Is

No, it is not the stuff of story tales
or reality TV. The odds are there will never
be a novel or movie made of it,

But there is peace here, in the stillness,
a place where your heart and thoughts
can struggle and dance in the freedom

to simply be themselves
without being thrown into the sea
or lost in another’s violent storm

or fairy tale nightmares, where
your life is allowed to be the fractured
art is simply

is.

About this poem. 

I live quietly. I like living quietly, where I can listen to the voices in my head and in my heart and make sense of them. Where the people closest to me are always there, but let me sift through my soul and trust it’s essence, even if the details are a little murky and often in flux. Where a hug is all the conversation needed.

Don’t get me wrong. The cities are fun, and a time of passionate excitement and crazy back and forth conversations are fun. That is part of why I am glad my work gets me out into the world for a few days every week. To provide the balance. To stimulate the mind.

But without a place, a time, an allowing for all that stimulation to settle, something vital is missing for me. Something very vital.

The photographs are two stones painted by my friend and neighbor and artist (I have four of her art pieces in my house so far and have taken a class under her.), Heidi Woodward Hammell of Dry Brook Studio.

Tom