YOU HAVE TO GIVE YOURSELF A CHANCE TO LIVE

FIRST I THOUGHT THEN I SAW THEN I KNEW
Troubled weather is always evident if one knows what they see.
It is not a matter of education as much as knowledge gained

by being in the storms or on the calm seas.

Words can try to tell the story of an uncluttered star filled night

but until it is seen the knowledge is only a concept, a wish, a hunger, a dream.

Imagination is a spark, nothing more, it is a thought leading to a door, nothing more.

When eyes see, ears hear then one experiences the concepts of reality,

the Zen of knowing that everything is growing, always growing—until it dies

and then in that moment is when judgment of the thing shown that was,

may finally set in. The line left behind is the only way one can truly be known.

© M Durfee
1/27/16


For all but especially my friend Emma

LIFE ISN'T PASSING YOU BY

DON”T WASTE YER TIME A DROWNING

Everywhere people sigh

and

think life’s passing them by,

though that truly be an impossible task

for life to complete. I am not one of those

quite like that—though I do not constantly

look for the shading in colors of the rose

or

try to find why mountains are

a lovely mystery to me.

Just knowing it be so is enough

to satisfy my simple needs.

Accepting the things as they are,

even as they process their becoming,

has filled my life, sometimes to my chagrin.

I found my sight to be wrong

long after I passed the sign BEGINà,

Then old stupid me has to again start anew

to see the thing I am always looking at;

for a nearer view

of the possible false and real true.

No man can honestly say

living was here yesterday

but is gone now today.

Not until after that final breath

that comes with death anyway.

No man can honestly cry

that “life has passed me by!”

All are in the waters

whether they wish or not,

the difference is only found

in swim, float or drown.

No one should be forced

to the last

that’s a givin’ up

before ya even know

what in time can be found

as it floats on past.

© M Durfee

8.17.2015

NOTICE COLORS

LIFE BEGINS BEYOND THE DAWN

Old blood stained dawn sky,

rust colored dried,

a memorial to every soul

all them with no life left, died.

It should be a horror of thought

yet it is not

for we have come to accept the patina

as a memorial to time gone by.

The stuff of life

is comprised of time

and our numbered days are foretold

in that rust colored dawn.

Time ends, we will never wake to it again.

Wake to this dawn and ask will I love the day

for it is the only one I have me now,

what shall I do in it? Anything but let it drag away.

I have no need nor desire to be memorialized

by the passing dawns color as the sun blots it out

for another day where I can grab a long moment of life.

Live in the day ere night comes robs us of the day gone by.

© M Durfee

8.9.2015