If life’s interactive dynamic
is pressing, and push comes to shove,
I’d recommend time in a hammock
observing the treetops above.
A panoply moves in the traces
of shadows on branches and leaves
and whispers abide in the spaces
where gentle eternity breathes.
Contentment descends like a zephyr
with curious mystical stealth
exhaling the rat race forever
when daydreaming out of myself.
2023 Mary Boren
View discussion.
If you remember me when I am gone
with any sense of clarity, ignore
the critic in the shadows who has drawn
impressions from an outline on the floor.
I never fit within the chalky bounds
of others’ expectations. Still, I tried,
until I was awakened to the sounds
of omnipresent promise amplified.
So when you picture me inside your head,
unhampered by the superficial sphere,
behold a ball of energy that shed
the cover humans wear when we are here.
And soon, in less than one eternal minute,
a burst of light will follow. You’ll be in it!
2017 Mary Boren
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A baby comes with software preinstalled—
first generation code: Life One-Point-One.
We don’t expect he’ll walk before he’s crawled.
He’s laptop-bundled, pure phenomenon.
Initially, a meg of RAM will do.
No operating system needs more stuff
than it can process, plug ‘n’ play when new.
A modest modem speed should be enough
to keep him wired. Increasingly, demands
exceed innate resources—that’s the norm.
As Junior’s drive capacity expands,
more popup/download options fill the form.
The coping patterns used in infancy
won’t last, but Life’s upgradable, for free.
———
2000 Mary Boren
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In truth, I wasn’t looking when you fanned
the cards (nor did I count them, I confess).
Initially I held the better hand
but yours was played with preconceived finesse.
Oblivious to what was being dealt,
I met your gaze and honestly believed
in what I thought I saw and what I felt.
You never blinked; just played the ace you’d sleeved.
No use in looking back on burning trumps
or bridges. Though, of course, I’d never choose
to play if I had known, guess only chumps
keep staking what they can’t afford to lose.
I’m beaten. Mine’s the sorrow; yours the shame.
One’s leap of faith is just another’s game.
———
2003 Mary Boren
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I questioned life at every turn,
compelled by acts and deeds to earn
a starring role
in mine. Control
tenaciously eluded me.
In time I found a stepping stone
beyond the ego’s comfort zone.
It marks the way
from yesterday
into the realm of now, to be.
No longer tossed by whims of fate,
I join the will to co-create
a vibrant here
devoid of fear
that thrives on peace and unity.
The present is a lavish gift.
It comes with hands to gently sift
the wheat from chaff.
Surrender, laugh,
forgive, and live abundantly.
———
2010 Mary Boren
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It dawdled on a hook eleven years
and never ticked a tock. Perhaps some dust
had lodged inside the brain and rendered gears
immovable, as if its wings were trussed.
Why fix what isn’t broken? Twice a day
it told the proper time and, looking good
around the clock, held loneliness at bay.
Its own true song lay dormant, cased in wood.
The day I left I moved it to a wall
across the room. The pendulum swung free
and rhythmical; stout heartbeats ticked for all
their reawakened value. Much like me.
A change of scenery can loose the flow
of lifebound energy. Get up and go!
———
2003 Mary Boren
View discussion.
Fantastic, insurpassable machine,
a marvel of assorted nuts and bolts:
you’ve always carried me in style between
the places I must go. Some jumps and jolts
along the way have left me shaken, stirred
and stupefied, but never pushed beyond
endurance, and where boundaries are blurred,
you somehow find a bridge across the pond.
Simplicity in motion, balance, sense;
you’re poetry from frame to handlebars.
A bike equipped for training won’t evince
the same aplomb or point me to the stars.
Still holding on, I trust my Big Wheel guide,
and pedal hard to give my butt a ride.
———
2002 Mary Boren
View discussion.
By morning’s glimmer, helmeted and gloved,
she’s primed and ready, pointed at the peak
that’s begging to be conquered. It’s a bitch.
Now huffing, puffing, standing on the pedals
and hunkered over handlebars, she’s pulled
by daily regimen with certainty
that, having sweated to the top, the ride
is worth it all. Experience will steer
her wheels away from gravel traps and ruts.
A tree-lined web of intersecting paths
that overlay the park extends a range
of choices: valleys, hilltops, shadows, sun.
It’s symmetry in sway as every climb
is answered with a corresponding coast.
———
2008 Mary Boren
View discussion.
