Shelly in the Morning

I took this photo so I could send it to my brother Steve who is now in Friesland, Netherlands with our friends Ian and Jerien. We are communicating with a phone app called "WhatsApp". It's a great little program. No charge we can text or talk to each other on the phone. We've been communicating the whole time he's been in Venice. And now he's in Holland visiting our mutual friends.

My step daughter Lynda sent me a couple of poems she wrote and I thought I'd share them with you. I think she is quite a good writer. She read some of her writings at Arvin's celebration of life and they had everybody totally engaged and delighted to know more about Arvin. It was a high point of the celebration.

                      Resonance

I am smitten by mastery,
in males, females, the transgendered,
in teenagers and those in their 80's.

Desire transmuting itself to inspire.

In them I clearly see the notation
for the Music
of the Spheres,

in which each of us is
a single spectacular phrase,

and to which all beings,
sentient and insentient,
knowingly or unknowingly,
are dancing.

                         -  L B Chaikin   3/12/18

This one is for the ladies of a certain age as I am and so is Lynda, though she is fourteen years younger than I am.

              On Menopause
                 (17 Years In)

What a relief

to have my libido be
situation specific
rather than a filter through which
every attractive new encounter
is seen as
sexual possibility.

What a relief

to be my own woman,
free from the
hormonal imperative,
my ovaries no longer little searchlights
seeking a deeply desired mate. 

What a relief

to be in love with God,
with people in all of their
glorious imperfection,
with sunshine,
the beauty of this world
filling me completely.

One ambient desire remains:

for Sohbet, a Sufi definition being
mystical union through
spiritual conversation,
sometimes silent.

Who has the ears to hear,
a heart that listens,
and dares to speak the deeper truths?

                         - L B Chaikin     4/2018