From youth, not unlike the love
I received from my family, I surmised,
that extended love might be everywhere.
With artless, open arms and heart,
I embraced this simple notion.
In time, sadly this childish wish
was honed to a hard truth by maturation.

Friends and loves come
and go, fleeting in heart,
and committed soul.
Unreliably, flowing in and ebbing out,
like deep undulations of an ocean,
all too often with sneaker waves
that pull us under. Breakers pushing
our ship onto the rocks, in a sea
of shallow unfulfilled expectations.
Encounters becoming disappointment,
with too many frogs kissed.

My educated suspicion is,
beyond our family of blood kin,
Faithful canine love is the only
other "truly committed devotion"
we are likely to get.

In the end, that may well be enough.
Perspective wisdom can be a bitter lesson.

He had several University
Degrees, lived a long life,
traveled, had three ex-wives,
no kids, no dog, big house,
Cadillac car with low miles.
Bragged he was always
well informed, knew it all.

He liked to boast that
he never voted in any
election. Waste of time
or so he maintained.

He died alone in his recliner
chair with the TV remote
in his hand. In the end that
was his only friend and
social connection. It was
ignorance that did him in.

I worship the stars, the moon,
the sun, this earth I stand upon.
Nature and all the peaceful
living breathing creatures that
share this space, the rivers that
course, the oceans that ebb and
flow. The rains that keep us green
the fields that keep us fed.
Some of my fellow humans
don't seem to understand, that all
this is truly our Heaven on Earth.

My almost grown grandsons
see only a stooped withered
old man when they look at me,
no clue of the young man I used
to be. Or where I have been, the
things I've done. They've only
known me like this. Even 20
years ago, when they were born
I was already a senior citizen.

In my mirror I also see what they
see and can barely recall that
once upon a time younger me.

Time moves on leaving erosion
behind upon mountains and
people too.

In the end we are the sum
total of the effort we invested,
or conversely our failed deficiency
in that regard. With no one to
appreciate or blame, but ourselves.

A conversation and all
human communications
require more than just
one single person talking.
It's a two party exchange
of giving and receiving.
If one party is obsessed
with only incessant "I or
Me" topics and hardly ever
pauses to take an occasional
breath, it becomes a discourse
of self-absorbed hedonistic
over glorification, and the
other person (s) might just
tune out, elect to walk away,
or hang up the phone.

These sybaritic talkers may
merely find their dog, or
house cat and bore them
with their narcissistic prattle.

If their critters wish to eat
they are obliged to at least
appear to be listening.
The rest of us have no such
obligation.

There it is again, flecks of fresh
brown earth flying up from out of
my lawn, several new dirt mounds
signaling their return, our battle
for this turf will now recommence.
We have ten acres, why must they
pick my garden to make their
subterranean homes?
I rub them out and more ****
gophers replace the departed
ones. They tweak my nose and
toy with me as if I were the
mouse and they the cat. But
they are grievously mistaken.
If it is war they want, it is war
they will get. Let the battle
commence.