Being Alive is Good

Celebrate

Near-death experiences, in my experience (and I've had a number of them), lead to a high level of awareness soon afterwards. You look at things differently. Here are a few poems I wrote after a near-death experience. Here are some poems to celebrate life.

Being alive is good.

Oak

There is a massive oak tree
I pass on my may to work.
Today, it was broken in half.
A proud oak
Brought down by forces of nature.
In my genes,
Is a code that can split me in two.
Unlike that great oak,
I can get up, replant myself
And grow again
With spirit, grit and grace.

Saving a Life

It’s true.
I dragged you from the fire
Half burned and unable to find the exit.
I guess you could say
I saved your life that day.
But it will never compare to the way that
Through food, warmth, hard work, laughter
And a woman’s love and life force
You have saved my life every day
Before and since that day.

Groove

I’m in a groove

Waiting for my oldest son Josh to show
To see Little Miss Sunshine
A movie with Steve Carell
A funny actor we both enjoy
When I think of my mom,
Dead three years now,
And how her face lit up
When any of her 8 children
Or 19 grandchildren would visit
And I know that, feel it,
The groove, that moment of happiness
Raised to a power of ten
Because here is my family,
Strong, shared, tender, good,
And even if people on the news
Are lobbing rockets and missiles
And bombing each others families,
My family here is safe,
And safe is oceans from sorrow.

Life School Dance

When I was young and naive
I splashed on too much cologne
And dressed to the nines
And headed to the school dance
To laugh with my friends
And to steal glances of lasses
With shy and bold smiles
Who flipped their long hair
And exposed their necks
And laughed some more until,
Tired of the teasing,
I asked them to dance
And the music took control
And everything was new
And mysterious and wondrous
Until, after more giggling and shy banter
If the girl was sweet or the timing was right
I would end up practicing at kissing
But mostly laughing because neither
Of us knew that this charged ritual
Eventually led to courting, marriage,
Children, mortgages and bills,
Or the quarried heartache
Of a child lost in war.
Such a timeline is never revealed
In the first laugh or kiss.
Thank God.

Jesus Sign

“Honk if you know Jesus!”
I read the sign and respond
Honking my horn
And the fellow who holds it
Raises his hands and thanks me.
That takes courage.
Not for me.
For him
Standing by the side
Of a busy highway.
Some may gesture with a digit.
Some may throw things at him.
Some may almost run him over.
But some honk
And that’s enough for him.
Clap your hands if you know Jesus!
Clap your hands if you know Jesus!
Clap your hands if you love Jesus!
If you are reading this.

The Return

The land beacons

with fruit and wheat

and wildlife abundant,

so I crawl from the sea,

seaweed draped and brine

permeated to the shoreline.

And I am one now,

my mother and family

are close by laughing

and the waves beat

their eternal rhythm softly,

faintly familiar but forgotten

because there is so much

between now and the return.

The football flies high above

the waves, drops back,

drops to a friend now laughing

by the waves until it lands

by a girl I’ve been watching

for hours who reciprocates

with a hair toss and shy smile,

and the din of the ocean

is silent for some years.

For a time, there is so much

to be done on dry land.

One day my own baby

is on my shoulders

frightened by the waves

and their ultimate calling.

I laugh at him, of course,

confident after so many years

with the sea and its waves

that I’ve mastered them,

felt their power and captured it,

taken it on and rechanneled it

to a life beyond these shores.

The land that beaconed

so many years ago

kept its promise.

It gave me the means

to support a growing family.

Good and sweet

foodstuffs abundant.

Clean, clear water,

even in cities, and shelter

from all but the fiercest storms

that claimed many far away

but left us safe and dry

at higher land elevations.

Now...this wheel chair

and these grandchildren

and great grandchildren.

If I could only tell them

of that journey from the sea

and all the lands between,

the seascape and landscape

and each is so dependent

on the other for life.

Of how the shoreline

is the altar upon which

the inner life should know

how tenacious and beautiful

and brief this life on dry land

looks when the sea beacons

like the ocean waves, at this end.

They show me the baby

and I hope I can recognize him.

I wish my body still answered

my thoughts, but we both know

it can never be so again.

I hear the waves clearly, though.

Through it all, the years and cities,

wars and the news media drumbeat

into my head, all spread before me

as on a screen, I still hear the waves.

My family looks at me with such

concern and pity, but it is not the time

or place for pity. I hear the waves

on the shore...WWOOOOOSHSHSH...

WWOOOOOOSHSH...WOOSHSH...

I hear their tender and light-filled call,

and I surrender...I surrender.

From the time I crawled from the sea

they’ve been calling me to them again.

No more crawling inland...

...it is time to answer the sea’s call..

it is time to return..

Fenwick Island, DE

June 19, 1997