Breaking Bread Upon My Table

Breaking bread upon my table

We face and judge our hunger

Faith not in the believing

But in the subtle conceiving

Picture a summer watermelon

Sweet pink fruit it shall be

Pouring water at my table

We face and judge our thirst

Tell me what dreams you dream

Comparisons will be made

Faith not in the compensation

But in the stable construction

Picture a tower of steel

Shining beacon it shall be

World starts in broken pieces

Just as chaos swirled before

Piecing together of faith

So slow, progressing

Occasional progress through

Personalities and paradox

What texture does the world take?

Without the faithful?

Around me days are filled with

Purpose and light, without question

Their hearts full

What pulls them out from beneath?

If it is gone?

If the oblivious dwindle

Do the informed continue?

Gene G. McLaughlin 2015

The Equanimity of Waterfalls

Spring Waterfall

The waterfall knows no equanimity

In early spring it rages

From the remnants of melting snow

In fall it is bone dry

Depleted

From the heat of the scorching summer

In winter it is still

The water cold and iced upon its rocks

The effort is

Throughout the seasons

To keep the waterfall in your mind

From early summer

When it is steady

Calm

Flowing

The water will escape its state

It always does

As will you

The effort is holding

Equanimity in your mind

When late spring is gone

And the water is a storm

Or drought

Gene G. McLaughlin 2014

 

 

22 Years

When my father was my age

He had 22 more years left

He looked at the future

As an endless array of choices

Without death as an option

It was though

For good or bad

It always is

It is the boundary of

One’s vessel

Not it’s ripples

Across the inward ocean

It is hard me to view all of this

As an infinite journey as he did

Knowing what I know

Yet I will fight to view it so

The shrug off the knowledge of

Where the path to the ocean

Meets the water

Making 22 years into

A transinfinite journey

There is an eternity between moments

Endless ripples between the ripples

The ocean is never still

Even when there is no motion

Looking out from the shore

At the path’s end

Gene G. McLaughlin 2013