What’s Your Answer?

What’s Your Answer?

Questions

Do events, happenings,

facts emerge in clusters?

The poet’s poet—

William Carlos Williams—

said, “No ideas but in things.”

Sorry, my imagist model,

breaker of your own rule,

this strain requires ideas.

How much of our

seeing connections,

claiming coincidences,

is nothing more than

selective perception,

eyes simply peeled away?

How much of acceptance

of a truth so labeled is

little more than fashion?

How much of change

is mere novelty?

How often has deliverance

been banned, later to be

seen as revelation?

What is going on today?

Where did it come from?

What does it, O,

what does it mean?

Did God promise there’d

never be another flood,

or was that just the writer’s

happy ending?

To Ponder

            1.   Sometimes it seems we answer, or try to answer, big

                  questions on the run.

            2.   Perhaps we’ve tried to answer, or at least fathom the

                  Issues, earlier, without satisfaction that we’ve done them justice.

            3.   But the time comes when the question is right for us and

                  we best not look the other way.

            4.   Face-to-face, some questions seem unanswerable after

                  pondering, and there’s no shame in moving on. Mystery

                  must be given its due.

            5.   Amazingly, clarity often comes when we’ve reached

                  conclusions on flimsy information, and we later turn out

                  seemingly prescient!

            6.   Declaring your conclusions, whether they turn out right

                  or not helps make you a more known entity to people.

                  It’s good to be known.

            7.   Drum your beat to different marchers!.

© 2013 Allan Cox, Allan Cox & Associates Inc. All Rights Reserved.
__________________________________________________________

If you enjoy reading this story, you may wish to order WHOA! Are They Glad You’re in Their lives? available on Amazon Kindle and in print edition too. 

  • Kindle Edition: WHOA! Are They Glad You're in Their Lives?

  • Print Edition: WHOA! Are They Glad You're in Their Lives?

Tweet

Your Unanticipated Scene

Your Unanticipated Scene

Opening

A tightly curled

deep red rose,

young as new

birth will allow,

curves upward, pursed lips

waiting

for the right time

to open

to its new day.

He stands

In its presence,

sifts

their wedding vows

like fine gravel

through his fingers.

To Ponder

            1.   Fine little dislocations often make life exceedingly rich.

            2.   A fascinating bird call or a skilled pianist heard through

                  an open window can come straight home to us.

            3.   The man, fresh from his last cup of coffee is out of the

                  kitchen and on his way to the garage, sees the new

                  rose.

            4.   He stops, almost startled, peers down caringly, takes

                  slight hold of the stem between thumb and forefinger,

                  bends it gently toward him.

            5.   Muses, the woman in the kitchen he just left . . . 23

                  years . . . passed them by so quickly.

            6.   A rose and an anchor, all this seen and claimed in a

                  matter of moments.

            7.   He walks alive, a smile in his voice.

© 2013 Allan Cox, Allan Cox & Associates Inc. All Rights Reserved.
__________________________________________________________

If you enjoy reading this story, you may wish to order WHOA! Are They Glad You’re in Their lives? available on Amazon Kindle and in print edition too. 

  • Kindle Edition: WHOA! Are They Glad You're in Their Lives?

  • Print Edition: WHOA! Are They Glad You're in Their Lives?

Tweet

When You’ve Been Spared

When You’ve Been Spared

Providence

On a quiet amble

along a narrow road

outside Duluth

I walked further

than I planned

at dusk.

Now it was dark

among the tall trees

and I’d come too far.

I turned to go back

and just then

saw a faint glow

in the distance.

I watched it

come closer,

lumbering,

making itself clear

as the dome light

of a slow moving taxi.

To Ponder

            1.   Sometimes innocence can later be declared as

                  carelessness.

            2.   Even the so-called innocent one can come to this 

                  conclusion on his own.

            3.   Fate-tempters—not at all innocent—choose to invite a

                  measure of fear into their lives. Like the moth, they fly

                  close to the flame.

            4.   What do you make of a full-of-fear incident, not

                  expected, that comes to an end in complete safety?

            5.   One is plain fully-felt gratefulness for what didn’t occur

                  that might have.

            6.   Two is comprehending how fragile life can be and how

                  care is the better option than innocence.

            7.   Three is sharing your experience with others, as

                  appropriate. They can learn from it, one way or another.

© 2013 Allan Cox, Allan Cox & Associates Inc. All Rights Reserved.
__________________________________________________________

If you enjoy reading this story, you may wish to order WHOA! Are They Glad You’re in Their lives? available on Amazon Kindle and in print edition too. 

  • Kindle Edition: WHOA! Are They Glad You're in Their Lives?

  • Print Edition: WHOA! Are They Glad You're in Their Lives?

Tweet

A Place to Pause

A Place to Pause

Well

There’s a well in the barnyard

off to the side,

not near the back of the house-

a step from the kitchen.

She seems ornamental,

for this is a modern house

full of all appliances

and hot running water.

The well, for me, at least—

a visitor, is a call to memory.

So well trimmed, she is,

with thick-mortared rough brick—

a lone-standing beauty

with a little pitched roof

and crank complete

with galvanized bucket

waiting.

I accepted, leaned over

her edge to see

my shadow

in her silver-blue sky,

lowered the bucket

like a proud boy,

cranked it up,

then turned it over,

pouring its glisten back

like a fish I’d caught

and didn’t keep.

To Ponder

            1.   When chance provides you with a magnificent repeat of

                  the past, for heavens sake do not let it go by untouched.

            2.   Do not, I say, do not dismiss small events and visuals

                  that wake you up to former feelings you’ve lost.

            3.   What are they, words of an old song; something your

                  sister said to you once that smacked you flat?

            4.   We are who we are, even though we may try to forget.

                  That’s the foundation—a strength somehow—not to deny.

            5.   No matter, rich or poor, or wherever in between, you are

                  in some measure where and what you came from and

                  that’s your uniqueness.

            6.   You don’t have to be limited by your past. You can grow

                  beyond, grateful that bits of your history is in your cells—

                  rich and true! 

            7.   So look around; the eyes you have to see are yours

                  alone. Claim their bounty.

© 2013 Allan Cox, Allan Cox & Associates Inc. All Rights Reserved.
__________________________________________________________

If you enjoy reading this story, you may wish to order WHOA! Are They Glad You’re in Their lives? available on Amazon Kindle and in print edition too. 

  • Kindle Edition: WHOA! Are They Glad You're in Their Lives?

  • Print Edition: WHOA! Are They Glad You're in Their Lives?

Tweet