Come play with me;
Why should you run
Through the shaking tree
As though I’d a gun
To strike you dead?
When all I would do
Is to scratch your head
And let you go?

1. 
dark dark day
the sun
a sliver of memory
slipping away

let daylight 
settle slowly

islands will appear
and ledges alight
handholds
we’ll follow

longing 
for night

2. 
what has become of the buoy 
off Georges Bank 
adrift and silent
since Thanksgiving

gauging the colors
of clouds winds 
calm seas building
nothing to report

ducks passing overhead
give a slight whistle

3.
first light reflected 
within the water 
off Clapboard Island

listen 
a voice says

the weather for
Chebeague and Matinicus
Monhegan Muscongus

each morning
the same
each morning
changed

high tide
just before
sunrise

The simple joy of being alive.

To laugh is to risk appearing the fool.

To weep is to risk appearing sentimental. To reach out for another is to risk involvement. To expose your feelings is to risk exposing your true self.

To place your ideas, your dreams before the crowd is to risk their loss.

To love is to risk not being loved in return.

To live is to risk dying.

To hope is to risk despair. To try is to risk failure.

But risks must be taken because the greatest hazard is to risk nothing

Those who risk nothing do nothing, have nothing and are nothing.

They may avoid suffering and sorrow, but they simply cannot learn, feel, change, grow, love, live.

Chained by their own fears, they are slaves;

They have forfeited freedom. Only a person who risks is free.

– from “Reflecting on The Serenity Prayer” by Philip St. Romain

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There are many winds full of anger, and lust and greed. They move the rubbish around, but the solid mountain of our true nature stays where it’s always been.