Encore....Or Play It Again Sam

Photo by: John P. Ford

I have come to believe that life is a curious mixture of the magical and the mundane and the interplay between the two. When our day to day lives are steeped in the mundane we sometimes long for the mystical and the magical...a longing that can spark creativity and color our lives in rainbows and bolder patterns.... in a way that can elevate our experience to a more spiritual feeling level.... at least momentarily.....

We may dream and begin to search for a way to mentally create a wider path in living life so that we can be at least one inch above the reality where we may feel a bit stuck.

We may long to be uplifted. As spiritual beings living here in physical form on earth, we may become painfully aware of the limitations of the human form and seek to transend those limitations if only briefly.

Alternately, if our feet are too far off the grounded path, we may feel a longing for a connection to "reality". We may ask for reality checks and confront our thinking beliefs and search for answers in only what we can sense.

We will find ways to connect to nature and see our part in it. We may glorify what we can see in front of our eyes. We may begin to search for the more traveled traditional path that can offer the illusion of familiar territory.... A home base so to speak.

This poem is about the mundane and the magical and their intersections. It is about the transition from boyhood to adulthood and the gains and losses that are a part of that journey. It begs the question, is that journey ever ended or is replayed on various levels throughout life? What defines the poem? If you replaced the word boy with girl would it make a significant difference in the poem?

What is reality? Illusion? Spiritual connection? The meaning of a life lived?
I am still working of all these questions..All answers are a way of questioning.

Play it again Sam

The boy stood
at the top of the hill
Feeling he had
The matter at hand
Under his full control

Yet his half smile
revealed not the half of it
Fear Not, for he
has a heart of courage
and a mind

That at times is open
to Exploration
of the sacred cows
he has always felt

To be constant
that even now
ripple in form
in the heat
of the late afternoon

So. What is it
that the evening
will bring if not
that elusive

Peace. Contentment
and comfort
that belonging
that strikes the lost chord
of his youthful longing

The sirens song
the misty boat
of Avalon untenanted
yet powered on

The blood of passions
Red in life unshed
Unknown, Unclaimed
Laid Down unlived

How gently he
kneels to smooth
the ashes at his feet
the veils not yet parted


From the Lady of the Local Pond Series
With reflections