"Autobiographies of great nations are written in three manuscripts – a book of deeds, a book of words, and a book of art. Of the three, I would choose the latter as truest testimony." - Sir Kenneth Smith, Great Civilisations

"I must write each day without fail, not so much for the success of the work, as in order not to get out of my routine." - Leo Tolstoy

I have never believed that one should wait until one is inspired because I think the pleasures of not writing are so great that if you ever start indulging them you will never write again. - John Updike

"The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another; and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it." - J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

Poetry is the shadow cast by our streetlight imaginations." - Lawrence Ferlinghetti


[Note - If any article requires updating or correction please notate this in the comment section. Thank you. - res]


Saturday, April 29, 2023

R.E. Slater - Contentment

 

CONTENTMENT

by R.E. Slater


As I watched my grandson
conducting the blades of grass
about his feet, becoming
part of its serenity, its being,
a veritable maestro prehending
greensward composition
flushing the world, grounding
it's warming soil-breaths rising
across soul and spirit to play
gently on eye and ear,
mind and heart,
the lively rhythms
felt in the moment
as only babies can hear.

So too was I absorbed
the simple beauties
we too often miss,
sensing the little worlds
lying about us, finding
contentment in the moment
as if swinging a planting stick
that I had given him,
practicing his earthly reign
for the moments ahead.

Absolving all souls of
the little sadnesses
we bear, with little uplifted
hands waving gentle blessings,
across momentary silences
perhaps healing hurts,
absolving sins with the
wave of his hands.

Teaching us to embrace
the world as it comes,
embracing the little moments
filling our parched souls
like his little being
being held the wispy worlds
of imagination; worlds
breathing contentment,
healing, grace as they
may be found again.

I am entranced by these
rare moments of beauty
when all becomes one,
and one becomes all,
and all being is becoming
when simply composed
in the healing stillnesses
where life may mend,
held, breathed, flowing
across our desperate beings.


R.E. Slater
April 29 & May 6, 2023
*Narrated the Summer of 2022