This year brought joyful changes

disguised in many ways

who would’ve thought I’d be at home

to spend free time and days

Retirement finally came for me

I certainly can’t complain

’cause working hard some years in life

can be a doggone shame

No clocks, no waking up at dawn

my schedule is open wide

can read a book or take a cruise

making memories filled with pride

If nothing but an hour

I take time to be still

enjoying precious moments

gives me the greatest thrill

I celebrate time with family

have lunch dates with a friend

I savor life and all its bliss

for it’s fleeting like the wind.

Like a stunning shawl wrapped around me

gratitude warms my heart with sweet chats,

luscious meals and quiet meditations. Yes,

thanksgiving enthralls me like golden skies,

coral shadows, raspberry colored hedges

that seduce the air like banners of afternoon poetry.

Scattered here

scattered there

all around the ground

fallin’ amidst our days

restless senseless nights

life’s leaves are a fallin’

down down down

reddish as city violence

green like corporate corruption

down down down

brown as Uvalde pain

orange as prison jumpsuits

tragic as Camp Mystic rain

down down down

life’s leaves are a fallin’

we never know the turns they take

when circumstances come a callin’

As a child, I loved weekends. As an adult, weekends…eh…

We use weekends as a dumping ground: Time to do all the chores, all the running around, all the stuff we couldn’t do or get done during the week. Check out any major city these days and you’ll find freeways as busy on Saturday and Sunday as they are on Tuesday and Friday. Weekends deserve to be sacred… Downright precious. Time to relax and kick back. Take the edge off. Place our hands in our gardens, the soil. Feel that earth connectedness. Take a drive to visit a loved one. A hurting one. Attend a place of worship. To worship the one who makes the soil for our garden which helps our hands to connect with earth and nature. No, weekends don’t just happen. They are made and grown. Downright special.

Every man has a jewel

a pearl oh so rare

tis time we look into their heart

and find it lying there

to judge is not our place

condemn we need not do

whatever we find dismayed

will yield a need, so true

we owe no one anything

but in love we serve them

til that which is perfect comes

to take away the dim

so look beyond the clouds

embrace each with your heart

for now we see through masks

and only know in part

although we must have faith

hope makes us not ashamed

the greatest is love no doubt

which never carries blame.

©Glendal  Wallace  2025