Of love, laughter and making a difference

At the end of the day, the only questions I will ask myself are:

Did I love enough? Did I laugh enough? Did I make a difference?

Source: A share by Carol Borg on Facebook earlier today.

Twain

"Never allow someone to be your priority, while allowing yourself to be their option." - Mark Twain

Faith

This crest was designed for me and my descendents many years ago in another life by my dear friend Jaydev, an expert in heraldry. Rabbee sayahdeeni translates roughly to mean "He will guide me". These words are taken from Ash Surah of the Quran (Chp 26 Ver 62). The verse reads like "Qala kalla inna maaiya rabbee sayahdeeni".

A big thank you to my friend, first roommate and a caring, thoughtful, beloved man with a lot of integrity- Jaydev Nansey. Thank you!

My Father's Hats

     Sunday mornings I would reach
high into his dark closet while standing
     on a chair and tiptoeing reach
higher, touching, sometimes fumbling
     the soft crowns and imagine
I was in a forest, wind hymning
     through pines, where the musky scent
of rain clinging to damp earth was
     his scent I loved, lingering on
bands, leather, and on the inner silk
     crowns where I would smell his
hair and almost think I was being
     held, or climbing a tree, touching
the yellow fruit, leaves whose scent
     was that of clove in the godsome
air, as now, thinking of his fabulous
     sleep, I stand on this canyon floor
and watch light slowly close
     on water I can't be sure is there.

from New Letters, Volume 66, Number 3, 2000
- Mark Irwin

Obrigado

I'm in a little piece of Portugal on the west end of the old city
Time has not stood still here, but it hasn't moved too far either, though the motorized heating fan warming me on an upside-down milk crate would not have been here when the old lady
I'm sharing the table with,
left her parents behind
Her husband makes room for my coffee cup, passes me the sugar in an act of friendship, I pour some into my spoon and stir it in
I'm the outsider. I take a picture of my fare for my love to see
His own sits beside him
They let me be part of their comfortable silence. None of us need to talk to be present
The lady behind the counter asks me, pointing at my coffee to negotiate what she perceives as a language divide, "is good?"
I smile and give a respectful thumbs up, unwilling to break the loving silence I am now a part of.

My Life

           after Henri Michaux

Somehow it got into my room.
I found it, and it was, naturally, trapped.
It was nothing more than a frightened animal.
Since then I raised it up.
I kept it for myself, kept it in my room,
kept it for its own good.
I named the animal, My Life.
I found food for it and fed it with my bare hands.
I let it into my bed, let it breathe in my sleep.
And the animal, in my love, my constant care,
grew up to be strong, and capable of many clever tricks.
One day, quite recently,
I was running my hand over the animal's side
and I came to understand
that it could very easily kill me.
I realized, further, that it would kill me.
This is why it exists, why I raised it.
Since then I have not known what to do.
I stopped feeding it,
only to find that its growth
has nothing to do with food.
I stopped cleaning it
and found that it cleans itself.
I stopped singing it to sleep
and found that it falls asleep faster without my song.
I don't know what to do.
I no longer make My Life do tricks.
I leave the animal alone
and, for now, it leaves me alone, too.
I have nothing to say, nothing to do.
Between My Life and me,
a silence is coming.
Together, we will not get through this.

- by Joe Wenderoth

Love Poem With Toast

Some of what we do, we do
to make things happen,
the alarm to wake us up, the coffee to perc,
the car to start.

The rest of what we do, we do
trying to keep something from doing something,
the skin from aging, the hoe from rusting,
the truth from getting out.

With yes and no like the poles of a battery
powering our passage through the days,
we move, as we call it, forward,
wanting to be wanted,
wanting not to lose the rain forest,
wanting the water to boil,
wanting not to have cancer,
wanting to be home by dark,
wanting not to run out of gas,

as each of us wants the other
watching at the end,
as both want not to leave the other alone,
as wanting to love beyond this meat and bone,
we gaze across breakfast and pretend.

- by Miller Williams
from Some Jazz a While: Collected Poems, 1999

Grammar

"...some kind of light is coming from her head.
Even the geraniums look curious,
and the bees, if they were here, would buzz
suspiciously around her hair, looking
for the door in her corona.
We're all attracted to the perfume
of fermenting joy,

we've all tried to start a fire,
and one day maybe it will blaze up on its own.
In the meantime, she is the one today among us
most able to bear the idea of her own beauty,
and when we see it, what we do is natural:
we take our burned hands
out of our pockets,
and clap."

- by Tony Hoagland

excerpted from Grammar
published in Donkey Gospel, 1998

Oh what a tangled web we weave...

When will we let go of our pasts, and embrace the future, and what if that future is less textured but more calm, less fraught but more self affirming, less lived, but longer?

Entrance

Whoever you are: step out of doors tonight,
Out of the room that lets you feel secure.
Infinity is open to your sight.
Whoever you are.
With eyes that have forgotten how to see
From viewing things already too well-known,
Lift up into the dark a huge, black tree
And put it in the heavens: tall, alone.
And you have made the world and all you see.
It ripens like the words still in your mouth.
And when at last you comprehend its truth,
Then close your eyes and gently set it free.

(After Rilke)

- Dana Gioia