Stuff your eyes with wonder,
he said, live as if you’d drop dead
in ten seconds. See the world.
It’s more fantastic than any dream
made or paid for in factories.
— Ray Bradbury —
Sometimes I think too hard
Sometimes I don’t have room to breathe
Sometimes I run too fast
In the pursuit of hollow dreams
So I pour another cup of coffee
Jot another line or two
Praying that tomorrow
The sky will finally be blue
‘Cause I can’t see past
All these dreams that just won’t last
They cloud my day
With bitter gray
And lock my soul away
Sometimes I don’t think hard enough
Sometimes I forget
Sometimes life just passes me by
As I remember how to live
So I sip a bit of coffee
Jot another verse or two
Cast my heart to tomorrow
When the dew’ll be fresh and new
‘Cause I can’t help but dream
Of all the beautiful, terrible things
That make up life
Both joy and strife
In the end combined
Slowly, oh so slowly
I begin to see
Finally, I understand
That there’s a difference between
A check marked list
And the truly important things
Writer lift your pen
Press it to the page
And pour out your soul
In rhythmic lines
Paint the colors of the sky
And the wrinkles ‘neath your eyes
Writer lift your pen
Describe, transcribe
From emotion to thought to word
Preserve it for tomorrow
And for a thousand years’ dawn
The voice that carries on
Writer lift your pen
The day is too short
The hours too fleeting
To squander, so ponder
On green leaves
And the estate of kings
Writer lift your pen
The sunset has already come
The night approaches
Its dread encroaches
Give voice while you yet have time
For today might be the final goodbye
Writer lift your pen.
I love the colors of the rain—
(you might think that odd
but I’ll try to explain…)
The glossy shine of broad black boles
The velvet emeralds of dark damp leaves
The murky depths of over spilling streams
And the rainbow wisps of fairy dreams.
The blues and grays of distant peaks
Forming ranks against the sky
Mist blurred, shrouded, silvery
Aloof, mysterious to the eye.
There’s violet too, amidst it all
In the heart of the shadows
In the deepness of the gray
Navy shimm’ring when the wind blows.
The spongy clay beneath my boots
Though mostly dark and dull
Has bolder streaks like maple leaves
With amber swirled and rolled.
Sometimes there is gold as well
Amid the colors of the rain
Through rifted clouds, when I glimpse…
the gleaming sun again.
I can’t explain it.
This phenomenon.
The words on the page.
With a few scratches of ink, I pour out my heart.
I distill my soul and paint a portrait.
A brief flash.
A glimpse.
The faintest of impressions.
And yet… it is not the same.
The words on my heart
are never quite the same
as the words on the page.
Yet still I try
And still I strive
To speak the words
Locked inside.
But still I hope
And still I dream
To speak the words
Hidden in the heart of me.