10/14/15 6:42p a prayer of protection

Dear Lord
Keep me and my neighbours safe
from my foolishness
from the things I forgot to do in my haste
or left in negligence
Lord let no one suffer because of me
(even, especially, selfish me)

Lord, there are so many things to pray for
just in leaving my place and going to yours
and though you call me daughter and friend
I'm also a servant
gladly beholden to your will
obligated to you and what you decide
to do or not to do
and ever so grateful
that you willingly decide to obligate yourself to me
a little know-nothing
who walks like she knows everything

How much and how carefully you hold me in your hands, Father
I don't often pray against my own stupidity
yet daily you protect me from that too
as well as from wicked men, disasters and inconvenience
Trials and tribulation come
but destruction stays far from my dwelling place
surely awaiting the day when you will let me go
forgetting that even in the pit
you have called me Daughter Friend Servant
that nothing has ever been lost
nothing of yours can ever be stolen
None of yours are ever forgotten

How carefully you hedge me about, Lord
like something precious
prone to scattering

Who do you say that you are?

Just out of curiosity, which of the following do you think describes you?

The descriptions are from a book series where everyone in society self-identifies with these character traits. Sometimes the traits run in families, sometimes the don't.

If you strongly identify with one set but there's a close runner-up, you can also choose a secondary set, but it wasn't strange for a character in the series to be described as completely one thing. Like I said, it was self-identification :-)

1) Joy, hope, kindness, beauty, vision, grace, honor, spirituality

2) Courage, strength, steadfastness, loyalty, certainty, resolve, determination, power

3) Innovation, love, imagination, clarity, intelligence, charm, talent, creativity

4) Change, travel, flexibility, swiftness, resilience, luck, persistence, surprise

5) Serenity, honesty, health, fertility, contentment, patience, endurance, wealth

And, if you want, I'll tell you the group names.

I did this with a couple of co-workers and in my Facebook page, and the responses have been fun and fascinating. I'd like to see what more people have to say about themselves ;-)

8/20/15 been trying to put this into words for a while

[a love letter]

I see supermen all over the place
On the train
On the streets
Tourists
Locals
Bored men wearing their children's hand me downs
But none of them are you

Some day that will make me smile
Some day that will be a fierce testament to the man you were
(It already is)

But today
And for many days
It's a reminder that there's no more you
And there never will be again

Looking back I see...

(somehow this didn't get posted with the other May poems.  sorry about that)

...that May was rough, and it shows. Which is why I wrote "someday", I suppose.

--------------

a remembered friendship

Remember that song we both liked
from that movie we both saw
I was playing it the first time I met your husband
That's the moment I always picture now
me behind my desk
you standing
and your husband standing behind
all of us
wrapped in the simple pleasure
of a song

--------------

[untitled]

i wish we were better friends
i'd slip my arm around yours
and curl myself against your side
you'd lay your head on mine
and say something sour
until i pinched you in the end
it would be sweet
and comforting
and comfortable
without meaning more in that moment
than we mean to each other in ever other momment
then the meal would be over
and i would stand
and you would stand
we'd smile
until you said something inane
and i had to pinch you again
comforting
comfortable
nothing more and nothing less
than basking in the presence of good friends

7/27/15 2:05pm, this is the picture I keep of you

Dear Friend
my favorite picture of you
is one that you hate
plain
fresh faced
curls unruly

You were trying to make a point
if I'm not mistaken
trying to show me one thing
and I saw another

I want to replace all your made up faces
with this one
Dear Friend
the light behind you
no guile
no walls
exhausted
and honest
putting on for no one
comparing yourself to no one
you and you alone

I wish you saw in yourself
what I've always seen in that picture
the way you glow when you forget to try

5/21/15, 10:25 pm, after my dodgeball high had worn off

Dear Friend
I hold the secrets you speak in my ear

Dear Friend
I hold the secrets you speak in my hearing
never intending to reveal them to me

And it hurts to know that you've found yourself
in a place of discontent and indecision

And it hurts to know you think I wouldn't go
down to that place with you

5/12/15, how do you put this into words that ppl will believe

Dear Husband
Because I love you
I'll admit this about myself now
Instead of making you fall
Into a trap my issues design

I'm a needy thing
And jealous too
Insecure, am I
Proprietary, too
And hard to convince

Sometimes
(All the times)
I cling
Needing the reassurance
Of you against me

Like a child I will always want you near
Even when I laugh and let you go
My skin yearns for yours
My eyes yearn for visions of you
Committing the heat of you

The feel of you
The shape of you
The scent of you
To my memory over and over again
Learning every variation

On your theme
Is my failsafe against my feverish conviction
That someday you'll realize
It's better to walk away
Not that you've ever said

Nor actions you ever took
But I'm a needy thing
An insecure thing
And hard to convince, too
Let me help you

Help me