August 25, 2009

Boys of Summer

Boys of Summer

Four through seven
The wonder years
Peach-fuzz heads
Sun ripened ears

Favorite t-shirts
Sneakers, hats
Great Escape dreams
Wiffle-ball bats

Running through sprinklers
In the woods on a hike
Fishing with Dad
Riding your bike

Day Camp stories
A million times told
Boy pranks and boy jokes
That never grow old

Tree forts and climbing
From dawn until dusk
Hot dogs, ice cream
Sweet corn to husk

Sunburn and Band-aids
A weekly event
Lemonade-stand profits
Have all been spent

When the summer of boys
Finally comes to an end
The memories left
No millionaire could spend

J.R.G.5.27.09

Window

Window (A Sprint)
I love a picture window.
I love a white window.
I love replacing a broken window glass.
I love washing windows
I love looking out a picture window.
I love looking in a store window
I love climbing in a window when I forget my door key.
I love the word window and I don’t know why?
Window (Next Day)
As I awoke the next morning I instantly answered a question I had asked myself the night before, “I love the word window and I don’t know why?” I now knew the answer to that question. I love the word because I survive on introspect. I am always searching for something, a treasure, a sign, a clue. It is in everything I write. It is in everything I do. I continuously look in and out of life’s windows. It is a spirit sustaining drive that engulfs my mind. It is a hobby with no true cost, although it can take a toll on your heart when you are looking in to the window of your life or someone else’s and the picture is sad or disturbing. It may be illness, financial difficulty or the loss of a loved one. Windows do not always have happy views. If you embrace that life is going to happen with or without you, windows can help keep you alive.
If I need to breathe, I can open a window. If times are sad I can close the window, draw the shade and make the room dark for a brief moment. Seal the view; remove it for just a minute. Give myself time to regroup.
J.R.G. Summer of 2009

This was a writing exercise from Old Friend from Far Away (The Practice of Writing Memoir) by Natalie Goldberg

August 03, 2009

Alabaster Boxes

Alabaster Boxes

Do not keep the alabaster boxes of your love and tenderness sealed up, until your friends are dead. Fill their lives with sweetness. Speak approving, cheering words while their ears can hear them and while their hearts can be thrilled and made happier by them. The kind things you mean to say when they are gone, say them before they go. The flowers you mean to send-use to brighten and sweeten their homes before they leave them. If my friends have alabaster boxes laid away, full of fragrant perfumes of sympathy and affection I would rather they would bring them out in my weary and troubled hours and open them, that I may be refreshed and cheered when I need them. Let us learn to anoint our friends beforehand. Post-mortem kindnesses do not cheer the burdened spirit. Flowers cast no fragrance backward over the weary way.
-Author Unknown