Branches

just some serendipity this morn between

tree photos from the editing lightbox

and penetrating verse found in the inbox ...

chess anyone?

I'm imagining someone bent over a fresh board, poised for footsteps.  Despite

an early winter draft snaking upstairs, despite the almost-dinner hour and the too-small

likelihood of a passerby plucky enough to take the plunge, they are listening and patient,

ready for any stranger who might sit down. Such sturdy optimism. The invitation of it all.

I wonder if, at the heart of it, we forget to say exactly what we're looking for, anxious

that the details will cloister and confine, keep us from the thing we want.  The sign I read, 

narrowed as it was, stood beside an open door, and no matter what was next, there was,

at least, the certain knowledge it would include the pieces for a game to be played.

What little flag could I hold out?  What batch of words would say it best?

What would I ask if asking were the only branch I'd need to build my nest?

~ Maya Stein

: : :

"10-Line Tuesday" poetry

by Maya Stein ... a backlog can be viewed   here

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Walk a mile?

First question I asked of self,

would I offer to walk a mile in someone else's shoes if I knew their shoes

were as uncomfortable as this?

Second question of self...

why do I even need to ask such a thing?

Life...so damn difficult at times.  Hard for every single one of us in one way or another, 

all these struggles that take hold.   Ages ago, while in conversation with someone,

I said that everyone bore pain in their own way and sometimes others could see it

and sometimes they could not...

that it was easy when

someone wore their wounds on the outside - obvious and hard to ignore - 

like a burn or a bad scar,

but what about the wounds that weren't visible?

They're still ever present, 

there is just no way for another person to know.

We often don't tell.   Can't tell.    But they are with us nonetheless.

So back to this shoe and the sudden avalanche of emotion...

I need to ask 

because

 I need to remind myself to never forget compassion  

and too, when compassion doesn't come when I myself might need it most,

I need to forgive what others cannot see.

********

Instructions for living a life.

Pay attention.

Be astonished.

Tell about it.

~ Mary Oliver ~

Photo credits:  Woman's slapshoe, 1625-1649 AD, England, The Greig Collection of Ladie's Shoes;  The Story Teller, mural project for Fellini Gallery, Berlin, by Michael Vincent Manalo.

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