A STRANGE LITTLE BOY

July 13, 2004

They tell me as a tiny boy
I always loved the out of doors;
I laughed and showed the greatest joy
When Mother Tierra was my floor.
While others seemed to fuss and cry,
Unless held up in adult arms;
I found great interest in the sky,
The moon, the stars and all their charms.

I loved the clouds, the wind, the rain,
And lightning flashes, far and near,
Mom’s call to come inside was vain;
I was a child that had no fear.
I guess that even then I knew
That God, in charge of all those things,
Knew how to care for quite a few
Who loved to test His angels’ wings.

I played with bottles, stones and sticks;
They were people in my mind,
Sometimes I found them in a fix
That touched my heart and made me kind.
Sometimes I saw them as my foes,
A great array of mighty power,
Just waiting then to work me woes,
To bring me down to my last hour.

And then again ‘neath cloud-cast skies,
When flowers drooped with drippy pedals,
I scraped up dough to make mud pies,
As back drops for my great war medals;
Medals won with stones and sticks,
Fighting foes as fierce as I;
What victory a child can fix,
To show it on his own mud pie.

Oh that years had taught me how
To make the best of what I had;
To see the victory I know now,
And not the loss that looks so bad.
Once a man and twice a child;
A promise every man should cherish
For without faith as meek and mild,
The wisest man is sure to perish.

A TALK WITH MYSELF

July 8, 2004

Sometimes I wonder, as life rolls along,
How much I’m action and how much a song;
It’s so easy to write down all my desires,
But much more difficult to fuel up the fires
That keep the pot boiling ‘til my duty is done
Instead of turning to something called fun.

It’s easy to picture all that I’ll do,
All the left-overs and some things new;
But finding that time to drive the first nail
Seems it’s the stump that fractures my tale.
For example this poem instead of those chores
That holds me inside instead of out doors.

Maybe a list, on a good time line,
Would be a tool to make me inclined
To move a bit faster, to step up the pace
And avoid the disaster of losing my face,
But too many tasks put on that list
Becomes a prime reason that several are missed.

Perhaps I need to know who I am;
That might keep me out of a jam;
To know my strengths and my expertise
Would probably give me a whole new lease
On a life that God understands already,
And wants to help to be stable and steady.

It’s selfish to try to achieve too much;
It only leaves our life in a clutch
That leaves tasks undone
And destroys the fun
Of passing the test
By giving our best.