Thursday, March 31, 2011

Monday Morning


There’s something to be said about Monday mornings—especially snowy gray ones. I can start out slowly, which suits me just fine any day of the week. But with those promises to keep, sitting there waiting to raise their hands to be called on, starting out slowly feels really good.

As you can tell, I don’t have to report to a job, one outside the home anyway. But I do have to keep my own integrity in mind and a quick way to move out of my husbands way when he wants to go do this or that, whatever is on his list. We are both retired but I have to say as busy as if not busier than we were when we both were working or even just when he was.

If you have read my posts in this blog you will find that I am often talking about having enough time to get this or that done before this or that happens. The this or that has to do with my family obligations, grandchildren, doing farm chores (taking care of horses), volunteering at the Fort Collins Cat Rescue, taking care of my four rescued cats and getting all of that done so I can write! Write…what?

Well, lots of things, too many things. I don’t allow myself too often to get lost reading e-mail, Google, or websites but when I do I love this one. Zen Habits.

Here is the advice I got from it this Monday. Choose one thing to do (get done) today that makes a difference. Simple, right? Wrong. My biggest problem is prioritizing. I have a terrible time with it because to me, everything is important. Everything has the same weight, which is not true of course. Do whatever makes a difference this day. WOW

Well, then I started a list. After 11 or so things that seemed equally important I realized we were looking at something bigger here. Not counting promises to keep, which is kind of a given, I needed to answer a fundamental question. What is important in life? I am working on this…making a list of things to consider…. Hmmmm lets see, health, relationships, faith, meaning, love, money? So my mind flashed back to a time when I was faced with a similar decision and I think that answer answers this. What is important is kindness and compassion.

Kindness and compassion will always make a difference.

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

R.F.D. North Dakota

I'm pleased to bring you another poem in my Ghost Prairie Poem Series

R.F.D.
North Dakota

deep ruts slow my car
bumps up dusty clouds
along a rolling ribbon of road
“out in the middle of nowhere.”

i stop turn down the window
air rushes out as if to cool
the hot July day

a battered mail box
perches precariously
on a splintered post
held in place by rusty
barbed wire …

waits in silence

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Ghost Prairie Poem I

In 2002 after a trip to North Dakota I wrote a series of poems called Ghost Praire Poems. This is the title poem

GHOST PRAIRIE I

I speak plainly
poems your ears have forgotten to hear
words you don’t know
anymore, years like the static
roar of brown cicadas
drown them out

I felt your journeys
your heavy wagons rutting roads
ruddy faces looking up eyes bright
you sought my forever landscape
to save you, to bring life

I planted
and harvested your dreams
watched weariness and roaming
leaving
and coming home

I was generous
gave my glacier plains
and deep black soil
my opportunities
to you

I have seen my vastness shrink
horizons sink in the distance
fields pock marked by
towns prairie dogs built
and left to the crows

You must listen to me
before I am gone
my voice weakens
to soft whispers grown quiet
into the wheat that shifts in the wind