Aug. 5th

[the mingo]

I breathe in deeply sometimes
when I see a fallen leaf
way out ahead of all the others
going brown in the green grass

[theirishsea]

Nice understated short poem.

[Kailashana]

Yes.

[dadio]

Fine capture.

[the mingo]

thx, folks.

[judih]

even a small boy cries
as leaf turns to crumple
before its time

[SadLuckDame]

When the leaf has lain dead,
we'll still hear the crunch of it
under foot

[the mingo]

judih -

the riverbed is rocky and the current swift, the fallen leaves are swept along
as headlong as the rest of us. A man I have read much of once said somewhere in his writings that he put no confidence in the flesh. I never understood that statement either in or out of context. The Aha! moment, the lifting up, eluding me because a mere look around reveals everything in flesh. plants, animals, people -
all in flesh. Yet I know this writer to not be a fatalist in any way, shape, or form and I don't believe he himself to be misinformed since he always spoke not in his own name but in the name of another, a name he held in the highest. Recent events have helped to open this statement of his up to me and I think I begin to understand it. I begin to understand it as truth is understood - as a lamp.

[the mingo]

Annie B - it is true what you say and I think all things are meant to speak to us because we are so hard of hearing, so hard of heart about so much. I hope for, look for, & expect good news and wish for good news for everyone. I hope that the crunch of a fallen leaf underfoot is always a reminder to me.

[joel]

Beautiful thought, beautiful truth. Concise and clean.

I don't do concise well. But August 1 in the Connecticut River Valley was beautiful too:

But smart rose windows— sanctuary, pink
as eight-fifteen, the first of August eves—
the stained glass smudged as if red-letter ink
had bled across its diamonds: it relieves
my mind’s anxiety, these thunderstorms
whose lightning rods elope with rods and cones
of tired eyes till pure surprise adorns
my cooling visions. What if Love condones
the fever of this rushing life in hope
I might be free to sit awhile and pray—
with nothing words, but breaths— and slope
so gently into valleys where I may
as well be pink and rose and well and calm
as in the Christ Church, here in Middletown?

[the mingo]

Thx Joel. I'm just gettin' old and don't like to work too hard at this stuff any more. Have a growing fondness approaching appreciation when it comes to brevity these days. Sure sometimes still I like a good wallow in excess but ... Words are such tempting whores and I believe I'm finally getting tired of the lot of them.

[SadLuckDame]

It's spectacular in the morning
when the sunlight is this shade
of gold and the leaves whistle.

[the mingo]

pied pipers
the leaves
the leaves