#94

What is the heart’s

Mightiest enthraller?

It is the great suspender

Of doubt, of disbelief.

It is the voyeuristic,

The vicarious, the seduction of

The surly, the droll,

The charming, the sweet,

The singing, wooing,

The vanquisher of topsy skepticism

To escape into the endless

Possibilities of turvydom.

This seducer

Is the magic master

Of the marveling mind?

#95

It is the riff and lift,

Grippingly aloud, of hallowing music,

With its questing griefs that raise

The waiting heart to take on the journey

Of the beatification of the mesmeric flow

Of a fulsome stage of storied fantasies.

By this we are elevated in spirit

Into realms of soul-filling sacredness

And bidding adventures.

#96

Be the poet,

Vivify emotive treasures,

Refract them into exhorting rays,

Gather them, mold them into pearls

Of ethereal, enthralling affection.

#97

Creator, what peak of amenity

Can your imagination conjure

That you can carry into the world

That is thirsting all about you?

#98

Will time dance with your visions,

Dance with your wistful heart,

Cuddle you with elations?

Will time befriend or offend

Your aspirations?

#99

With the imbuement imparted by practice:

The feel of the clay in your hands,

The thoughtful sculpting of shapes,

Hour upon hour, day upon day,

Oh, just wait until you find yourself there.

That experience instills,

Attunes, brings to life,

Creates a sixth sense

Of all the shapes around you.

Just as use of empathy gives you insight

Into others to emotionally embrace,

This sixth sense of shape

From modeling with firm, fine clay,

Will impart in you

The feel of shapes around you

That will complement your sight

Beyond imagining.

#100

Nothing will ever be more real,

More gripping of emotions,

Than a thinking, feeling being

Interacting with your attention

And you with its sentiency.