By: Michael C. Seeger

GLOW

Today I felt glad
the sun rose on
our quiet neighborhood.
Hummingbirds came
visiting the feeders
all filled with nectar,
like the words
your lips held
and continue to hold
for me.

Whatever pain
I was feeling
was not felt.

Bending down
in the yard
to pull a weed.
I felt no anger,
or jealousy,
just the feeling
everything was
alright. Standing,
I saw the mountain’s
alpenglow.

###

THEY BRING ME HOME

There are two clocks
in our home requiring
to be wound with
a key

I turn carefully feeling
the strain of tension
in their ticking
hands

moving from out of the past
through the present to
the future they bring me
home.

###

LEARNING THROUGH TIME: A VILLANELLE

What seems like yesterday, was long ago.
So much Truth has been forgotten, or glossed;
Time has its own way of letting you know.

Thinking back on all the things I’d outgrow,
And wondering at the need, or the cost;
What seems like yesterday was long ago.

Perhaps next time through I’ll choose to forego
Exploring territory; Left uncrossed
Time has its own way of letting you know.

Changed, yet unchanged, in this shrinking tableau,
Knowing that nothing stays; Everything’s tossed.
What seems like yesterday was long ago.

Slipping through the past’s a mistake, you know;
Best to think before the line has been crossed.
Time has its own way of letting you know.

Our brief lifetimes are shorter
Seek and embrace Truth before all is lost.
What seems like yesterday was long ago,
Time has its own way of letting you know.

###

THE EYE OF FAITH

Much like a wraith
hope is diffusive,
some saith.
Not inconclusive.

Some have no more doubt
than the chick who pecks
its own way out
of the shell, white flecks

accruing amid
dust; a stark sign
of the life hid
exquisitely divine

within. Not by chance
do we become devout;
circumstance,
like a season of drought

made the eye of faith,
or imagination,
on the eighth
day of creation.

holding back the black
before closing the lid.
Or, looking back,
as Lot’s wife did.

###

THE DESERT

The desert is a void
Where it never rains;
Dependance is destroyed,
Self-reliance reigns.

The desert’s a woman
From out of the past,
No clouds are an omen;
Your luck better last.

The desert’s a reason
For people to leave,
To another season;
In need of reprieve.

The desert is arid,
Spring may come late;
Like a dying Herod
Symbolic of fate.

###

SPIRIT

Selfishness holds like hardening plaster
Between crisis and the consummating price;
Something in us arises much vaster

Whenever courage may seem to last, or
Contemplating plans of both men and mice,
Selfishness holds like hardening plaster.

It matters not prophet, priest, or pastor,
This sojourn requires a roll of the dice
When something in us arises vaster.

Daily we’re faced with desires to master
(Mostly, it means choosing virtue, not vice);
Selfishness holds like hardening plaster.

Christ had stood on the brink of disaster
Questioning the will of His Father thrice;
Something rose up in Him that was vaster.

Another journey may have proved faster
But some roads taken we won’t travel twice,
Though selfishness holds like hardened plaster.
Something in us arises much vaster.