This is Remembrance Day.

Sometimes called Armistice, this day commemorates the War Dead.

Through my progression of life, it has meant different things. As a child, it was simply a holiday from school; perhaps a day imbued with ritual dour parades and gatherings in the auditorium – something we all fidgeted and complained through, waiting impatiently for that half-day of freedom that followed.

Later in my adult life, it was a creative photo-op, a chance to watch human expression, a chance to take in the curious and fantastic actors in the Human Movie.

Now I watch it with different eyes. Now, that means – in a literal sense – that my body cells have been largely replaced over the past year, and indeed, these eyes are different eyes. But this also means that my perceptions, values, realities, neuronal network, has all transformed, evolved, shifted. I see and feel, not only the pulse, the longing, the full and empty cups inside of me, but the same in all the humans around me.

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It’s a Noisy World.

As one ages, one gets grumpier. Ear-plugs become a mandatory accessory. Shopping malls are to be avoided, and quiet walks in the forest become more and more digestible. In the Circus of Humanity, there are few acts that fill the house, that water the heart, that nourish the tender and frail Inner Plant of You.

I watch a coffee-shop client thru the steamy rainy November window. Cigarette smoke issues thoughtfully out of her mouth, between savored gulps of that bitter-sweet Americano. In the background, city buses and cars plough through the watery streets. I remember my years as a smoker, how cigarettes were my meditation, medication, relaxation. The Smoke of the Sacred Breath: what a pleasure to let go to the reassuring promise of nicotine and tar.

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Tree Indeed
you planted me

I grow too short
beside infinity

*

you prune my leaves
you shape my song

you give me shelter
I’m in the sun too long

*

I drink your nectar
in the quiet of home

I whisper your name
I’m never alone

*

Tree indeed
I planted you

Seed in my heart
remains forever true.

tags: nature, people, poems, POETRY, tree, trees