Picture-Inspired Poetry

Above the Platte River

Pelicans soar
On their journey further north
They alight on grassy cliffs
Above a barren shore
Mud
Once submersed in the torrents
Once frequented by minnows
Now hard and cracked
Baked under the Wyoming sky
Deep crevices
Sculpted by evaporating water
Shapes of puzzle pieces
Lock the muck beneath

Damselflies still linger
Once immersed themselves in the water as nymphs
They climbed the dry grasses to morph
Leaving their dry nymph shells behind
As they spread wings for first flight
Catching mosquitoes
And mating as the crickets serenaded them
Laying precious eggs in open water
The next generation
For the next season
Again the pelicans stop briefly
Visitors to this unique paradise.

Waking from a dream

So real
So vivid
Full of feeling, fraught with emotion
A temporary experience
As real an experience in the moment as any we know
But once awake
I realize the dream
And question it’s reality
Dismissing it as only a dream

Isn’t that what life is?
So real
So vivid
Full of feeling, fraught with emotion
A temporary experience
As real an experience in the moment as any we know
But once I awake…

We spend our lives

Wondering

What is it to die?

What happens after?

Why?

A child was born

Grew, changed

In some ways recognizable as when (s)he was a child

Yet that child, all my children, I knew, I coddled, with whom I spent so many hours

Now gone

Not unlike death, not as suddenly

But just as gone.

Is death very much the same?

Sudden or gradual

Simply a change, a shift

One experience to another

As a child faces growth as an adventure

Not fearful

Sometimes apprehensive, but welcoming of change

Be as a child.

For now we look in a mirror dimly

Then, face to face.

Remember the seashore, Never the same

New beauty created as old fades away

The old a part of the new, Just somewhere else

Sand moved, Rocks shifted

Ever changing

Never remorseful for what has changed

Because It is not lost

Simply always is – Only Changed.

Our life in all worlds Is like a seashore.