Book of Rhymes

You spend your life within the seats,
   staring at the stage.
You let your fears run through the years
   and never turn the page.
But if you dream of taking bows 
   before a crowd that roars,
Get up, engage, and join the stage,
   and make the show be yours.

We press on ahead in perpetual youth,
   with delusions we somehow mature.
The children grow older, the offspring get bolder
   and lengthen the crawl on the floor.
But ever we flinch and return to our crib,
   carving notches with each passing year.
In this coming of age, we turn in our cage,
   all alone on a tiny blue sphere.

From yelling “surprise,” to lifting up rocks,
From rock-paper-scissors, to synchronized clocks, 
It’s a question profound, and I just want to know:
When do you start – on “3” or on “go”?

It really seems doubtful, so how can it be? 
I’ll believe only when I am able to see.
Or in view of the way that we often perceive,
I’ll be able to see only when I believe.

Shipwrecked but ready, they made a new life
   and planted the seeds of the pines. 
The children would sing as the trees added rings,
   and sometimes they dreamt of designs.
As decades receded, the question was when
   the grandkids would make the decree
To harvest the trees, and enter the seas
   in the boat that would set them all free.

From back in your youth, your friends of all kinds
Recall you from memories stuck in their minds –
Some of them pretty and some of them rotten,
But most of them things that you’ve long since forgotten.

We stressed over this, we obsessed over that,
   there were so many troubles in sight.
We struggled and fought to conquer the thoughts
   that kept us awake in the night.
But the years bring us peace as we grow to accept –
   it’s fine if life’s edges are rough.
So we raise up our mugs, and sweep ’neath the rugs
   the things that we’ve thought of enough.

At five years old, she stomped the ground
And asked, “Why can’t I turn around?”
“Just do like this…,” we played a mime.
She said, “No, no, I mean in time.”

Note: The rhythm in this one isn’t so obvious, so here it is with the accented syllables in bold:

At five years old, she stomped the ground
And asked, “Why can’t I turn around?”
“Just do like this…,” we played a mime.
She said, “No, no, I mean in time.”

If disagreements drag along,
Try your best to prove you’re wrong. 
If you can’t, you’re either right,
Or your best is rather light.

Dead Sea Scrolls and Mayan scripts,
Pompeii’s rooms and pharaohs’ crypts.
Across the years, each era waves
With words and bones in books and graves.

When logic is shunned, beware that all claims 
Enjoy equal footing, diluted the same. 
There’s no need for warfare and no need for spies;
For every one truth, there are millions of lies.

A child once asked us what world she would find.
What would we leave her, and would it be kind?
We gave our reply with a rose in clenched fists –
Ask not if it’s kind, but if it exists.

With toes at the edge of our future’s abyss,
   and heels at the cliff of our past,
Aligned side by side, a few billion wide,
   we hope that our footing will last.
Ever so slowly the ledge in front grows,
   as it crumbles from under our heels.
So we shuffle ahead, on present’s thin thread,
   and dream about wide open fields.

When the curtain has dropped and the lights have gone out,
   and the cast is packed up in a box,
With their joints made of wood and the notion they could
   escape, were it not for the locks,
When the plan is the same, each day after day,
   with paupers at mercy of kings, 
The semblance of will breeds the movements so still,
   as the puppets try pulling their strings.

Picture a world filled with desolate lands, 
Where birds build their nests upon petrified hands,
And feet send out roots, to pay for the crime, 
As we mimic the trees in a penitent mime.

Some say fire. Some say ice.
Some say that either would nicely suffice.
But maybe it’s neither, and simply the plan 
That we ask how it ends, when it never began.

(Apologies to Robert Frost)

How can you tell you’re no longer a kid?
You stop your bike gently, no need for a skid. 
In hide-and-go-seek games, you want to be found,
And puddles are things that you now walk around.

It’s not always bad if we reap what we sow. 
In lessons we learn, and in learning we grow. 
The real problem comes from the patterns we keep
And the circles that form when we sow what we reap.

Letters and pictures and sympathy notes
   and pieces of distant old friends
Follow your life through the joy and the strife
   in a little box worn on the ends.
Years down the line, you’ll remove from a shelf
   the memories long overdue,
And wonder once more, whose shoeboxes store
   old pictures and pieces of you.

It’s common to lash out when losing the game 
And spend your time looking for someone to blame.
Just don’t be the fool in a plan so cliché
And get duped by the culprit and look the wrong way.

Reflecting long back on her earlier days,
She saw she had changed, in so many ways.
It’s always a shock when on careful inspection
You see someone else in your present reflection.

We dine through the ages with those we hold dear.
   At the table, we each play our role.
The younger ones grow, and the older ones go,
   and the stories gain ever more soul.
When the music winds down and it comes time to leave,
   the elders pass on what was theirs.
So we sit at our tables and add to the fables
   while playing our musical chairs.

When falsehoods keep on pouring down
And facts are left to slowly drown,
We’ll never see and never hear
The truths before they disappear. 

We’ve long since outgrown all the endings of old.
   The final one comes from within.
There’s no need for wars, or reapers at doors,
   who pale as we beckon them in. 
We sail on through time to mysterious lands, 
   weaving maps on our destiny’s loom.  
With a toast and a cheer and a dime to the seer,
   we head to our special new doom.

The millennia passed as the creatures remained
   trapped on the walls of the cave.
Were they drawn to keep score, for religious decor,
   or reminders on why to be brave?
Or maybe some lad came to realize there’s more 
   to life than just seeking to eat.
And thus he did start this pursuit we call art,
   with a “Hey, guys, this really looks neat!”

His fear he’d mess up and be wrong made him stall.
He played it too safe and did nothing at all.
Mission accomplished, but not very bright,
For likewise he never did anything right. 

That cute little toddler who can’t count to two
Will grow up and someday know much more than you.
Generations will always push back the frontiers,
In slow-motion leapfrog played down through the years.

Our stories at bedtime bestowed on us keys
   to wonders and magical doors.
We lived what was read as we dreamt in our beds
   and built castles on living room floors.
But the magic erodes and the mystery fades
   until everyone seems like a pawn.
So we lie in our beds and now wonder instead
   where the kings and the queens have all gone.

It’s not so hard to comprehend
That if we cause the world to end,
We then won’t have the luxury
To say, “No, wait – best two of three!”

Baggage unchecked has a penchant to spread
And affect other things that reside in your head.
Though time often makes the effects disappear, 
The effects of effects are the things you should fear.

At quarter past nine on the Fourth of July, 
   we bolted on home in the night. 
Back in our yard, we knew how to guard 
   that willow-tree image of light. 
Does life mimic art, or does art mimic life?
   We were too young for thoughts so sublime. 
So we laid out our pillows and gazed at the willows –
   our fireworks frozen in time.

Your reasoning often is molded to fit 
   whatever you want to conclude.
Cherry-picked facts and circular tracks
   are signs that your logic is skewed.
You twist and you turn as you spiral on down, 
   lost in the depths of delusion,
Where deep in the hollows your reasoning follows 
   in retrograde from your conclusion. 

He shuffled along, hunched on his cane, 
   over trails that he’d run on so fast. 
He was older than then, but younger than when 
   today would be part of the past.
Right in between, it’s a relative world, 
   and we choose from the two ways to see. 
So at age ninety-four, he limped all the more,
   saying, “Youth won’t be wasted on me.” 

It’s always the plan when the going gets rough,
The weak have a tactic that makes them feel tough.
They look for the bait and find something to click on,
And queue up a new group of people to pick on.

The sculptor begins with one cut of the stone.
The painter’s first stroke hovers all on its own.
It’s tougher than peering through dense fog or mist,
An artist can see things that don’t yet exist. 

The excuses we make for not reaching a goal,
The conjured-up forces beyond our control.
We decry the injustice and seethe at the crime,
Shackled with straw and boxed in like a mime.

Each athlete lives the glory days,
   atop the highest ground.
But every peak and record streak
   is sure to come unwound. 
So seize the day, but have a plan
   for life without the ball.
For in your prime, the sands of time
   begin their steady fall.

You never know how long you’ll stay
At lifetime’s stops along the way.
So when you pause and take a knee,
Don’t forget to plant a tree. 

In the name of 1, we must invoke 2,
   and 3 then, to even the score.
It’s clear that the cause supersedes all our laws,
   it’s preemptive, not paranoid, 4.
Down through the ages, the counting goes on,
   the way that it’s always been done,
As the kings and the queens with their ends and their means
   forever start over at 1.

We can dream about soaring with birds on the wind –
   a lofty but futile goal.
But think of the things, which don’t involve wings,
   that are fully within our control.
Like besting our nerves, and breaking the ice,
   and trying to make a crush real.
So with thanks to the birds, we muster the words
   to finally say how we feel.

Hike up a hill, and take any trail,
You’ll end at the top, with never a fail.
But if you hike down, and take any way,
Where you’ll end up – no one can say.

The children all giggle and duck back and forth
   as they peek around corners with glee. 
But who is to say, this game that they play
   restricts the dimensions to three. 
A quick look for us reveals things that are there,
   but they can see things that will be.
Such is the sound of kids peeking around
   the corners of time we can’t see.

Illustration © Maki Naro

Flake by flake, the blanket grows
   and shrouds each silent day.
It lingers still, and rests until
   it’s time to put away.
We’ll shake it out, and fold it up,
   and tuck it in a drawer.
And soon the spring will rise and bring
   the sounds of earth once more.

How can you tell whether something is true?
Start fresh with the facts and give logic its due.
Use a clean slate and keep bias at bay; 
Pretend that you were in fact born yesterday. 

They planted me gently the day you were born,
   together we’ve grown through the years. 
When winds came on strong, you asked me what’s wrong
   each fall when I shed all my tears. 
And now we’re both old, wrinkled, and worn,
   and leaning a bit to the side. 
I hope that you know, I’ve enjoyed each day so,
   even though I have never replied.