he thinks about all the ways
life could go astray
and then he wonders if there
is any meaning at which to stare
or perhaps even embrace
for a short or longer space
and rattittattat time
and then he thinks that right
now he’s alive and fine.
the farmer’s market has
started on time
and sometimes
a simple future event is enough
to make life temporarily
sublime,
like maybe a fresh, soft,
squeezable lime
from the farmer’s market
this time.
he’ll go when the jazz ends
or maybe buy some beets
after the down beat
ends.

He read the phrase “pithiatric prattle,”
in a book given to him by a friend
only to have it explained as hysterical
rambling and then he knew for sure what
it was as he watched the Republican debate
and saw all the manic mandibular motion
with little or nothing to show for it. If
art is consonance, as that same writer
offered, the pope proved positively artful
before the US Congress while artless politic-
ians proffered, pitiful, pithiatric prattle
to frenzied folk with itching ears and not
much between them.

He read a poem where the author
wants to live in a little shack
with one door. The poet will sit
in the door frame for years. He
thinks about that and concludes
that wanderlust wouldn’t take him
to a one door shack. It would take
him to where he is right now writ-
ing this. Sometime though, he
might like to go on a European
river cruise, especially if it is
as nice as it looks in the T.V.
ads. Then again, there are National
Parks which beckon. He used to like
watching the Travel Channel to get
his vicarious fix, but there is more
eating and drinking going on than
traveling. He misses watching that
cute, perky, blond, travel guide
whose name he can’t recall. She got
around. He moves around on the chair
and thinks to himself that this is a
pretty comfortable vehicle in which
to travel. This way, it is easier to
travel with the Chocolate Lab who
sits next to him contentedly chewing
a bone. In a minute the man’s wife
will ascend the stairs and ask him,
“Are you ready to go camping?” The
dog’s ears will perk up and his tail
will wag. The man will say, “Have a
cup of coffee first, dear.”

The scythe swings back and
forth ever so rhythmically.
Demiurges rise.

Words effortlessly
flow through neural connectors
swinging back and forth.

Outside of one’s self
muses congregate and sing
and swing poetry.

Words on paper swing
back and forth rhythmically like
the farmer’s sharp scythe

cutting through to truth
in a pleasing harmony —
penned effortlessly,

cutting down to the ground
both wheat and chaff together —
now wheat can be saved.

Some have made capitalism an issue fer or agin
but I wonder where all these fer or aginers have been.
Capitalism is just another “ism” like socialism
which standing on their own always cause schisms,
but when the two are joined in marital bliss
everyone gets prosperity and no one is missed
in narrowing the gap and leveling the field
and giving everyone an economic shield.
So, lighten up, you hard liners, and forget the “ism”
because making love is always a finer position.

“Just treat them as persons,
as human beings,” the writer
wrote — such hopeful words
in the face of the ever, al-
ways face of fear, ever and
always reducing the other
to a dehumanized state in
order to spit on them, beat
them, crush them, destroy
them as threats to those who
don’t know who they are and,
perhaps, never will and so,
actually, are the very ones in
a dehumanized state who
sip their single malt scotch
behind gates with other de-
humanized humans huddling to-
gether in some silly sense
of security until the gates
eventually come down as
gates always eventually
do.

Breathe in, deeply, slowly.
Breathe out, long and slow
— all the things of which you
need to let go,
all the fluster and bluster
of greedy politicians seeking
personal fame and luster
for their tarnished integrity
and huge egos.
Breathe in, deeply, slowly.
Breathe out, long and slow
and whatever you do,
don’t watch those cacophonous
T.V. talk shows.
Breathe in, deeply, slowly.
Breathe out, long and slow.
Eventually, listening to the music
in your heart of hearts
you will know
the way to go.

Oh, Lord, we have a mouse in the house.
Well, between the walls to be more precise.
We hear, next to the bed, scratching of the mouse
in the wee small hours before the morning light.

Surely, he is making a nest for his mouse spouse
and the little ones for the long winter’s nights.
And while we are gone to our Southwest house
the whole mouse fam-damily will engage in insulation fights.

But this fall if I can find the opening to the house,
I’ll oust the mouse even if he thinks I’m not so nice.
I’ve been a backyard rodent slayer and, if I can oust the mouse,
my wife thinks that will be real nice and suffice.

As I think about those four stages of life just put into a poem
below “Eastern Sages’ Stages,” I realize in this climate of anti-
government sentiment just how indebted I am to federal and state
governments for financial aid in all those stages:

Stage One, the student: I had a public school education from
third grade through two years of community college. Kindergarden,
first and second grade, the last two years of college, seminary
through my doctorate were parochial. When my father died when I
was seventeen, I received social security till I was twenty-one,
which helped pay for college.

Stage Two, the householder: my two children received public
school educations through high school and government grants
and loans for college. When my wife died at 48, the government
offered a small death benefit. For the twenty-six years we were
married my wife and I were able to contribute to charitable causes.

Stage Three, the forest dweller: because of social security,
medicare, a state pension and state health insurance along
with our personal pensions and investments, my wife and I were
able to retire and explore life. My wife Chris, retired from
the corporate world as a human resource executive, now is
a fine artist in mixed media sculpture. She is part of a six
women exhibit to be shown in October. I have blogged since
2011, have published one book of poetry and have another
coming out in 2016. My wife and I enjoy the out-of-doors
through life-long activities like jogging, hiking, kayaking,
cycling and camping. We continue to contribute to charitable
causes. None of this could have been possible without the
generosity of the state and federal governments.

Stage Four, the enlightened one: I trust that the
“social contract with America” and “promotion of the
general welfare,” taken seriously through the years by
wise legislators with an understanding of caring
community and the intent of the constitution will
continue to be there for all Americans as my wife
and I ease out of this life and as we seek continue
to “pay back” by “paying it forward.”

I might add that my widowed mother, after my father’s
tragic and untimely death when he was 56, worked two
jobs until she was a recipient of social security,
medicare and eventually medicaid all of which helped
her live safe and securely until she died just shy of
age 93.

Thank you federal and state government of caring
enough to help me and my family move steadily through
the four stages of life.

The Eastern sages of Hinduism teach these four
stages of life and no more:
One.) You are the student learning to learn
forever more;
Two.) You are the householder caring
for two, three, four or maybe more;
Three.) You are the free and easy forest dweller
now out of the store;
Four.) You are the wise and fully enlightened one,
not attached and soon to be no more.

*Debts to Richard Rohr’s on-line meditation on Hinduism, 09/18/2015