The 60-Second Sabbath

Dismissal

Give me a balcony
(somewhere on the East coast of Mexico),
air scented with hidden hyacinth
(sweet, exotic, sensual),
a waning moon and the evening's first star
(just freed from the hazy horizon),
and a fresh-pressed volume of poetry
(Rumi? Oliver? Collins?).

You may leave now.

Text and image © 2014 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.

Seeing Good

Today,
right now,
make the decision
to see the good around you:
    beauty,
    kindness,
    color,
    play,
    love,
    diversity,
    possibilities.

Observe the good
for just 15 minutes
and you will be
    calmer,
    more focused,
    more creative,
    more productive,
    happier,
    kinder,
    healthier,
    and better looking.

So much for so little!

Text and image © 2014 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.

5th Ave., February

New York City,
held tonight in winter's fat paws,
going nowhere.

The lions freeze solid
on the library steps.

Cats breath rises from street grates,
wraps in ice each twig,
car antennae,
pigeon feather,
rat's tail.

Text and image © 2014 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.

Sophia Again

She stepped from the broom closet
like a dinner guest exiting the powder room.
"Missed me?" she asked.

"Like gas pain," I answered.

"You know I'm here to relieve the pain?"

"Yes, I know that."

She eyed the box of Russel Stovers on the counter.
"May I?" she asked.
I nodded, though she'd already reached for them.
She chose one (of the few remaining),
bit it in half,
smiled apologetically as she realized
she wouldn't be able to talk
around the blob of chocolate and caramel.

I waited.

Finally: "There. Very good, thank you.
Now about this obnoxious habit you have
of functioning like a rogue time machine..."

"A what?"

"A time machine, sweetie;
you keep dragging things
out of the past
or back from the future--
things that have no business in the here and now,
and it simply causes you unnecessary grief."

"Like yesterday:
were you not reliving once again
that unpleasant episode from work,
rehearsing what happened,
imagining what you should have said,
picturing it all coming out in your favor,
feeling triumphant,
while the rest of them cringed, apologized
and were miraculously transformed?"

My face reddened. "Yes."

"And did you feel any better for it?"

"I felt worse."

"And as you drove home today,
you pulled from the future
some nonexistent scenario
about running out of retirement funds in 15 years
and ending up on the street.
Your blood pressure rose,
your heart raced...
how was that for you?"

"Miserable."

"Leave in the past
what belongs to the past.
Leave to the future
what belongs to the future.
Your thoughts about both are 99% fantasy anyway.
That leaves you with now,
to simply experience and enjoy.
You can if you stop time traveling."

She held out her hand, palm up.
I knew what she wanted:
I reached into my pocket and pulled out an imaginary key
and pretended to place it in her palm.
It was the key to the time machine.

"Good.
In exchange, I have something for you."
From her flowered bag she drew
an unopened box of Russel Stovers.

I smiled.

"I suggest," she said
before disappearing back into the broom closet,
"that you enjoy them in the present
without justifying to your deceased parents
why you're eating them before dinner
and without explaining to you future self
why you've gained an ounce.
Enjoy
their
gooey
goodness
now."

Which I did.

Text and image © 2014 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.

 

Another Serenity Prayer

God,

just for today,
grant me freedom
from the desire to be
anywhere or anyone else.

Amen.

Text and image © 2014 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.

Pines

This was my stand of pines,
my sanctuary,
my refuge from adolescent angst.
Here I knelt
and inhaled stability.

Now they are stumps.

Do slaughtered trees leave ghosts?
I am haunted by the stickiness of pitch
and the scent of sun-warmed needles.

Text and image © 2014 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.

Walls

At dusk
I come upon the ruins
of an ancient wall.
It's graying rocks,
lichen-covered and rain-smoothed,
rise like disintegrating teeth
above the black-eyed Susans
and Queen Anne's lace
of the field.

Whose hands gathered and stacked these stones
and to what purpose?
Was I to be kept out?
Were you to be kept in?
And who fell first,
    the wall
    or its builders?

At dawn,
returning to the field,
I can not find the wall.
Sparrows chatter,
greeting me as they seek seed.
"May it be thus,"
they say,
"with all the barriers
your kind erects."

Text and image © 2014 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.

This Morning

Furnace hums;
coffee mug warms hands;
cat on lap chews pen.

This morning,
too content
to write.

Text and image © 2014 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.

Twelfth Night

Now it is Twelfth Night.
Beyond the windows,
snow falls and darkness encroaches,
but the lights of our tree
beckon with welcome, joy and hope.

Tonight we say farewell to Christmas;
tomorrow Epiphany dawns.

This year,
what has Christmas taught you?

Text and image © 2013 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.

 

New Year's Eve

Out with the crappy, 
    the silly, the dumb,
Out with what leaves us
    so distrait and numb.
In with the clearer,
    the focused, the real,
In with our opting
    to be and to feel.

Here's to less TV,
    less chatter, less noise,
Here's to far fewer
    distractions and toys.
Here's to more silence
    and sweet solitude,
Here's to a new year
    with spirit imbued.

Text and image © 2013 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.