Weekly Photo Challenge: Achievement

Trusting the life line

Releasing dreams to the sky

Happy face icon

~

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_photo_challenge/achievement/

Of Life and Leaves

 

 

Summer slips quickly

Into winter’s dream

As fall fakes a smile

Amused at the lens

Say “Leaves”

And they gather

In layers lost

Before our eyes

Bits of space unnoticed

Until blinks are detected

Don’t blink

These moments have a life

Of their own

If we don’t give them one

~

Nature guides

 

 

And I will keep walking

Against the wind

That chills my skin

And warms my soul

Waking my senses

Clearing the knick knacks

That play paddy whack

On my mind

 

 

Weekly Photo Challenge: Window

“Solace is neither here nor there. You can find it in a quiet corner or a walk through the forest. No window or door can separate you from the beating of your own heart. You only need to listen.”

~mishunderstood~

 

 

Sands of Time

Time is irrelevant

No meaning cast

Daylight dishonored

 By shadows of the past

Seasons slide easily

Through white knuckled fists

Like tiny bright crystals

Too weak to resist

Time is a gift

To be treasured or wasted

Portraits and images

Carefully pasted

Time is mind altered

We stand early or late

Pausing… resuming

But time does not wait

Time is man measured

Designed and driven

Assumed,  forsaken

Granted,  God given

Chorus of Consciousness

In the wakefulness of now

Listen and you will hear

Hearts beating

To the sound of original grace

Souls strumming on strings

Of merciful melodies

Faintly tapping out the truth

Orchestrating the score

Of the conductor, the Creator

Heed to this rhapsody of love

Humming softly through the clatter

Drumming gently without fail

Steady as time, resistant to mind

Find harmony within

Where good intentions lie dormant

Under clogged and corrupted arteries

Like a child, improvise

Sing this song of life

The End

Every moment we are still together

Mother and daughter, so sacred

I have the unfortunate knowledge

It will not last

Because I have been there

Facing the impossible

Denying the unthinkable

 I have been there

When the bottom falls out

Making you wonder why

You invested your soul, your heart, your mind

If only for a short time

Why do we love so much

Knowing it will cause so much pain?

Why are we given these precious moments

Leaving us vulnerable and needing more?

I have been there

Devastated by the loss

Frozen in my tracks

Wondering where my next breath will come from

Kicking at pieces of my heart

Laying on the floor

Because life was over as I knew it

So today I look at you,  aging with grace

I hang on to your every word,

Every beloved gesture

Until the end.

50 Things I’ve Learned in 50 Years…#16

#16.”Worrying is a waste of time, but that won’t stop me.”

Aguirre Springs near Las Cruces, New Mexico.

What could be

Is nothing more than fear

Merely stopping you in your tracks

To steal your moments

Pocket your dreams

And play with your intentions

Missing Hope

Somehow the sun

Sneaks in

Unnoticed, even shunned

By those not ready

For the flicker

Of a flame already snuffed

So many times

By paralyzed thoughts

Of reality known

And dreams departed

Somehow the sun

Slips gently

Making contact, though rejected

By hearts still twisted

With past and pain

Blocking rays, restricting light

As life gives moments

Short yet sweet

To collect and keep

Or resist and release

50 Things I’ve Learned in 50 Years…..#10

#10. “In an instant, your world can be turned upside down. The people you take for granted can disappear in the blink of an eye. Tomorrow is only a plan. This moment is all you have.”

It was October of 2000. It was a Saturday morning when the phone rang, waking me up from a deep slumber. As one who usually dreaded the worst, I assumed this 7 a.m phone call meant something was wrong. Perhaps my grandmother was ill but in the back of my mind, I thought “calm down, it’s probably just a wrong number”. Nothing could have prepared me for what I was about to hear.  It would have been the furthest idea from my mind. It was unthinkable.

When my crying mother said my brother was “gone”, I asked where he went. He was single. He could go wherever he wanted. He had no significant ties. I thought…. where in the world could he have gone that would upset my mom so much? What was she talking about?

Confused and half asleep I asked her, “Where did he go?”

“He’s dead”, she muttered  with whatever strength she could dig up from……somewhere. My mother had waited hours to call me. She just couldn’t pick up the phone.

He was 36 years old. He was my baby brother by three years.

He was my only brother.

I fell to the floor. I remember so clearly the sound that came out of my mouth. I remember pacing back and forth and screaming “no” over and over. I am sure at that moment, I was insane. I remember crawling up the stairs, waking up my ex husband. I was not me, but just an empty, robotic being, mumbling, sobbing, shaking, running around the room……lost in denial.

I cannot understand to this day how I drove an hour and a half by myself to get there. My two sons were still asleep (or were they?) and their dad would stay there with them. I didn’t want them to know anything about their uncle yet…because it couldn’t be true anyways. That was the plan I managed to somehow articulate before running out the door to my car. I was going to see him because that was the only way I could prove that this wasn’t happening.

The next time I saw my brother, it was Halloween night and he was in a casket.

DEATH is sneaky. Don’t ever trust it. It hides away mysteriously and then leaps out of nowhere to blindside you into oblivion.
LIFE is precious. Don’t ever take it for granted. It is amazing, breathing and beautiful and it never hides. Take everything it has to offer.

Don’t wait until the phone rings or there is a knock on the door. Live your life to the fullest.
Every minute unfolding in front of you is amazing.

~ In memory of my brother, his laughter, his incredible smile , his song , his silly dance and most of all, his loving heart.~