6.

some days i wish you had better hand writing.
&more ways to smile than those upturned corners of your (sometimes) chapped lips.
some days it is too hot to be out of doors,
so i turn off the lights when it becomes dark,
and lie on my bed as helpless as the day i met you, World.
some days i am sorry for the ways i have comforted You.
&wish that i could create a new soul for that mistreated clay.
i tried-wanted-did. honest!
some days i am too busy thinking about the future
to remember what it means to exist.
some days i don`t talk to You.
some days i don`t read Your letters.
some days.
oh! i am certainly sorry for that!

it is good to know that you are out there.

where the grace &simple truth of childhood go.

brian &i went to visit mr. clyde jackson browne last evening at the thousand oaks civic center.
&it was good.

http://www.jrp-graphics.com/jb/apr08.html
April 23, 2008. Thousand Oaks, CA.

whining.

no one lets you yell around here.

no one says "it`s okay" to raise your voice &kick your legs &throw your face in to a pillow.
no one lets you cry because you are exhausted and overworked.
&it was finally starting to grow, to blossom a little white petal,
but you wouldn`t let it.
because every one else is tired too, right?
&that makes it so wrong?

because i don`t want to sing this song any more.

32578.

if you were me &i were you,
i`d tell you what i`d do:
i`d crumble up those silly rules,
&sail right back to you.

j.e.h.

you!
Now,
I do not claim to be an expert on this sort
of music, church, &art;
but you with your rolled &beat up jeans and cap, quietly climb the hill to that place where
on a morning unplanned &traded shirts debut,
we saw you, victorious, Book in hand, and it was good.
Oh, may I learn to listen and not be afraid of seventh generation solidarity in a house of wolves!
Oh! may all that come behind us find us faith-full!

for those who love with too much grace:

I`m jealous of you, you know.
Of your ability to be so innocently honest
to explain to me in paradoxial terms
how difficult it is to be here today.
&oh, how I feel.
Believe me, I know it well.
If the rest of my life was to be spent in this way,
well,
then so be it.
But if I could free--If I could cultivate just one drop, watching it sprout &bloom--I fear I would become the richest child in that paltry kingdom!

Oh! to want one thing!
[Purity of heart]

48.

"Why should I wish to see God better than this day?
I see some thing of God each hour of the twenty-four, &each moment then,
In the faces of men &women I see God, and in my own face in the glass,
I find letters from God dropt in the street, &every one is sign`d by God`s name,
&I leave them where they are, for I know that wheresoe'er I go,
Others will punctually come for ever and ever." -Walt Whitman

été.

i`m going to start writing more.
i`m going to call home more often, &ask my dad how his day went.
i`m going to show diana, &sarah, &elise that i love them tangibly.
i don`t know how yet, but i`m going to do it.
i`m going to be a faith full pen pal writer, &keep using my mama`s college typewriter.
i`m going to go to bed earlier, and wake up feeling more a live than usual.
i`m going to start listening to good music again.
i`m going to listen to the same album over &over, for as long as i want.
i`m going to take thought-filled, intentional walks in the hills.
i`m going to go trail running or leaping or bounding.
i`m going to converse with children, in hopes of improving my vocabulary.
i`m going to study the elders, in hopes of gaining wisdom.
i`m going to start being a good steward of my money.
i`m not going to worry about it. [i think that`s a good start.]
i`m going to live more simply.
i`m learning to love Y(?)ou more.

on pitching &throwing

i think it is salubrious to fit &tantrum every once in a while.
there is more to do these days than seems human[e]ly possible,
so we throw our hands up in a flustered surrender
&grope for coloured paper, pencils, pillows...any thing really.
scattering them around, page by page, colour by colour-
until the whole floor is decorated in to a perfectly peacefull mess.

&then we go back to saving the world.

6499.

oh! but we don`t have time for this!

The Summer Day, Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean--
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down--
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don`t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn`t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?