Mixed Media Basket/K.L.Smith April 2013, Charleston, SC

NaPoWritMo 2

NaPoWriMo #2

More Than Once

His footprints capture rainwater like a cup;
this trace too will disappear
when clouds depart.
Earth absorbs water
like a lover mending quarrels,
and grass recovers quickly,
bending back to reach the light.

Nature reclaims her own,
leaves oasis or despair.

But footprints in a desert
cup no rain,
disappear with wind
and the beholder,

and one dies more than once
in a lifetime.


Kathleen L. Smith

NaPoWriMo #1 Today's prompt is to write a total lie.

The Lie

Decadence is Lovely,
instinctual, rich,
runs through the veins
like a subtle itch,
sings out loud
like frogs in June,
plays like a violin out of tune.

Satin ribbons and velvet shrouds,
tattered Elegance, funereal crowds--
Oh, slay me with Decadence,
chocolates and pearls;
I was born a slave
to the material world!

Labyrinth

Labyrinth

Many days have I journeyed through the labyrinth,
Placing always
One foot before the other
Methodically, determinedly,
Around the winding paths of forests cool and deep--
Where light is dim no shadows fall--
Across the sere sand of desert years where
Parched and fevered,
Fending off the glaring sun by day
And clinging like a moth to my dreams by night
I muttered my words
Into the deaf ears of languid air
Expecting reverberations from the canyons of the universe,
Yet only echoes of my whispered lament stirred
And clung to me like a chronic ailment.

Once, I rambled through a greening glade,
Moss-fresh air filling my lungs with pneumonic sharpness,
A painful gasping joy that passed like lust
In a hummingbird's flutter,
And I marched fettered for a season after
To a dream that had died in my arms.
My footsteps wore a path around the graveside into a dusty ritual.
Yet even grief grows old and passes with the years into its
Own quiet grave, a hazy memory,
And I moved on without
Quite knowing how or when,
The machinations of the mind a wily creature.

I sought the world again flamboyantly,
Breaking the horns of the minotaur,
And those were the days of the hunter,
Of running wild through the world,
Powerful, austere,
Leaping the labyrinthine walls,
Blood-intent, scent of desire driven,
Demented and flushed with the thrill of the chase.
Once more the journey ended
Abruptly, succinctly,
A curtain falling on another act
And I found myself standing alone in the mezzanine
Applauding an empty stage with the light slyly fading.
Outside, blinking in the daylight,
Surprise mingling with suspicion to find
The afternoon not night and warm and golden still,
I stood for once paused in the leaf-glorious glow of summer,
Inhaling with wonder that had waned long ago in the turnings of the road
The path behind me
And a shadow of self like Dorothy Oz,
Red shoes kicking up clumps of earth
As I ran, walked, danced, plodded,
Clod of a dreamer,
Scarecrow of hope,
Ghost of myself,
And all along the path was mine--
I'd arrived before leaving,
And the journey
Is home.

 All rights reserved KLSMITH

Russ's Creek

Tempus Fugit

So much happening just now. Bill and I have lost aged loved ones to time and eternity. We ponder our own mortality as we move into their places as the older generation, wondering how time could slip by so swiftly and wanting to make good use of every moment. This generation that is/has been passing, born into a Depression, took on the duties necessitated by a world war, both at home and far away, unhesitatingly, unflinchingly, witnessing deprivations and devastations we can only imagine. And, somehow, they came through it all with dignity and perspective. I have never met finer men and women than they. Bill and I were too young for Viet Nam and are too old now for the Middle East conflict. As such we've led spoiled, easy lives. Perhaps we may yet redeem ourselves through other gifts; only time will tell.

Thoughts on Love

In the shuffle of daily life, small matters often seem much larger than they are. We see the vine rather than the tree. But if we think about a day, just twenty-four hours, compared to the millennia of human existence, we see that day is even less than a grain of sand. In the bloom of romance, the beloved can do no wrong. Individualities are seen as charming aspects of personality. When the fragrance of newness dissipates, the same charm may seem less alluring. The odor of sameness creeps in. We may think, “I don’t have to put up with this!” The aspect of a new romance may enchant us, but we dream. If one follows this imagining to fullness, one goes through the same notions: bloom, charm, and then the sameness creeps in, and this time those quirks, individualities, habits, may be slightly different. But they are there, the small matters that loom between two people. They are inevitable. Two people are never completely alike. The adage reads, “Familiarity breeds contempt.” It should be added, “If there is no love.” If I say I love you, I do not cast you off because you become too familiar. I do not try to change you although I may try to change me. I love you for who you are. To think that some people perpetuate this cycle, running from one romance to another, discarding the old for the new, the sameness for the fresh, but the perfume is the same. And the risk is a life of loneliness or of constant running from one individual to the next. Every idea, emotion, every relationship has its cycles. We can cast off one idea or emotion or relationship when it works for us no longer, or we can remold it to what we want. We can try patience, for it may change of its own accord, following its natural course. If the dolphin failed to swim with the currents, it would not travel far. 1 Corinthians 13 1 If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. 4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. 13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. Here is wisdom for the ages.