One, Two,Three...Golly!
Driving home today on Interstate 77
I saw a sign,
"Charlotte 77 miles."
"A cool coincidence," I commented.
But when my mother agreed it was remarkable,
I downplayed the specialness.
A little later I noticed a sign read, "Exit 77."
"Wow!" But I soon surmised,
"that's a numeric trinity many other drivers
may have noticed on any day along this stretch
of South Carolina highway."
Still, not one, or two, but three "77's."
"Cool!"
That's sort of neat to someone
who enjoys odd nostalgias,
quirky connections, and sequenced numbers like I do.
Then I realized today's date,
a rare "straight" in the hand of measures,
just as I did on the "triple," "flat" day of February 2, 2002.
Today's a special date
when written as month/day/year:
One, two, three.....
Today is primary, ascending, and adds up....Golly!
"We've all won the lottery!
It's three cherries!
Yahoo!"
I didn't think of it
on March 2, 2001.
Three, two, one.
"Three in One,
an uplifting, mystically spiritual image."
Numbers of any "direction" strike my fancy.
Moving up or down, or lying flat, life's patterns engage me.
Luckily, I've seen a comet pass before my eyes.
Any extraordinarily orderly alignment
of time and my mind always amazes me.
Life may sometimes seem an ill-timed journey,
but the little miracles make my ride more enjoyable.
May today's positive primal pattern
put a community of smiles on us all!
It is a good and rising day!
Should we fall,
our net of arms will act as tiny strands of faithful fate,
stretching out in unison to protect our love from hate and war.
Seventy-sevens will come together
and catch us just in time...
through simple wonder we will be raised in joy and safety...
one, two, three...Golly!
- Brenneman T. January, 2, 2003
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Emotional Malnutrition
Just the other side of nice,
a burdened soul steams and riots.
All its efforts, redoubled twice,
yield but poor, unsavory diets.
- Brenneman T. January 3, 2003
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Her Raw Example
My dog, she came to me to teach,
more than bite her bone or bark her speech.
Through her raw example I did find,
there's no greater gift than to be kind.
- Brenneman Thompson January 3, 2003
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Her Corporate Policy
Rose blush, her curves, a pat of hand,
silk scarf, tan leather, a wedding band;
Her children clean, and full of treats,
all safe and sound, strapped in their seats.
From work, Volvo to soccer game;
when the lab got hit, what a shame.
Graduation, bank job and graduate school,
then two story brick, spouse, swimming pool.
Moisturizers, game-boys, and organic fruits,
necks wrapped in ties accent Armani suits.
Overseas in China, she's the cutting-edge,
driving people further with the company sledge.
Retirement, golf, and more grandkids,
like well-choreographed, insider, opening bids.
Silk-lined, mahogany casket, a heavy vault
stores veins drained, then filled with what they bought.
- Brenneman T. January 4, 2003
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Walk as the Sparrow Flies
Who am I listening to?
I may conduct a double-blind study
to determine whether thin mice survive longer that fat ones,
but what then is living?
My knowledge is not lacking,
but the will is often arrogant, deceitful, and lazy.
My most important teachers are not found in the science of man,
but in the unyielding, creative enterprises of other living beings.
A lens may see all,
yet it is still a speck of the body.
Lava flows with a torrid current,
and the tender flesh is soon gone.
I, a bit of wonder, shall observe my master
in the mountain of nature's giving hands.
If will walk as the sparrow flies,
the spirit of my existence may smile through me.
To live is to be part and whole simultaneously.
Water forms a tear and feeds an ocean.
Today, her gift bends a blade of grass among her sisters
in a grove of ready peaches.
- Brenneman T. January 8, 2003
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Past Hell
The sun, it shines,
but not on me.
My cold soul blinds
hell's misery.
- Brenneman T. January 9, 2003
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Tea Party
Pour the last drip,
whether weak or strong.
The tea you sip
has drowned my song.
- Brenneman T. January 9, 2003
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To You
Peace to you, who's
broken dreams
like swords cut through
my mind and means.
Joy to you, who's
woeful cries
like clouds of blue
did wet my eyes.
Faith to you, who's
love-born smile
brought me to you
but for a while.
- Brenneman T. January 9, 2003
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Well-lit or Pitch Black
The longest dawn waxes much too short.
Then, after sharing its simple warmth liberally,
our sun is always moments from sleep,
bowing to the signs of our evensong rising.
Just as we are, time is cyclical in its extremes.
We alternate between the well-lit and pitch black.
Fearless, you enter your darkness and read your stars.
You feel your moon pull the ocean's tide.
- Brenneman T. January 14, 2003
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I Crept Behind a King
I pet the owl,
and the pressure of my touch
is to him a gust of cold wind.
He adjusts.
On his perch above the bird feeders,
he surveys the movement
of cardinals and chickadees.
They call and flit about, but do not land.
I reach again, and again.
I touch a king of darkness
in the coming of the light.
It is the changing of the guard.
His head turns,
and we stare in long silence.
Recognition comes slowly,
then feathered feet wobble the stand.
Feeders rock. I watch.
Gliding low over the brick wall,
he finds his rest
until the call of night.
- Brenneman T. January 15, 2003
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Shell of Waiting
He grows in her love
in the eggshell of waiting.
She, as bulb held above,
he, below emanating.
- Brenneman T. January 16, 2003
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Seasons of Grace
She seemed like Jesus,
tending her rows
of limas like their savior.
When I knocked,
she opened her door and soul
to love me.
Her garden grew
beyond it's borders
and up the fence to me.
Practical, curious,
and full of crafty words,
she took hold of the thorny vines
and shelled me when I needed it.
Life always tasted so good seeing her.
Canning tomatoes
like it's all she had to do,
she reveled in appreciation of the basic,
and honored all with the spirit of thrift and ingenuity.
I have a friend,
and she loves me well.
Lightening struck a sister
picking in the field,
but spared Rosie.
She ripened so well.
One-hundred quarts of
canned tomatoes,
and the seeds of a thousand half runners
cry with me.
She still says,
"Come on in.
Are you hungry?
Jimmy, Brenneman is here.
I was just thinking about you.
How about some stewed apples.
I just cooked them.
I know you're hungry,
so stay and have some.
I'm just sitting here
shelling these limas.
This is the second crop.
You know, if you keep picking them
they'll start again at the bottom."
A shoot sprouts through
her well tilled soul to bless me.
"How's that dog of yours?"
"Oh, fine," I say.
The sun shone so brightly
on her little house and garden,
and continues in me.
On a busy corner,
a seed was planted,
and I knew many seasons
of her giving grace.
- Brenneman T. January 20, 2003
In memory of my dear friend Rosie C.
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Slack
The change is slow.
Innocently,
I make it.
The TV's on
Sunday night,
More food,
less exercise.
I sleep on the couch,
waking uncomfortably
at two AM.
Slicing the fudge
in little pieces
doesn't help.
The wave
is formed of drops.
Still, there is value
in the easy choice,
and a lesson
requires imperfection.
- Brenneman T. January 21, 2003
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All But the Core
Today is not a list of things
unfinished books, or tangled strings.
Snow will melt, and rain replace
the snowman's bulk and smile erase.
Deer footsteps disappear in wood.
Ants stumble by with winter's good.
I write, and eat a chocolate bar;
find discontent with love afar.
While I muse, and make my point,
the ant bends a leg and oils a joint.
Adjustment follows a jagged line.
All but the core is left behind.
- Brenneman T. January 23, 2003
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Mind's Eye
What shall rid
the night of darkness?
Though the moon be full ,
and stars unite,
and snow reflect
the heavens bright,
it is I who scour
the gloom or light.
- Brenneman T. January 24, 2003
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Bird Brain Breakfast
My eyes see inward,
projecting upon the mind an image of many cardinals
vying for the sunflower seed feeder stand above the snow.
Flying images of bright red and crimson-tinged female brown scatter,
as the redheaded woodpecker
jumps off the neighboring wire mesh,
and out my ear.
He's had his fill of peanuts.
I close my eyes.
Before I can mourn his passing,
I see his speckled coat silhouetted against my cerebellum.
He probes the creases of my mind.
What shall he find?
I open my eyes.
Birds take flight in every direction,
leaving only a myriad of curious shells strewn about the ground.
I explore them.
- Brenneman T. January 26, 2003
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'Stone-aging'
We rock Iraq
until it falls apart.
Whether axis imagined, or natural upheaval,
the innocent will suffer unbelievable evil.
Poor snotty-nosed child,
who's cold papers aren't filed.
We'll search yesterday over and over,
but find no four-leafed clover.
Another Vietnam, a generation
after war's annihilation.
Look closely at Korea
beef up to wave, "see ya."
Blood stains blades
but memory fades.
- Brenneman T. January 30, 2003
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Let Me Fight the War Today!
Our thinking of war is flat and linear,
but death, as birth,
is an event.
"Drop a bomb
and win a war."
This doesn't mix well with cellphones,
higher education, or postmodern impressionism.
My friend, wake up!
Conflict surrounds us in nature.
The cheetah barely catches the gazelle,
if at all.
In all the beauty of survival,
moderation is the rule.
Speak to the American Indian of the buffalo.
The way of violence with integrity
knows and loves the victim.
It is proportional, and based on immediate need.
Comfort is a dangerous environment
in which to analyze or choose destruction and despair.
War is not on TV.
It is in our minds and souls.
Remember the people standing in the windows
of the World Trade Center before it fell?
My heart sank.
They are the herds of buffalo now gone.
The people of Iraq roam the plains of tyranny's draught.
As we ride the train of progress,
will we shoot them or protect them?
Let me find war with the enemy;
the sources of poverty, ignorance, and gluttony.
Arms have hands, not bullets.
The race is to awareness, not terror.
- Brenneman T. January 31, 2003
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