LETTERS FROM HOME

The hand-written letters arrived
Each week in an envelope
Stuffed with neatly trimmed
Newspaper clippings,

Hometown stories of
People I knew, places I knew,
A reminder of family,
A reminder that roots existed,

Just as I was growing wings,
Filled with new ways
Of thinking,
New ways of being,

It was the 70’s,
A time for questioning things,
Much like now,
Much like every generation,

But the letters still arrived,
Knowing I needed a tether
So I didn’t go drifting off
Inflated by all my heady thoughts,

It was many years before
The roots took hold
Somewhere deep
In my soul,

It might have been the day
I addressed a letter to my oldest son,
A gentle reminder
That roots can offer strength
When wings grow weary
From taking flight.

Photo by Rita Bourland:  Letters from home – 1970’s

FINDING THE ART

The man mows his lawn
In perfect rows,
Then trims the edges
With a sculptor’s eye,

His work of art
A departure from the days
He spends
Managing numbers,
Filling spread sheets,
Twirling a pencil
Behind an oaken desk,

He stops to admire his work,
Taking time to breathe
In the fresh spring air,
To hear a pair of cardinals
Discuss the birdhouse in the yard,

It’s not so hard,
He thought,
To free the mind and find the art
In a perfectly sculpted lawn,

Yet even in a spread sheet
There is an art
To the lines and lists,

An art
That DaVinci himself
would have loved.

The picture is a page from DaVinci’s notebook.

Soothing Music in my Head

The endless clatter of dishes,
banter of diners,
jaunty music,
projects a mood
that exists in the confines
where I dine
most nights,

yet even at home I succumb,
turning on music
to turn down the
spinning thoughts in my heads,

Instead of being with others
I speak to no one,
and live with the mood
I choose,

going to bed
with soothing music in my head
vowing to be a brighter, lighter
version of myself in the morrow.