XXXVII-XXIX

XXXVII.

The snow increases as we northward wend
through scrubby pines and yellow birchwood groves.
The route allows for vistas ‘round each bend;
for reading and for rest the bus behoves.

My children I am taking to Duluth
to see the harbor and to ride the trains.
The steam museum sparks the joy of youth
that even our teenager cannot feign.

They climb aboard and photograph it all;
they pull the levers, crane their necks to see.
We ride amongst the foliage of fall
while both the girls are cuddled close to me.

Though in the end it makes for quite a day,
I wouldn’t have it any other way.


XXXVIII.

An introvert is always torn between
the need for love and to be left alone.
The balance is a tricky one to glean
as generations of attempts have shown.

It has to do with whence we draw our strength:
from silence or from other people’s souls.
The extrovert will go to any length
to take from others that which makes him whole.

In solitude or deep inside a book
the autumn mind recharges from within.
But quiet leaves the summer people shook;
to them our independence is a sin.

The introvert must ev’ry friend adore.
The extrovert might simply just be bored.


XXXIX.

I’m not a Buddhist, but I read their books
and find that Christ and Buddha often rhyme.
Cosmologies may differ at first look
yet mystics share a peacefulness sublime.

I often entertain that I have found
a core of inner peace which once I lacked.
When I was younger, all my teeth were ground
by stressors that would leave me quite shellacked.

I’m older now and calmer, I should think
but sometimes just the weight of all these years
can bring emotions boiling to the brink
when simple inconvenience grinds my gears.

Nirvana never seems so far away
as when technology will not obey.