What’s Your Unpretentious Best?

What’s Your Unpretentious Best?

            1.   Where do you come from? That’s the central question

                  posed by the Tao Te Ching.

            2.   From ashes-to-ashes, dust-to-dust, where are you in 

                  between?

            3.   I read once that a famous Hollywood director instructed

                  his dry cleaner to return his suits clean and rumpled.

            4.   Was that a contrivance? Yes, I suppose, but I sure like

                  the message.

            5.   Care to wait till we’re on our death-beds to ask if we’ve

                  been real to people closest to us, with imploring eyes,

                  not knowing the answer?

            6.   Proud of where you are in life? That’s OK, if you’ll take

                  time to remember your close calls. They might have gone

                  the other way.

            7.   Just be grateful at all times. That will deliver you.

Hat

She donned that

old rumpled straw hat,

the one with the

broad brim and faded

wide brown ribbon.

Here she was at

her unpretentious best,

her climbing warmth

spread over me and our

partners—a mother-friend

and young married son

sauntering the beach

on an early

Sunday afternoon—

a convenience of

caring company, a

lesson in simplicity,

an ease seldom matched.

We stop, they want

a picture, done,

and we move on.

She sends us a print

from Chicago, now

sitting on our dresser

for six years.

Love that memory.

Love that hat.

© 2012 Allan Cox, Allan Cox & Associates Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Tell Me About It

Tell Me About It

            1.   We all know we can learn by being good listeners.

            2.   A key self-initiated way to listen is to ask a sincere

                  question.

            3.   What do you sincerely want to know? How affirming it

                  is to the one who can provide the answer!

            4.   How about that associate, friend or relative you admire

                  so much? Have you asked her how she’s come into her 

                  own?

            5.   Do so, and as you learn something you didn’t know

                  you’ll also discover you’ve strengthened your bond.

            6.   True masters are good in ways beyond their own

                  awareness.

            7.   Your warm heart and well-formed question will light a

                  candle between you.

Craftsman

That thing you do so well—

about which you’re silent,

do you take it for granted?

I think not;

were I to ask,

you could speak

at length about it,

how you came

to learn and love it.

Isn’t that so?

You’re respected,

that’s clear, and

people are better off

for your efforts.

And so let us rejoice

in the gift.

But, come now,

tell me about it.

Still, there

will be secrets

even you don’t know.

© 2012 Allan Cox, Allan Cox & Associates Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Here’s What You Owe Others

Here’s What You Owe Others

            1.   Sometimes I wait when there’s no reason.

            2.   Perhaps I’m fearful I’m really not good enough to deliver

                  the goods.

            3.   But then somebody pushes me or asks me or even

                  demands that I give what I have.

            4.   So then I do.

            5.   I take my know-how or my experience or my gift in some

                  way and lay it on the line.

            6.   The results blow us away, the recipients grateful, and I’m

                  clearly a contributor.

            7.   OK, next time, no hesitating attitude! What else am I

                  here for?

Showing

“Let me show you,”

She said.

It lit me up—

her saying those

words—

and I wonder why.

It wasn’t the stuff.

It wasn’t the trick.

So I took her lead.

I offered

to show people.

Same thing!

© 2012 Allan Cox, Allan Cox & Associates Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Be Present at the Creation

Be Present at the Creation

            1.   As grade-schoolers a few of us could report with delight

                  and big wide eyes events that were stranger than fiction.

            2.   We hadn’t been there, but had heard of them from

                  others and could relay them in small club-like gatherings.

            3.   Some adults say they’ve taken a leap of faith with no

                  assurances and are astounded at the bounty, spiritually

                  and temporally.

            4.   There’s the calling for each one of us—I believe that

                  surely—but we can refuse.

            5.   Not availing ourselves of the risk, to not step into the

                  mystery when it’s presented, is the grinding down of a

                  counterfeit safety.

            6.   A toe in the water is kindergarten, perhaps a start or

                  merely a sop.

            7.   What is the world showing you?

There

It’s one thing

to have a curiosity

and satisfy it—

say, how massive

construction machinery

gets built.

What, though, to make

of bolts from the blue?

A long absent friend appears

in your thoughts

and one day soon,

on the street before you.

A piece of work—

that fits your gifts—

leaps forward

from a phone call.

A last minute idea

wriggles free

at the moment

of delivery,

sprinkling fairy dust.

A casual question you raise

opens a new world.

            So, truth told,

            you’ve been there . . .

            what do you

            make of it,

            really.

            this time?

© 2012 Allan Cox, Allan Cox & Associates Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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