Rule #1…

I have, for Just NOW, Found It, been exposed to it, like it!

My current fave quote, heard, this week, that satisfies my ‘but why?’ and wherefores and questions, regarding questions I have on root issue(s) with modern capitalism, growing inequality gap, lowering customer service, low wages, continuing oppression, etc., etc., etc.

Perhaps, just a big reach, really.

Perhaps, I’m just ‘only seeing what I wish to see’ and bending it to MEAN what I think is really going on/wish to see as ‘reality’…

I’m open to all these possibilities – for I’m not infallible, nor am I the brightest crayon in the box nor am I a rocket scientist.

I’m not even an expert in any field in which I work or play…

“An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field.”

Neils Bohr

I’ve never been qualified for any of my ‘that turned out well’ endeavors – not that I create much of anything new, really.

I just go back to old stuff, with a stubborness, and against all ‘conventional wisdom’ that makes folks think it’s ‘refreshing/new”.

Most of what I do is NOT NEW! It’s a blend of the old ways of doing things, with an adjustment for new information and perhaps, here and there, using some new tools….

But overall, it somehow FEELS/SEEMS new and/or old/safe/comforting because what folks really want, but what they are comfortable with, is not often said/addressed outloud?

I don’t claim to know – so take my musings for what they are worth –

Don’t feel qualified? Nobody does.
You can only be qualified to do that which you have already accomplished or trained for.
Anything new is accomplished by unqualified people.”

James Clear

Okay, with that preamble/disclaimer/etc., here’s the scoop on a line I heard, that for a moment in time, ‘all became clear to me!” –

Just for a moment – upon reflection, it doesn’t fit everything, not really.

But for now? The best I’ve got to refer to – fiction or not… LOL

How to Build an Empire or Company or Wealth

“Rule #1 – NEVER risk your own money.” –

from series, “Halt and Catch Fire“

Eight little words – (if you spell them out/count the symbols)…

One fictional line, which is so much more concise and elegant than what I’ve suspected and written about, talked about, griped about, ad nauseum, seems to ‘sum it up’ for me, overall – on what the real problem is on many fronts….

FICTION comes to my rescue!

Allows me to believe, I might truly have a glimmer on the “Why?”, of WTF continues to go on, century after century –

For just now….

I truly STILL believe, if someone only invests to ‘get’ out of anything invested in, without RISKING anything of theirs? Time, resources? etc.?

Bad things happen, over and over and over….

TGIF afternoon Toast

I lift my TGIF glass to the dreamers, the optimists, the idealists, the change makers, the diplomats, the collaborators – ALL who have placed their bet, have ‘skin in a game’ often controlled by and played by those who don’t risk their own skins…. not really.

To those who risk themselves, and not just others, to try and build a world that holds the space for more than just ‘them/what they want’ to inhabit?

To you? I say – Cheers!

Processing Delayed

With every passing year,
Possibilities abound for tears.

Seeping, gushing or blobbing.
Silently falling,
Or with loud sobbing.

Heart and Mind held hostage,
Aching for the freedom,
Only the Body can provide.

Processing delayed,
A choice to be made?

When mind, heart, body,
Cannot comprehend,
What just took place?

When hurt strikes,
So deep and profound,
Easier to ignore,
And Focus instead
Upon that which surrounds.

Others pleading,
“What shall we do?”
People to save,
Or things to protect,

Dreams to preserve.

Processing delayed,
As options parade….

What if I start and can’t stop?
What good will that do?
For anyone…
Including me…
Just now.

Processing delayed,
My choice is made.

Blessed numbness arrives.
Shored up by habits instilled,
Long ago.

Things learned through discipline,
Through training,
Via Fear and Coping,

Ah, numbness and habits!
My faithful friends.

Please build another wall,
To protect,
The soft parts of me.

Processing is delayed!
Today is saved!

Moment by moment,
Time plays out.
While aches and pains,
First nag,
Then wail,
And finally shout.

The volcano within,
Protected by stone,
Expands and rumbles.
Told always to wait.

“Just awhile longer.
Just till I’m a tad stronger.”

Processing Delayed,
I am Saved.

The body dutifully stores,
Toxic waste,
Until such day,
Release takes place.

The mind stores every scrap,
In haphazard places.
Covering what is needed,
Within so many spaces.

The heart dances in victory,
Behind fortress walls.
After conquering any who dared,
Ask or Demand entry.

Processing delayed,
A hellish prison made.

No pain can touch me.
No joy can reach me.

Processing delayed,
I am betrayed.

A body that stumbles
And falls,
Failing to comply
With even simple calls.

A scattered mind,
Cluttered with refuse,
Fails to quickly find,
Anything of use.

A heart that goes rogue,
And no longer hears commands.
But seeks meaning and companionship,
To hold hostage in its’
Fortress of Demands.

Processing delayed?
No longer can I find a way.

The world is determined,
To strip my fortress away.

Like a steady, slow rain,
The world around me.
Wears away the mortar of my pain.

Repairs made?
In dutiful fashion?
The world only delivers,
A bigger team for demolition.

My volcano is poked and prodded,
Growls louder every day.
As the fortress is breached,
First here, then there,
Attacked from every way.

And then?
Experts surround me,
And my beloved.
Talking low to one another.

While mechanical help is removed,
Or lines are added.

Sometimes,
The Universe is called for intervention.

All by those who choose to stand
On the precipice between
Mere Mortals
And the Divine.

Murmurs from those,
Who do such things, everyday,
Creep and seep into my fortress.
Through the cracks I can no longer seal,
Or defend.

While shouts of panic,
Long raging around me,
Went unheeded.

“The brain stem is gone, nothing can be done.”
Or
“Hail Mary, full of grace, blessed are thee.. pray for us…”
Or
“Do you see the back flow? Bless her poor, beautiful heart.”

A heart screams at me,
“Time to let go.”

A mind whispers,
“Those words not meant for you”

But I can no longer block any of it…
Or hide in my fortress,
Or tamp down my volcano,
Asking it to wait, once more.

My Body saves me.
The volcano blows,
The lava flows,
From my eyes,
My nose.

The explosion takes my breath away.
Rocks my entire being while the world stops.
I cannot breathe.

My Body kneels, in fetal protection,
My Body sways, in silent supplication.

While a mind frantically searches,
For grace,
Beauty
Gratitude.
And goes wanting.

Prone over the body of my love,
Love ‘lets go of me’

Processing delayed?
Can I please wait just one more day?

And in a moment,
I am blessed.

My heart opens to the feeling,
Of my love slipping away.

My Body jerks in aftershocks,
As walls within tumble,
And waves bigger than I,
Crash into me.

I dive deep into the oblivion,
Knowing full well,
I cannot breathe,
And I will drown.

Processing Arrives,
Perhaps, I, too, am to die.

My body flushes of debris.
And slowly,
Once more, breathes.

The world disappears,
All that remains,
My Freed Heart,
My Opened Mind,

Processing Done?
I Am One

My Body FEELS once more,
The still warmth,
Of my beloved.
Moving in an Eternal Dance,
With the pain coursing through
Every its’ every cell.

Tingling, sparking, igniting, singing,
In glory,
My Body embraces it all.

My Heart and Mind,
Follow My Body’s Lead.

My heart mourns,
The vacant space,
Where my beloved once joined me,
In my fortress.

All while it drinks greedily the peace,
That floods over walls of rubble.

My mind, devoid of clutter,
Cleary sees,
Focuses with calm,
Upon All that Is.

Without full understanding.
And no desire to know.

Processing Long Delayed?
Is rarely a choice now made.

No matter the pain,
No matter the hue and cry,
Putting it off,
Carries a price too high.

Hard Weeks

My Urgent to-do list caught up, after 3 weeks of juggling priorities and requests that flooded in and I about lost my mind trying to keep all the balls in the air, clumsily juggling and hoping against hope, I didn’t drop any of them.

In sheer exhaustion and left with nothing in my head but the list of ‘cargo thrown overboard, until the rapids were passed, in hopes the cargo would survive it’s trip, down stream, intact….’

I ended last week catching up on personal letters, emails, newsletters, news feeds & social media.

Took me all day yesterday to recover from the journey….

Took me eating better/napping/meditating, most of yesterday and a good nights sleep, before I could make sense of the wild dreams from past weeks, and every little thought that showed up in my head as I’ve traversed the past 6 months, and assessed my actions done, in a hurry, instead of slow and ‘think about it, first” …

Just to wind my way through all the:

• Conquering the frustration and the fear for those I love….
• Gathering my courage to show back up and answer for my sins, in any place where in my own angst, I was probably too honest, too brash, too harsh, or asked too many questions –
• Asking questions is one of my things – cuz I don’t know/understand and how will I, unless I ask questions?
• On the other hand, the WAY I ask questions is often interpreted as “judging” or “complaining” or “arguing with” though I don’t intend it to be – –

But, I do know, when I’m under deep stress and busyness…. I tend to just go for the shortest route possible….

Even when asking questions…

Meaning, I just type or speak my internal world in short, terse, “Just the facts” as I currently see them to be….

Missives or words which are often not even fully understandable by and/or are open to all kinds of ‘interpretation’ on the recipient’s end, that causes more hurt than good.

OR –

I type/talk way too much, too long, too involved, simply because, I KNOW I’m not at my best, just now, trying to be kind, explain why I’m asking, but I don’t want to lose sight of getting ‘better educated’ on this topic or that, so best I don’t be an ass-hat while I ask, in hopes I get an answer.

Those long missives get lost in the inbox or feed, I’m informed, to never be responded to…

Despite good intentions or “seriously! I just don’t even know what to do with this right now!” operations….

And sometimes?

Educating myself on the world around me, just as it is, now?

Breaks my heart….

Throws me back to the time & places where I walked similar paths….

Brings up old hurts and scars that I didn’t realize I hadn’t healed yet….

Then I descend into ‘sit with myself operations’

Just because – parts of me, the shit of me, just showed up, to be healed – and doesn’t always show up in all it’s glory for me to see BEFORE I hit the send button, or the post button, or ‘dial this number’ button.

Technology and gadgets strive to make life easier for me, all while…if it was a tad harder, maybe it would save me from myself….

No one going to force me to sit with myself…

No cliche or smarmy meme is going to fix me for me –

Nope, I have to sit, in my own manure pile, with myself, my dark side, my hurt side, my less than stellar, efficient, good side, and figure it out and choose, yet again, who I wish to be…

And then go about the work of making my outside match up with my inside –

Best as I can…

But…But…Splutter! This is who I am!

I learned a long, long time ago, I had a sensitive heart…

That me wearing my heart on my sleeve wasn’t a good choice….

That I needed to buck up, be strong, fight to protect the vulnerable, the sacred, the honorable…

I learned all these things from loving parents, both with sensitive hearts, who wanted nothing more than to protect me from the world they knew, really was.

And wished for nothing more than to protect me, but also educate me, to go forth into the world, less vulnerable than they were back then, and tough enough to survive what had blindsided them….

With fewer scars and traumas.

Either because they learned to block those events ever happening, or did their best to tell me how to avoid/protect myself when they were no longer there to do it for me.

I learned I needed to get better at…

“If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all”

all while I learned that staying silent, often, is a Lie by Omission.

I learned that I should never start a fight, but also, to finish one another started, because,

“Some folks don’t get it until you deliver the message via a baseball bat”

I learned that questioning authority was okay, but only if I respected the office of the authority, while asking nicely, even when I couldn’t see my way clear to respect the individual holding that office on a damn thing I knew about them through personal experience or my observations.

I learned about the prejudice so deeply ingrained within my heritage, some get togethers I planned were not comfortable for all the folks I invited….

I also learned those who weren’t comfortable, were happy to learn I was being all they wanted/wished to be, but just couldn’t, just yet, overcome their internal history and world, to attend.

I learned about atrocities and the selfishness/greediness of humankind on some fronts, while other fronts, that happened pretty much the same way, but in different place or time, were not expounded upon, other than an example of ‘history repeating itself’.

I learned to trust the history of Civil War Battles told through the eyes of Gone with the Wind chapters, all while the true, long standing horrors of slavery were told, but not highlighted as ‘examples of’ within the same book.

I learned about the Trail of Tears, The Indian Wars, The Sand Creek Massacre, Total Warfare (Civil War, Western Expansion Wars) and the honor of the people on the losing side of the battle –

All while I was ALSO taught to not romanticize the past – that when two cultures clash, there will always be a loser and a winner…

And both sides, either on their own or in reaction to the other side, will engage in some pretty brutal and ugly behaviors, because they are doing what they’ve learned, already know and well…they want to WIN!

I was also reminded, often, that history books and archives are written by the winners or the blatant self-promoters, and to take it all with a grain of salt without corroboration and even with corroboration, best to just read and pick a side only when I’m fairly certain, I’m willing to fall on my sword for it, wrong or right.

I learned that skipping rocks on the pond was a skill, and the more skips achieved?

Just demonstrated my choice in choosing a rock, learning to hold my arm at the right angle, was improving in skill.

I also learned if it doesn’t rain –

…If I fill the pond with rocks….

The pond will disappear.

I learned that every time I work hard, to make things easier for me, protect what I love, there are always ripples in the ‘pond’ of the world I live in –

I’ve Rather come to the Conclusion, also…

No matter how much I desire to be of the ‘strong, silent type’ personality type?

Not going to happen – at least, not this lifetime…

I go quiet and silent when I believe that’s the best option possible for all parties involved –

Only to find out, if I’m quiet, no matter how long, those who love me best, and I love them best, worry mightily when I go too quiet for too long…

My story, my personality, really, I’m starting to realize, will never out grow “Chatty Kathy” heritage.

After half a century of this?

I decided to just accept it – as my label, my way of being, whatevs…

My only job, overall…

Is to sit with myself, still my heart and mind, look about me, observe, and choose which rocks I have or wish to sling into the pond…

All while, placing my bets, and knowing full well…

I may be the loser and will never get to tell the history of my story in a way that lasts, for good or ill.

But if I do not speak up –

If I stay silent or not try to see the other side?

I may be, in the end, lying by omission, supporting through silence or standing alone to lose….

I, too, get lost in my Heritage and Inheritances

In so many ways, on so many days…

I choose what to do just now…best as I can.

Sometimes I choose what’s best for me, what’s best for others, what’s best for many….

And Sometimes?

I just don’t and finally realize, I have to go back within to make sense of the arguments raging between my external world & my internal world….

Because, without quiet, choosing peace & quiet space, to sit with my own dark side, instead of raging against it’s external manifestations?

I lose my way.

I forget both who I am and who I wish to be.

I’ve spent most of my adult life going within in sheer safety & desperation, because, well, to me? Doing what must be done, today, to ensure continued survival of my body, to protect that which I love?

Somedays? Not a lot of time left over to just sit and think –

Or the only sitting with myself is full of admonitions, and judgement of me and my Life quests….

I simply HAVE to sit with my dark side, or the things that well up within, out of the blue…

I HAVE to sit with the dark side of the world around me, no matter how hard it hurts, because, well, it’s still a part of the overall whole and ignoring such things, only let them grow in strength.

There are things in my past that I thought were healed, simply because I haven’t thought of them for years….

The Hard Weeks?

Suck – for everyone and for me…

They drive me to my worst –

And demand that I MAKE the time….

To sit with myself and figure out, really, who I wish to be.

Therein, lies the rub…

I do my best to avoid such weeks, through planning and work…

Most likely, I engage in my own versions of manipulation in order to avoid the hard weeks, as well…

It is What It is and I’m not convinced I am somehow exempt from being an ass-hat…

There are times my heart bleeds….

I cry out for Justice to REALLY happen….

I learn how ignorant I am on various fronts….

All while not being fully aware of what I’m doing, just about now….

But the hard weeks always show up, anyhoo.

Whether I immediately recognize their gifts delivered or not…

I Don’t believe You…

When I publish a post, near to or over 2000 words long?

And I get an ‘insta like’ a minute or two later?

I don’t believe you…

Cuz you know, I did a year of Speed Reading classes –

But attracting as followers, those who are speed readers – is not my wish….

That said, perhaps you took advantage of ‘automation’ options while you build your empire, eh?

Okay –

But in the end –

I don’t believe ya –

Just saying….

I Never Promised You a Rose Garden…

Others often tell me…
Or remind me…
What my place is.

Often, I remind myself.
When I observe, or wade into
The wild rose area,
I planted so long ago.

Their blossoms burst forth,
With a Siren Song Call
To others that aide in their survival.

Blossoms followed by the fruit
Fruit that feeds other winged creatures,
If only passed over here and there,
During the harvest,
Or not harvested at all,
In lean years,

The harvest I wished for,
To make cup of tea in deep winter,
Providing a boost of what is needed,
To shield my frail human body
In the season of cold & vulnerability

The hardy plants that survive drought,
Blazing heat,
Bitter Cold,
High Winds,
And blankets of
Hail or snow.

The plants that like living where I do…
And survive me and my errant ways.

All these miracles take place,
On bright red stalks,
Covered with Thorns.

Stalks that in color and armor,
Signal,
In the language lost…
Over time,
To my frontal cortex or modern language,
The Ancient Lore of their being.

But my Ancient Brain,
The one I may not always listen to,
Understands their speech,
Immediately.

Warning!
Danger & Bounty Ahead!

Those beautiful Red stalks,
Covered with tiny swords…
that stab..
Prick…
Slash…
With careless abandon,
The casual traveler.

Their victims include
the Naive,
The Careless,
the Impatient,
the Ignorant,
the Brash.

No judgement do they hold,
Only defenses invested in,
That attack the unwary visitor.

When I gaze upon the wild roses…
I planted,
So carefully,
Many years ago…

I think of the years of worry,
Weeding,
Mulching,
Miserly ways in supplemental watering,
As soon as the first season of planting…
Had passed…

I first stand in awe…
Then realize….
I am both the rose,
And often,
The unwary visitor.

The Naive,
The Careless,
The Impatient,
The Ignorant,
The Brash,

I walk through landscapes
I plant myself in,
Weed, Mulch and
Water or Not,
And those I invade…

Whether invited in,
Or not.

I have blossoms that sing to others,
In some seasons, I bear fruit.
I also have fine thorns,
That grow into sharp swords.
An armory built and honed.
To protect myself,
Best as I can.

I sometimes visit the gardens of others,
And know not,
What I am actually doing.

My inner garden,
My outer garden,
Collide, ever more…
Within me.

And become one.

I no longer observe my landscape,
Without seeing myself…

In the tiny wild flowers and rose hips…
The red stalks and thorns.
The seedlings that survive,
Simply because I didn’t mow them down,
Didn’t rip them out,
Because they don’t fit,
With just what I had in mind at that moment.

I sometimes ignore
The weeds that arrive,
In my inner world.

Those blown in by the cosmic winds,
Of today…
Or called forth,
By the memories of,
My past.

The ones who
Take over my garden…
While I wait for understanding.

Friend or Foe?
Weed or Collaborator?

Sometimes I apply mulch
And water my garden.

Sometimes I rip out invaders…
Without waiting to see,
If I mis-judged/mis-labeled
Just who the invaders really are…

And sometimes, I only grow
More roots,
That I may
Spread my invading army out,
To survive,
Via more thorns grown,
In hopes the invaders decide
To leave
Of their own volition,
Instead of sticking around,
To be wiped out by my survival ways.

I see myself in the Wild Rose,
Because I wish to see myself in the landscape.

And yet –
The Wild Roses force me to explore…
The parts of me I hide from myself.

I am forced to see,
the daily life I have built,
For myself.

Sometimes by active work,
And sometimes,
Through My own sheer inattention
Or neglect.

Sometimes I sing, blossom and fruit,
To call forth to partners in the Universe

And sometimes, I put all my energy into
Growing deeper roots,
Hardening my stalks,
And growing or honing,
My ever growing armory…
Of tiny swords.

To build a fortress none dare enter.
To be safe.

And always, always,
I explore my inner & external
Worlds…

Often wandering into the many other worlds
That surround me,
Lost, observing…
Until I can see my way more clearly.

There are many in the human garden,
Who are willing,
To tell me my place…
Or invade my space…
Define what my gifts are…
Deride my thorns…

And then there are others…
Who see only the flowers,
The Fruit,
The roots, the stalks…

But always,
Here and there,
There are
Those who endure my thorns,
Without understanding just why,
Who seek the blossoms that lured them in,
Only to find the swords that wound them.

Those who approach in eagerness,
The bounty,
Then cry out in pain,
When my thorns,
Poke and wound.

All while they believed,
They were merely holding the space,
In which I might grow…

Sometimes,
They ruthlessly prune away,
With abrupt clarity,
The dead wood,
I hold onto,
Because it is,
After all,

All I currently think I know.

Even when I can’t see,
I no longer desire…
Or need…
Such things.

Sometimes…
I label myself,
Weed or Water myself,
To grow.

Sometimes?
I weed/water myself,
Only for the purpose of
Surviving or Invading…
The gardens surrounding me.

Sometimes I grow quickly –
Putting out multiple branches –
To hedge my bets,
Try here, try there,
Rise toward the heavens…

Only to overtax myself,
Deplete my reserves or resources.

And stubbornly,
Carry on trying keep one dead stalk
Standing Strong.

The one that was once borne,
Grew, and was protected,
But now,
Does nothing but
Catch the brunt of heavy spring snow
That tries so hard to prune it naturally.

The part of me that
Stubbornly holds on,
Surviving the weight
Of falling spring snow,
High winds,
Hail…
Drought….

The part of me,
That has been,
For a long time,
Dead.

No blossoms put forth,
No fruit borne,
Not even the ability to grow
Or hone survival swords,
Anymore.

That Dead Stalk,
Bright Red,
With no defenses, other than
Stubborn refusal to fall,
Bend, or break.

When, in the end,
I could have just pruned it out.

Cut off that useless branch.
As quick and easy as I pruned that
Long-dead stalk in my roses.

The ‘deader-than- a-doornail’
Branch from 3 years ago…

The deader than doornail part of me,
From years ago.

I was waiting…
To make sure it was dead…
Just in case….
I risked too much lost,
by pruning and letting go of…
The part of me no longer needed.

Or couldn’t bear…
To let go of the sprig of hope…
That meant survival,
Back then….

To see, protect…
Make room for the new dreams…
Springing up all around me,
With quiet, nagging insistence,

While I unconsciously batted such things away,
And focused instead on the
Invaders that Insisted,
I pay attention through sheer,
Loud,
Harsh,
Judgement.

The dead stalk in my rose garden,
The dead parts within me…
That accomplish nothing more than prove…
Yet again….

Even dead parts,
Can hold on long enough,
To become a never ending nuisance,
Without ever being seen as one.
In my garden,
In myself,
In the landscape
And the world many wish to hold onto…

All while we all ignore the niggling insistence
“There is new growth here, and perhaps…
Time to prune deadwood away?”

Four days ago,
In the hot sun,
And still air,
I pruned that dead rose stalk.
The useless one –
The one full of brittle and useless thorns.

Without remorse,
Without attachment,
Without guilt.
Without injury.

I know, because I decided it was time.
And moved, with bare hands,
From pruning dead branches from the poplar,
To the tall rose stalk,
That so many seasons ago,
Shot up tall, strong and full of life…

Was most likely killed by a late spring heavy snow dump,
From the overhang soffit,
With no gutter on it.

The system & infrastructure
I demanded be re-created,
During the new roof build,
To water the things planted below it,
Just like the old roof had done for many decades.

The wild roses,
Planted for summer shade,
Winter Wind protections,
Of the Western Walls,
To be Watered,
Naturally,
Instead of me running irrigation lines,
And wasting deep water aquifers,
To keep alive plants who can’t survive,
The natural landscape or my ways…

I grabbed that dead stalk with my bare hands,
Snipped with pruners,
Tossed on the compost heap,
And never received a single hurt, prickle or injury.
Nor had I even a moment’s hesitation.

It was time.

All while I mindlessly scratched and rubbed,
At the ‘nagging irritation on my legs,
From where I brushed against the new seedlings
Coming up, outside the edges,
Of the rose garden ‘confines’,
The seedlings covered with
Fine, hair-like,
New life and…
Swords in the making –

The seedlings I have gazed upon,
For the past two years,
Give a passing thought to,
Here and there…

Figuring,
I can deal with those later –
Too wet and almost blooming time now…
Too dry and not best time of year, later…
To dig up and transplant elsewhere…

Season after season,
I have watched and waited,
When they FORCE me to look
Often.

All while,
I do not see,
Or ignore,
The dead things to be removed.

All while some things grow,
And other’s die…

In my garden,
And within me.
While some new things take root,
And old things refuse to die,
On many fronts,
In the world that surrounds me.

This morning I return to my inner world –
Via a picture and a quote,
And think about what I learned this week –

The pruning of me,
The education given to me,
In the gardens I build,
The ones I maintain,
The ones I visit.

I once more,
Assess myself…
My gifts…
My thorns…

My dead stalks,
In need of pruning…
My new seedlings…
That nag at me with unrelenting
Irritation…
That might not be best placed…
Just where they are showing up…

But are not yet,
Grown big enough to give my full attention to,
Or move elsewhere…
Or rip out.

I just mindlessly ‘rub or scratch at them’
Here and there…
When they show up to call gently to me…

All while I blindly stumble around…
Try to ‘manage’…
The landscape around me,
The landscape within me…

And hope,
Against hope,
I’m doing it right…
For just now…

I find myself lost within…
When I gaze about…
Often.

Grieving the lost hopes and dreams of long ago…
Observing the new dreams poking their heads up…
Nagging and Irritating me.

I wish to not lose the old that protects the new…
But don’t always realize where the old,
Is in need of pruning.

Dreams that pop up far away from where,
Long ago,
The roots of past dreams,
Used to flourish,
But stalks created long ago,
Are now dead.

Those damn new seedlings….
Currently only protected by small,
Hairy prickles.

The ones that irritate and,
Insistently nag at me,
But I believe I can ignore,
For just awhile longer,
While I focus on the dead,
Try to adjust to the new ones…

The new ones I don’t fully understand yet.
The ones that I wish would just fade away.

All while I race around,
Trying to protect, water, mulch & weed,
Areas with dead stalks,
That no longer Produce Or Protect anything,
But the overall death of me, my garden.

Perhaps I shall let those seedlings grow a tad…
Right where they are….
Until they are big enough,
I simply MUST make a decision.

And I remind myself,
This morning,
NOT making a choice is,
After all,
A choice,
In the end.

Even though,
Logic tells me….

IF I let any of new just
BE,
Doing their thing,
With no choices made by me,
Just now…

I will have to re-design my entire external…
And internal….
Gardens…
Someday…

If I don’t prune out the dead,
Someday, a firestorm
Will descend upon me…

Perhaps,
For the new, I can adjust a pathway,
A garden bed not yet built…

Perhaps, for the old,
I can prune it, and let it go.

If I don’t pay attention,
And choose between protecting the old,
And the new….

Carefully?
Wisely?
In a rush of emotional attachment?
Am I capable of any of this???

Perhaps…

My gardens will be full of beauty,

OR

They may just become a garden of Chaos…
Filled with thorns.

A Garden none dare enter,
Sans being armed with a machete.
In hopes they can hack their way,
Through the wilderness,
To the Blossoms and Fruits…

Or they maybe will decide,
Not worth the effort.
And decide to mow the entire
Garden down to nothing but a wasteland.

The very gardens…
I first inherited,
Then Built…
Then Protected…

The gardens I also,
Simply let happen….

While I was focused on other things.

Choosing…
Failing to choose….

Maybe building one of
Beauty and Bounty,

Maybe one holding nothing but dead stalks,
Full of harmless thorns –

Perhaps,
Someday,
I might create a garden of Bounty,
That holds reminder thorns…

A garden that calls to the naive & curious traveler,
But repels the harsh and unthinking conquerer.

The Bed of Roses…
Full of thorns….

Within me…
Within my landscape…
Within the collective world,
I help to build…

Whether I consciously choose,
Or not.