41
The Road Taken
Sitting on my front deck
in beautiful Georgian
Bay reading a book
of immortal English poems
and listening to the
sounds of nature, birds
chirping in the trees
and splashing in the
bird bath and garrulous
cement trucks down
the street pouring
forms for our new neighbors
home, Lionel and
Patricia, and Robert Frost
chanting, “The woods
are lovely, dark, and deep
/But I have promises
to keep /And miles to go
before I sleep,” I
smile in happy thought that I
dared to take his
iconic road not taken long ago,
and here in cottage
country Georgian Bay I’ve
kept my promises in
anguished reverence for all
of my unexpected blessings,
and I sit in peace
with my weary soul listening
to the sounds
of nature
contentedly reading poetry.
42
Conundrum
I didn’t hear
the first sentence
in my mind, as often
happens when my
Oracle
speaks to me, and I
sit
and wait for
inspiration;
but nothing happens.
Is that fair? I ask
myself.
But who am I to
question
the mystery of
creation?
Philosophers,
mystics,
and scientists alike
cannot
solve the riddle of
life,
and I pour my
thoughts
down as if they were
my own; but are
they mine, or my
Oracle’s?
43
The Devil’s Shadow
“I’d rather read a
thousand spiritual musings
than poetry. It’s
torture,” said Penny Lynn
(my musings threaten
the Devil’s shadow);
but the more I explained
“it” to her, the more
she desisted— “What
I don’t like about poetry
is that it’s up to the
individual to figure it out.
Why can’t they be more
explicit?” But when I
gave “it” to them on
a golden platter worthy
of a noble prince— “Tell it unveiled, the naked
truth, the declaration’s better than the secret!”
said the Sufi mystic—they
could not swallow
“it” and spit it out—a
hard truth to ingest; so I
stopped threatening the
Devil’s shadow and
gave “it” to them
slanted— “Success in circuit
lies,” said the
mystic Emily Dickinson—in
the more palatable
form of poetry.
44
Memories of her Past Life
The first time was a
miraculous surprie,
the second time befuddling,
and the third time
bizarre; but who can
argue with the Voice
when it tells you to
go to the casino?
“Go to the casino,”
said the Voice the first time,
but Penny resisted because
she was working;
but the Voice insisted
and told her again to go
to the casino, and still
Penny resisted because
she had her job to
do. But the third time the Voice
told her to go to
the casino Penny relented, and
she came out of the
Georgian Downs Casino nine
hundred and fifteen dollars
richer, and we
thought this was miraculous.
“Go to the casino,”
said the Voice a second time
nine months later as
she was driving to work one
morning; but this
time Penny did not argue with the
Voice and came home from
Georgian Downs Casino
three thousand seven
hundred and eighty-five dollars
richer, and we thought this was befuddling.
“Go to the casino,”
said the Voice a third time
while Penny was
eating her lunch at the Bark Park
in Wasaga less than
a month later, which came as a
shock to her; and this
time she came home from the
casino three grand wiser
because now she knew without
a doubt that she had
inner guidance watching over her,
and her haunting past-life
fear of monetary insecurity
finally loosened its
grip on her.
45
A Stain Upon His Soul
Terry cursed the small
patch
of brown soil on his
luscious
green lawn where his
grass
refused to grow after
all of his
love and attention.
For seven
years his front lawn
was marred
by that solitary patch
of brown
that he re-seeded and
tended
to with stubborn pride
every
summer for three
years before
he lost his patience
and cursed
it like Jesus cursed
the fig tree;
and like an ugly port-wine
stain
upon the beautiful face
of his
luscious lawn he let
it be until
he could stand it no
longer, and
upon that brown patch
of cursed
soil he relented seven
fresh rolls
of vibrant green sod
and waited
defiantly to see if
his grass would
die or grow. But sad
to say, the
next summer his brown
patch
came back to haunt him
like
a stain upon his
soul.
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