Twenty Eyes and Twenty Ears

Twenty eyes and twenty ears
Watch my footsteps as I make them
Wait to see if I mistake them.
They have followed me for years.
Thirty ears and thirty eyes;
They, I see, are all around me,
Always trying to confound me.
They my purposes disguise.
Forty eyes are watching me,
Seeing what I’m doing always,
Limiting my thought in small ways.
In their bondage am I free?
Fifty eyes and fifty more
Take my words and scrutinize them,
Change my thoughts so I despise them
Still I claim them as before.
Sixty eyes are in my mind.
Always they have been inside me,
Watching those who walk beside me.
Have I always been so blind?

Inspired by the book 1984.

The Flower

A flower on the roadside lay
Its petals to the sky.
I would have passed and let it stay
For time was short that summer day.
I stopped and held it anyway
Yet did not know the reason why.

Against the backdrop of the road,
It grew defiantly.
Where here, so out of place, it showed
That life can thrive and make abode
Where wind and rain and snow erode
The place where it was set to be.

I pondered on that flower rare
With time I didn’t own,
And thoughtfully began to stare
Upon the flower lying there
While wond’ring how a thing so fair
Had on that dirty roadside grown.

I went along the road to see
If other flowers grew.
Beside that road, it seemed to me
That weeds grew up quite readily.
Of flowers I saw but two or three
And wondered why there were so few.

I took one with me as I went
Preserving it with care.
I held it as a monument
To lessons learned and time well spent.
That evening by my bed I bent
And thanked the power that put them there.

The Artist

It is simple to see,
to cast one’s eyes where he may.
Who, then can tell
what there is to see?
Greatness falls from the sky like snow,
and it goes unnoticed.
Imagination,
how fickle it is,
how commanding!
Do we notice that
             we
have that power?
And control it?
It is our power of
creation
that we see and use.
How few there are
who can truly see themselves.
Who can see the power
of Vision
besides those who look?

Come Inside

Come inside now, to my table
Though I’ve nothing to prepare
Know you well that were I able
I would fill this empty table,
Which sits now before you bare.
Here inside my house the laughter
Never is in short supply.
Let the banter touch the rafter!
In our friendship and our laughter
Truly does our richness lie.
As we sit beside the fire
In each other’s company
All our troubles seem less dire.
To the heavens we aspire
While the hours pass pleasantly.