Seaside Days

Reaching out to touch the sea stones, I loose my footing and almost fall into the drink. A close one that, as I cannot swim. The waves lap at my toes, teasing me. They want me in the vast puddle, perhaps to make me fish food; perhaps to brine me for etermity, for the spit of the universe. But I desist. Instead, I crouch naked on a flat rock and feel the wind on my bottom, the breeze about my balls, and I laugh, mocking the sea, daring it to reclaim me like some Darwinian offshoot. I know the waves will long outlive me, outlasting my sighs and cries. Still, I will not loose my footing again, learning my lesson well. Gull calls in my ear. Gull crap on my shoulder. These remind me of that seaside days that began and will end my life.

Mentor Sun

The quiet at the days end matches the quiet at the day's dawn—alone, perhaps with thoughts or blank meditations, with all things ahead and all things behind. Points in time much like the day before and the day a-coming, I feel a comfort that the cycles of existance may vary in many ways but stay alike in the waking and the settling of things. Like my friend the sun, who is in the river of my wrists, I have more than enough time to pair these points into a splendid arc for the sun's course. Now I turn to the task of living, knowing that until it ends I have two points in time daily to be just like the sun, my mentor.

The Passage of the Midnight Soul

So, the most depressing day of the year has passed me by and I am still here. It is the time to look in the reflecting ice and see the state of myself; to search deep into my money bag and find the gold to pay the tax man; to gaze about the empty room and notice that I am alone with my petty acquisitions. Yes, the most depressing day of the year. Reasons, however are facts - and facts are transmutable if what I see I do not like. If I do not change them, it means I like them on the happier days of the year, which, thank the creator are all other days. It's just this one day that I must muster through - the day where the darkness of the midnight soul demands accounting. Maybe next year I'll pay the toll, but this year has too many blessings on its heels to self-indulge my Freudian fabrications. Snap, and the day passes, firm to the warrior's heart. Firm as the Tsa-la-gi way.

Sweet Winter Wind

Sweet winter wind in my face, blinding me with snow and chilling me to my bone, I thank the creator that the depths of this day recall my frailty. The warrior must challenge his mental picture. This is hard to do, as we are too much full of ourselves, overcome with the brilliance of our importance and broad living; but when the cold bites our nose and the snow blinds our eye, we are nudged toward truth about where we stand within the scheme of things. Where would one flake be in a field of snow if it were not for the freeze to adhere them one to another. Ah, sweet winter wind in my face.

Humble Prayers

It is a fine thing to do daily before the sun comes up and the crowds pour across the mental horizon. Done once and solid, it anchors the day to bountiful purpose, focusing on the truth of matters and the importance of any act or thought. Forgotten and the world spins about in want of direction, reeling off course into the starry night. That is why I ask the daily blessing and give thanks before the sun comes up. Reminding ourselves that we are smaller than the waves and equal to the stones gives the day some sense.

The Face of our Fathers

The pond is frozen and the family gathers to drink to the coming of spring, with our eyes raised to the setting sun and the points of light far on the horizon. I sigh to think of the many things I've done to help freeze this pond, to help thicken the ice during the dull wintry dawn and the cold gusts of day. But on the horizon, I can see the face of my father, telling me to shine again as he did in the new day, the lingering frost and thawing of hearts that were thought to be solid and unbending. The family is gathered once again.

Cherokee Words

Sometimes life's dizziness cuffs us and makes us breed foul thoughts; spew bad words. The Cherokee say that words are not to be used lightly, because they last forever. Even if in anger's heat you spray the glade with meaningless palaver, that palaver remains indelible. It will haunt the earth far beyond its utterance—far beyond your days. Quiet contemplation and careful speech is the mark of the Cherokee. That is why we are so noble, and so poor—losing our homeland to the Unaka. Still we keep our souls for generations of quiet, gentle children who look to the heavens and see pure words spent well.

Suffering the Weather

When deep in summer's heat, we complain about the sweat and heavy air quite forgetting in winter's depths we complained about the chill and thinning air. Are we hard to please or just too fussy? It is a difficult matter to face daily, our disatisfaction with the environment and the weather. But, if we just remember one day that was perfect to our mind and reserve it in the chambers of our heart, we could very well be happy to retreat there when the going gets tough.

Time's Face on the Waters

I stand at the edge of the pond and watch the ripples sing their song to the summer sky. The clouds are more beautiful. The ducks that fly are more graceful. Trees mirror their arching boughs over the big puddle and seem to come alive. Then, I look into the pond and see my face as it glows—not like a fairy ring, but as a younger man, the man I knew thirty years ago. The more the pond stirs, the better the reflection is framed by the big sky, the trees and the ducks. It is better not to look at me when the pond turns icy and freezes. There is nothing then but the gray backdrop, leafless boughs and ducks flown south. This is truth's face when time is seen upon the waters.

Nature's Tools and Mine

I look over the land and see the hills in the mist, the river churning as it always has through the chasm and over the falls, and I know that nature's tools are not the same as mine. I have hands to fashion artifacts to feed me, clothe me and to protect my own. But lately I've been given over to buy, beg, steal or swap for food, for warmth and the safety of my kingdom. These hands do much but half of their design. But then I look at the river, always carving the valley making the hills grow. Then I know my hands are drifting away from their design and that nature's tools are not the same as mine.

Great Things

I have always been exposed to great things—great books, music, performances and the arts. They have unfolded about me like the leaves of the agave or the wings of the monarch. It is probably a just thing that I should lose the sight of one eye and scarcely feel the earth beneath my feet. Just in that I have inhaled the beauty of Austen, Tolkien, King and Dickens, beheld the fire called the Sistine, watched with awe the power of old Egyptian love sealed forever in an ancient tomb, and have slumbered on waves Mozartian. I have seen Gui-lin in the mist of her wet mornings, where the cinnamon trees burst over the plum pudding hills that vie with cabbage aromas. I have supped too long, indulged too many times for any human to dispute the parity of loss. Now, I pick up my armor, shielding the sun, deflecting its rays to my own response, my own mark indelible, for one cannot mourn the loss of such things as sight and touch, when one has recorded all things in the soul. It is time for me to thank the creator for what I have, and join with the great for others to imbibe. The days are getting short for me, and the best is yet to come.