Feeling Alone

This was written last year during the last weeks that I was in the house in Kansas City. I was . . . well, I think it explains itself.

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It’s one of those restless nights.
I’ve slept, the short sleep of the early evening
then awakened with thoughts whirling in my head
and blocking the return to slumber.
So many thoughts, so many things
I feel I should decide or solve or change.
Or whatever.
My life is so unsettled.
Nothing is as it should be.
And I’m so tired.



I’m tired for the lack of sleep,
for the physical work,
for the emotional longing to be part of something,
for the fear I feel about the future
or the sadness for the past.





Perhaps most of all
is the fear about decisions
I must make alone.








I t seems this state of discontent is endless.
I see a challenge and try to follow its course
but before I see the end
it disappears into a fog.
And then I feel swallowed in the haze, as well.
I’ll remain there
until something reaches far enough
to grab me and pull me out of the mire.
What drags me from there may be a memory,
reminding me that I want to create new ones,
or encountering a task that I can’t walk around,
or, on the better days,
the voice of a friend
giving me the human contact.








But now, in the night,
the memories haunt me,
the tasks are out of sight
and the friends are asleep.










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Hearing the Wind

I've been away for a long time. I'm back. Life is good.

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Hearing the Wind



I’d been hearing it all day,
the wind blowing against the sides of the house,
rattling against the windows,
shaking the roof in a most noisy way.
It was something I noticed from time to time,
but I dismissed it as just part of the arrival of spring.
Later I left the house,
having forgotten about the earlier rumblings of the wind.
As my hand reached for the car door,
I felt the breeze across my face,
and I noticed the wind again.
I stopped and listened.
The wind was around me in swirls,
tugging at clothing and my hair,
but I no longer heard the noises of the house.
Now I heard the sounds of the wind
as it ran across the earth
and through the trees.
The resonance was a sigh,
no, a gentle whistle,
or was it a whoosh?
As it squeezed between the needles of the pine,
the tone was gentle, soothing,
much as the song of a mother’s song,
whispered lovingly,
and carried the scent of green,
the promise of life.
As I stood for those moments,
I first closed my eyes and drank in the sound and smells.
Then I opened them,
and I saw the trees around me
and the sky as blue as sapphire
with clouds so white it hurt to look at them,
yet I couldn’t look away.
And I drank it in,
sip by sip,
until I felt the lightness in my head.
A wonderful drunkenness caused by beauty.
And I felt the peace that I have so often
in this beautiful place.

I wonder about the differences we bring to the earth.
Putting our structures in the path of the wind
interrupts the natural flow of nature.
How do we balance our need for protection
with the earth’s need for freedom?



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