The Beginning-The Middle

Yeah, I've been absent.

Still feeling punky but no complaints,

it is a process one must endure to

 come out the other side.

If you have no beginning, no middle,

there will be no end.

Much is going on in my small world,

some pretty sad and awful, some glorious,

just like your life I suppose.

Again, another process; 

the good, the bad and the ugly.

All part of a day, a week, a life.

The last buds of the year on my sorely neglected bushes

tell the simple story.

They open so quickly, giving great joy,

and then vanish, as if they had never been.

Yet I am sure the root of them 

will return and visit me again.

I have been equating a lot of my memories

to this phenomena.

As each decade goes by, I discover more far flung 

memories have arisen to the surface, 

showing me my journey.

Remembering vividly the love and passion I 

 had for a boy over 40 years ago; 

the vision of a hillside and a summer night, 

is overpowering.

My Mother's voice, my Father's smile,

I close my eyes and they are within reach

of outstretched fingertips.

How often did our elders tell stories of their past, 

as we sighed and listened once more 

to a song of joy or a tale of woe?

Now, I am the elder re-experiencing

what has come before, and wishing to 

retell and relive while still anticipating

new beginnings.

I have been practicing being still,

and when I succeed completely,

 oh, how the memories freely

return in abundance.

Not all are happy, but then

sorrow was part of the process back then also.

The bruised and falling petals are

reminders of past betrayals,

yet they do not lessen the beauty

of the rose in it's glory, in it's middle.

Perhaps it is merely the season

that causes the melancholy,

yet I embrace Fall with arms flung wide.

I nestle in tight, and I ponder and I fret,

and I relish and I remember.