Without ears to hear
would my words be any less sweet

Without eyes to see
would my soul be any less visible

Without hands to touch
would you feel me less

I live in the pause ...

That glorious place
between the inhale and the exhale ...


Follow if you dare
but there is a price

it will cost you all of the masks that you wear ...

From the archives of my thoughts ... December 2005 ...


It is winter here. A time of rest. A time of waiting. Seeds lay dormant in the earth awaiting the first rays of the spring sun. Grass sleeps beneath its blanket of snow. It doesn’t question the need for winter any more than it questions the coming of spring. It just accepts what is.

A bamboo tree lives on the corner of my dresser. Each leaf perfectly formed and each day it grows into a grander version of itself in spite of me. It does not question its new surroundings. It embraces what is.

Outside my window I can see the mountain ash towering over the neighbour’s fence. The red berries act as beacons for the birds they are meant to feed. Even in winter, there is life just as there is sacrifice.

And as much as we’d like to believe that the world stops with us when we pause, it does not. We are invited to go with it. We are asked to accept. We wish to embrace. And we strive to be grateful even in the coldest of times.

The Hell-Bound Train

A Texas cowboy lay down on a barroom floor,
Having drunk so much he could drink no more;
So he fell asleep with a troubled brain,
To dream that he rode on a hell-bound train.

The engine with murderous blood was damp,
And was brilliantly lit with a brimstone lamp;
An imp for fuel was shoveling bones,
While the furnace rang with a thousand groans.

The boiler was filled with lager beer,
And the Devil himself was the engineer;
The passengers were a most motley crew
Church member, atheist, Gentile and Jew.

Rich men in broadcloth, beggars in rags,
Handsome young ladies, withered old hags.
Yellow and black men, red, brown and white,
All chained together -- O God, what a sight!

While the train rushed on at an awful pace,
The sulfurous fumes scorched their hands and face;
Wider and wider the country grew,
As faster and faster the engine flew

Louder and louder the thunder crashed,
And brighter and brighter the lightning flashed;
Hotter and hotter the air became,
Till the clothes were burnt from each quivering frame.

And out of the distance there arose a yell,
"Ha, ha," said the Devil, "we're nearing hell!"
Then, oh, how the passengers shrieked with pain,
And begged the Devil to stop the train.

But he capered about and danced with glee,
And laughed and joked at their misery.
"My faithful friends, you have done the work,
And the Devil never can a payday shirk.

"You've bullied the weak, you've robbed the poor,
The starving brother you've turned from the door;
You've laid up gold where the canker rust,
And you have given free vent to your beastly lust.

"You've justice scorned and corruption sown,
And trampled the laws of nature down;
You have drink, rioted, cheated, plundered, and lied,
And mocked at God in your hell-born pride.

"You have paid full fare, so I'll carry you through;
For its only right you should have your due.
Why, the laborer always expects his hire,
So I'll land you safe in the lake of fire --

"Where your flesh will waste in the flames that roar,
And my imps torment you forever more."
Then the cowboy awoke with an anguished cry,
His clothes wet with sweat and and his hair standing high.

Then he prayed as he'd never had prayed till that hour
To be saved from his sin and the demon's power.
And his prayers and pleadings were not in vain;
For he never rode the hell-bound train.


Heard this at Pontoon Crossing,
on the Pecos River, by a cowboy named Jack Moore.

How wonderful to see you ((mteagle)) ... thank you for sharing in the collective 'Mood' ...

Your very wlecomed, Art Gurl..
My Pleasure to share with all on JSH..

<<<< Sipping her Tea,, Enjoying the Mood in your Home,, Such sweet Bliss,, The Calming in my day,,,

I really, really liked this one,,,but, it was very scary as
I suffer from impobia, and that part really was tuff,,,,,lol,lol
GREAT READ,,and great story...thanks

Light, my light, the world-filling light, the eye-kissing light, heart-sweetening light!

Ah, the light dances, my darling, at the centre of my life; the light strikes, my darling, the chords of my love; the sky opens, the wind runs wild, laughter passes over the earth.

The butterflies spread their sails on the sea of light. Lilies and jasmines surge up on the crest of the waves of light.

The light is shattered into gold on every cloud, my darling, and it scatters gems in profusion.

Mirth spreads from leaf to leaf, my darling, and gladness without measure. The heaven's river has drowned its banks and the flood of joy is abroad.

-Gurudev

The Best Thing in the World

What's the best thing in the world?
June-rose, by May-dew impearled;
Sweet south-wind, that means no rain;
Truth, not cruel to a friend;
Pleasure, not in haste to end;
Beauty, not self-decked and curled
Till its pride is over-plain;
Love, when, so, you're loved again.
What's the best thing in the world?
--Something out of it, I think.

- Elizabeth Barret Browning

Another amazing gem from our own kc0003 - thank you (((k))) for allowing me to re-post it here ...



Good Morning


I fight your urging to open my eyes
In the hopes last night might never end
As feather light fingers trail up and down my spine
Invisible chills follow

Your whispers daring me to lay lifeless
I can’t keep my smile from showing you
There is no place I’d rather be
Your warm body pressing against me
Photo flash images rifle through my mind
Fanning the left over embers of a red hot seduction
Weeks in the making

Entwined in the morning light
I can almost pull the meaning of life out of your giving eyes
You are the embodiment of spring
With all its promises
Washing the cold grey of a life of winters from my weary soul
And I am more awake than I have been in years

Kc08

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh your home for a bit,,,

sitting among friends

Mwah!

Home is where one starts from. As we grow older
The world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated
Of dead and living. Not the intense moment
Isolated, with no before and after,
But a lifetime burning in every moment
And not the lifetime of one man only
But of old stones that cannot be deciphered.
There is a time for the evening under starlight,
A time for the evening under lamplight
(The evening with the photograph album).
Love is most nearly itself
When here and now cease to matter.
Old men ought to be explorers
Here or there does not matter
We must be still and still moving
Into another intensity
For a further union, a deeper communion
Through the dark cold and the empty desolation,
The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters
Of the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning.


from no.2, four quartets, t.s. eliot

Jess ...

ak0 - thank you for posting in the collective mood... I like that!

"Was she so loved because her eyes were so beautiful or were her eyes so beautiful because she was loved?"

~ Anzia Yezierska

...just wallowing around in the words a little ...

.....oops double post...

I am just down right sad....and can't stand it....

I do understand I must ride the storm..it will pass...

til than I feel like sh*t...



to you all