years squandered in digital delight

 

Society seems to demand so much,

buy this, buy that, look over here and there,

click on this, download that, buy a years subscription.

BOGO, two-for-one, did you know we also carry XYZ?

The years keep rolling by,

energy reserves called upon dwindle

even as the medicine cabinet burgeons

with more and more little helpers to

push this aging carcass through another day.

Screens demanding time, attention, money

seem to proliferate like dandelions.

Did I really want all of this, ask for it?

Yes, unfortunately I did. I said

give me sharp graphics, fast downloads,

access to a world of media fun and stimulation.

I wanted everything too, right now, fast,

the world at my fingertips.

Well, here it is, but it is not free.

Price paid in ever-slimmer time slices doled out,

even as I grip my real and virtual wallets tighter.

Not sure which is more aggravating, the loss of

scarce money or scarcer time...

What is the best way to spend our remaining miliseconds?

Tracking countless posts, screens, digital jolts and tricks?

Or gazing at real, static objects like a flower,

a river scene, mountain landscape or our navels?

We did it to ourselves -

I did it to myself.

Sorry, self.

“Get over it.”

There are still hundreds of posts to read,

millions of milliseconds to spend before I sleep,

millions of milliseconds to waste before I try to sleep.

Hard to Believe

 

When looking out the kitchen window,

seeing the lushness of spring growth,

grasses and lilies reaching for the sky.

Was this really all covered with snow?

Just a short time ago,

I waded in snow two feet deep to snap photos

of the patio table and chairs buried in powder.

After one of the big blizzards, around February.

The world was black and white, with blue sky,

frozen in place, ‘will this ever change?’

Of course it does, every year, miracles happen.

Temperatures rise, snow melts off, brown

grown turns green and lush, spattered with colors

of dandelion, ground ivy, violets and lilies.

I know the lushness is also temporary,

so I resolve to get out and enjoy it some,

despite a summer cold, and pressing chores.

The human will makes all the difference,

in this always changing world.

Events never stop to give us a rest,

but always move, move, speed along

to the next season or crisis or election.

Meanwhile, time to stop and smell the blossoms,

before they fade into fall once again.

hmm

Pattern Births

 

What if our cogitations obeyed natural machinations,

our musings and meditations marched to hidden patterns,

secluded, yet in plain sight for all live creatures to see:

To view and absorb, evolve up into and subsume,

swallow up those natural inclinations of elementals

to follow certain paths.

Spirals and whirlpools could be emulated,

tree branches and branching pathways

subtly imitated by flashing neurons in us.

Natural symmmetrical shapes and images

as evolved as a part of our random

thinking patterns.

Perhaps a creative genius just knows how to

shift and attach,

detatch and rearrange,

resize and re-view those

natural whorls and branches and streamlets

of ideas and impressions into something new.

Nature teaches us so much, it

seems like she has always “been there before.”

We are simply a high expression of evolved nature,

so it makes sense that we carry all of her patterns.

Someday maybe someone will write an

enormous algorithm,

one that expresses these foundational shapes,

then shifts them around,

up and down,

inside and out,

attach and detatch;

then express the results as

thought,

ideas,

speech,

or even actions

on a screen, through a speaker,

expressed in motions or actions.

You just never know.

Human Interchange Collections

 

So many I have had over the years,

collecting relationships like seashells.

Some shine with the luster of newness,

while others have a dull patina of age.

Some are treasured jewels to be hoarded,

others just experienced for a bit, then tossed out,

back on the beach, littered with castoffs.

But human beings are not seashells,

nor coins or marbles or figurines to collect.

No, each one is a uniquely complex creation,

a vast matrix of interconnnections and emotions.

One must be careful when dealing with other humans!

Those people that weave in and out of one’s existence

are to be valued, each for their contribution to

that whole human experience comprising a lifetime.

Like a big collection of multicolored yarns, each with

a different length, indicating the time they have been

inter-twined with my life, my yarn.

Each one is a different relationship –

Why should anyone have two of any item in their collection?

Better to have one of each, all unique, all special, all priceless.

One gift of older age is the chance to look back and savor the

yarn, the threads of different personalities wrapping themselves

around one’s own consciousness and memories.

And be thankful for each and every one.

Mother Nature's Banquet for the Senses

 

What heavily-laden table can compare

to Spring’s blossom-loaded feast?

A barren table describes the muddy fields

all around us here in the Midwest in early April.

All the brown and black branches, whitish snow,

patches of grim earth poking through on nature’s recon

seem to be with us for all time, or a very long time indeed.

Then something happens to the weather.

Brighter sun, longer days, balmy weather, gentle rains.

That awful black-brownness spotted with white transforms.

Suddenly a sea of green pokes up, sprouts and jumps and leaps.

Carpets of red and yellow appear, accompanied by birdsong.

An explosion of joy ripples through the countryside and landscape.

By early May we wonder what we did to deserve such beauty,

the colors, the fragrances, the sumptuousness of this king of feasts.

No human banquet could hope to compare to this blitz of the senses.

So we tell ourselves after four months of weather hell, we deserve it.

And we certainly do.

Happy springtime everyone – enjoy the banquet,

before some crushing summer heat spoils the party.