Beauty and kindness can inspire you everywhere you look. Sometimes, we just pass these things by or give in to the worries of everyday life. But the negative doesn’t quite sting as much when we focus on the positive side. Not that we can bury our heads in the figurative sand, but that by staying calm, somehow the Universe tweaks our moments in unforeseen ways.
In that vein, here are a few images and poems to cheer you up. Or, at the very least, you may find some thoughts to inspire or amuse you.
My Kitchen Window
My kitchen window
Is my front-row seat
For it faces out onto
A rather busy street.
Where I can see
While washing my dishes
The school kids walking
Their heads are full of wishes.
Beauty in their youthfulness, oblivious
To my being there.
As if my own, I would not intrude
Or seek to stare.
Yet, in this momentary glancing
I lift my heart in prayer,
And seek to know Almighty Presence,
Guides and guards His children everywhere.
Kindergarten
Kindergarten is where we learn to play with others
Fold our hands over our mouths
If we are going to say something bad.
Where we listen to the teacher just a tad,
Making letters, jumping high, learning to add.
We are so presumptuous,
Sitting is so preposterous,
What we want is lunch,
But only a tiny munch
Before story time, but no, the sun is out,
It’s time to stretch our arms and run about.
Oh, there, what’s in the grasses, toads, flowers
Something squishy, slimy, slithery and messy
But ever so glad…
A caterpillar molting into a flighty creature.
We must not crush it but let it fly
This yellowy butterfly, up into the sky…
And maybe it will come back and land
Peacefully upon our hand.
Kindergarten is our happy place.
A kind of fast-slow race
Where imagination takes our wings
To land again
Upon the world, now knowing things.
Panther…
There’s a Panther at my porch
Yellow eyes, beware!
They are like a torch
At night…
Be warry,
When he’s treading in the moonlight.
But take him inside…
And he is such a delight
As he sits and purrs at
The stroking’s he gets up on my lap,
Such a huggable cat…
Love… Is The Color Of Your Heart
The heart of a leaf by a window
Perchance outlined by a momentary glow
It draws you close.
LOVE… is not always a red, red rose.
But perhaps newly sprung
Or everlastingly begun
Feelings renew.
LOVE… is more like an evergreen hue.
It captures a fleeting moment,
A whiff of what’s important,
An illusive fragrance?
LOVE… makes your heart skip a beat and dance!
Good News
So much is happening, and it’s hard to find good news.
But if you look at nature
Things just keep on as everything renews.
Is there some infinite being of consciousness at play
That’s living itself in peacefulness
Regardless of any come-what-may?
What if we let go of consternation
Try to understand both sides,
Are they only fervent thoughts with no elevation?
What if we changed from being angrier?
What if we cared only about the best for all?
Solutions realized, well, they could see us happier.
Wholly spirit of earth divine
Open our eyes
To find one soul, present… now in time.
What mysteries lie beyond the garden gate?
Who tarries there? Dare we enter, late?
No, come in, the pies do bake
Come home, the table’s set with food to take.
Evolve Through Stiving, Take The Bounce.
Never fear the trouble that appears,
All is not what it seems… but an opportunity
To strive and get you in gear
To overcome and experience a new reality.
Is this fearful instance merely a distraction?
That funny-bone tickling ride on a suddenly soaring lift…
Or crashing in the down-drafting waters; do you grab the connection
To some inner silent place?
In the worldly tussles, we often wish
We had not been tried so roughly.
Yet, in the trying, we’ve found a nourishing dish,
Sometimes sour with sweetness evolving.
Decide your state, change the station
Turn from the fearful challenges out there,
Your soul is really in another dimension
Where eternity is awakening.
Inside your mind
You take the lift, stepping forward,
Never to return to that outgrown time;
Where courage wins again, and happily, you’ve grown.
Something new can only come
From testing with foresight and resolve
To take the bounce; yes, you’re the one,
Wake up… yes, bounce and be who you really are.
Images and poems by Trina Astor-Stewart
