On creating new life
Dear friend,
New life
is beautiful.
It’s tender and fragile
yet strong and free.
New life
has spark!
When you and I
were little
we had spark.
Do we still?
Are we still
full of vitality?
If we lost our spark
somewhere
along the way
we can still
revive it
and be reborn.
Sharing our vitality
It is the vitality
in us
that others seek.
They need us
to transfer our vitality
to them
in our words
in our work
in our art
in our songs.
As we live and grow
we search
for the best way
to bring forth
and share
the light and love
inside our soul.
When we find it
we have found
our path
in this world.
We have found
our own
unique way
to create new life.
Songs of new life
To breathe free
this summer
even when
we are not free
we can turn to music.
We can open our souls
to songs of freedom.
Songs of new life
that will lift us up!
We can listen
to them
play them
dance to them…
Write them ourselves
when the spirit
moves us!
A new song
is a brand new being.
Just like
that little chick
in the photo.
Here’s one of mine
I wrote in October 2001.
I was singing it
just now
on Mother’s Day.
It’s still creating
new life in me.
I’m still
being reborn.
My Mama was a teacher
of kids who couldn’t read
They’d come over to our house
silent and in need
She fed ‘em vowels with love
consonants with care
I heard ‘em laugh together
drawing letters in the air
They paid her sometimes
if they could
She had a sliding scale
She fed us all on milk and praise
Her heart was not for sale
She’s lookin’ down at me right now
I’m in a hurtin’ time
Ain’t got no job
ain’t got no home
ain’t got me one thin dime
Mama
Tell me Mama
My body’s gettin’ thin
How’m I gonna save my soul
Gettin’ some income comin’ in
Mama calls out to me Baby
I taught you all I know
How to open up a door
so a child can up and grow
You gotta open up your heart
before anything comes in
You gotta open up your soul
Share the treasure that’s within
Mama
Tell me Mama
My body’s gettin’ thin
How’m I gonna save my soul
Gettin’ some income comin’ in
She said I know what’s inside you
You have a golden heart
Give it to the world
Give it in your art
Your art is words of freedom
Your art is words of strength
I taught ‘em words of comfort
Now you give ‘em words of faith
Words that shout sing and dance!
Words that shine with holy light!
Words to hold ‘em in the dark
They’re walkin’ in tonight
Mama
tell me Mama
my body’s gettin’ thin
Can I really write to save my soul?
Gettin’ some income
Comin’ in
She said if nobody listens
Then write ‘em just for me
I‘ll hear every word and teach it
Through all eternity
They got kids up here in heaven
Who don’t know how to read
I’ll feed ‘em on your poetry
I’ll feed ‘em what they need
Mama
tell me Mama
my body’s gettin thin
I know you’re with me Mama
Gettin’ some income
Comin’ in
Words that shout sing and dance!
Words that shine with holy light!
Words to hold ‘em in the dark
They’re walkin’ in tonight
“We are our choices.” - Jean Paul Sartre.
Choose love, empathy and humility.
A Love Story
A Tale for the Ages
70 years ago this coming autumn the 16 year-old boy I was then met a cute 15 year-old girl on a religious youth group bus trip to Truro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island. Within a month or two we played opposite each other in a play called “Time Out for Ginger” in which she played Ginger and I played her boyfriend. Then we dated. Once. Twice. Three times. I asked her to “go steady”. She said yes. Not able to afford a gold high school class ring, I gave her my silver Sea Scout ring and she put it on a chain around her neck.
HIGH SCHOOL SWEETHEART
Fifteen , a new house.
New school, new friends,
new adventures.
New girls!
A pixie cut.
Cute, bright, charming.
Time Out for Ginger.
She is Ginger and
he her boyfriend.
A double date.
They date again. And again.
Will you go steady?
Yes.
His Sea Scout ring
on a chain around her neck
she is his and he hers.
A movie, post movie snack,
making out in his father’s car.
Senior prom. Ending at dawn
on a Connecticut beach.
A summer Saturday night
at Tanglewood.
Ravel’s Bolero washing over them.
Its rhythms stimulating the senses.
Her letters are marked “Yo te amo”.
He pours his heart out in his.
Gently she starts to let him down.
He wants it not to end and disc jockeying that summer,
he chooses music of unrequited love to win her back.
Another year.
He has military training.
She has a new man.
Defeated, he surrenders.
December 1957. The University of Massachusetts annual ROTC Military Ball. Ages 17 and 18. My sophomore year. In 1959 when she was 19 and I was 20 we broke up. She married her Joel. I met, fell in love with, and married my Judy. We both had long, loving, and happy marriages. We both raised families. We both had lives. And we both were widowed. I about three years ago. She about five years earlier. About three months after Judy died, in the depths of despair, I wrote the following in part as therapy.
LOST
Home is where WE are he told her
as they left the house they
raised their children in.
Now 25 years and two moves later
cancer has stolen her from him
and WE no longer exists.
Lost, he struggles to find his way
never letting on the pain he feels.
A year later, pain mitigated but not gone I was preparing myself for an emotionally necessary journey of nostalgia to the Netherlands and Germany where Judy and I had spent the second year of our marriage while I was in the Air Force.
STANDING ALERT
Hoarfrost on contact,
his breath hung in cold air.
Frozen fingers fumbled safety wires
on the Mark 7 atomic bomb. I
In the bomb bay too,
The 23 year-old first lieutenant
14 months on active duty.
A nuclear weapons alert duty officer,
The Cuban missile crisis just done.
She contacted me. Would I like to have lunch? Yes. But I can’t go to Denver for lunch. But she was going to be in New Jersey for a grandchild’s college graduation and we met face to face and spoke to each other for the first time in 64 years.
LOVE. FOUND AGAIN.
Curiosity piqued, we met for brunch.
It had been 64 years since last we saw each other. We talked.
Awkwardly at first. Comfort building, the conversation became smooth.
She invited me to visit. I accepted.
We rediscovered each other
and learned who we’d become.
We held hands and, her head on my shoulder, my arm about hers, we hugged.
We were in love again.
Not with the passion of youth,
but the mature love of we who
see into each other’s souls.
Now, in the autumn of our lives,
time is short and sweet.
Decades unimportant.
Quality of the time left, is.
And now we both consider ourselves blessed.
MY TWO LOVES
Those not here are missed.
One never to be seen again.
One to be seen whenever I can.
Judy was my life
but is gone, never to return.
Kari was my first
and now is my last love.
The woman I loved
and whom I mourn.
Never again to be seen.
My first and last, to be
seen again and again.
For as long as we are able.
My darling Kari on the occasion of her 85th birthday 70 years after she was the cute 15 year-old that first intrigued the 16 year-old me. She has brought a joy I thought I’d never feel again back into my life.