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Free Time

 

FREE TIME

 

My time is not free

tangled

 there is something

                over there

miniature silicon chips,

intricate pathways,

tiny gates, open/close

 

that thing beeps

buzzes

 jangles my brain

tangles my time

 

break free!

 

but it’s not just the ipad desktop laptop phone tablet

there’s my mind, my brain with its own delicate thickets

Gates, Open Close Flow

Stop Send Receive

 

Let go !

 

Free time !

and suddenly I'm  in an open moment

cinnamon buns,

fresh from the oven,

gooey white icing, melts among the folds

senses open

mouth waters

 

LIFE FORMS

 

Life

forms

how?

 

Dinosaurs they say

became birds

 

Did anyone tell you that?

did you believe it?

 

That’s a thing to be laid out

on a wall chart

wooden pointer

tapping

step

by

step

 

Dinosaur

tap

tap

tap

bird

et voila!

 

Dinosaurs were also

bits of green/brown plastic for the kids

one had a big bulge in the center

another a spikey crown

and T-Rex growled upright

on massive thighs

 

but not really, right?

 

And then it all came together for me

in a big bubble of time

when the little ones came to visit

 

  *   *   *

Bones, delicate, like a bird’s

four little four-year-old fingers reach up to rest

in my

big

hand

 

and down on the beach, sandpipers,

their legs a blur

            as they race

their rhythms

            not mine

                        free me

tell me mine is not the only way

            of being

            aware

                        being

            here

I float released in the sea air

 

 

 

 

Air shared

with dinosaurs

 

I feel it real

            at the Witte Museum

                        there in front of me, a dinosaur bone

fossilized so big so heavy

            so present

 

we all have our rhythms

what’s 67 million years?

 

all here

life forms

one to another

grandmother

grandson

bird

sandpiper

dinosaur

  *   *   *

CODA – We all have our rhythms

 

Soon after they arrived

the 1-yr-old chased the 4-yr old round and round in a circle because there are 2 doors

in one, out the other and round and round

 

I put my phone on the floor trying to record the sound of their quick footsteps, their legs are so much shorter, the sound soothes so

 

yes, and then the sandpipers, quicker still

 

and how is the sound of the dinosaur whose bone I saw the other day?

and how might its footsteps sound to other dinosaurs?

 

all this making me feel, like Haldane, that this universe with all its life forms is not only bigger and more mysterious than I imagine

it is bigger and more mysterious than I can imagine

 

HOW TO BEAT THE COMPETITION

 

Kill them ….

 

or

 

give yourself a chance to get better at something you care about

 

use your creativity

 

find another way

or

 

discover that’s not actually

what you truly wanted

 

and find out what it is you do desire

 

NESTING TIME

 

Last March

crossing the canal

I turned my head

Spring

hollowed me out

like rivers as they bend sculpt caverns

 

delicacy of that pale bright green amidst

the dead-looking grey-brown stalks

blew into me

took my breath away

 

And now, again, it's nesting time

And now, after all these years, it's my turn

 

I have been preparing for decades

working branches stiff with anger, rage, rebellion

softening them slowly till they have become tender, pliable, nest builders

 

into this nest I place my heart

long buried, fragile, delicate as down

 

I nestle into myself

protected for now from the sheer terror

and unimaginable beauty

of existence

 

Soon, soon my heart will be strong

Soon, soon it will know

the freedom

of flight

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