Tag: living in the moment

Poetry by Patrick Jennings
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Crescent in the Cove, Pacific Coast Highway, Northern California, United States of America

Post Haste

I stop here, most times
On my drives north up the PCH
Take a few photos

I can’t tell you where it is
Can’t find it on google maps
No GPS on the cameras I’ve used

Don’t know the cove’s name
Or the nearby town
Or even which county

Mendocino?

And I never stay long
A few breaths in the sea air
Click click click

Stretch my legs; off I go
Northward for home
Always in more haste than I’d like

I used a new lens this time
Ultra-wide fisheye
A perception changer

There’s a trail there, in this shot
Leading down to the shore
Why have I never noticed it before?

I sit here
A thousand miles away
Hankering to scramble down that trail

Maybe on the next hasty retreat north
Maybe not, maybe I should, probably won’t
Maybe I’ll remember to take a pic with my phone

It has GPS

One of these days
I’ll take more time
I should really take more time

Continue reading Post Haste
Poetry by Patrick Jennings
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Into the Grey, Britannia Beach, Howe Sound, Sea to Sky Highway, British Columbia, Canada

On Carrying the Days

Time passes
The days accumulate

The good days
The bad days
The days that broke me
The days that healed me
The days I shone
The days I withdrew into shadow

These were the days which made me
These were the days of reckoning
These were the days which guide me

I carry them all
In my burgeoning knapsack
A dull weight
On my shoulders

Then one day
I realize
I carry a burden
Impeding my progress

So I stop at the side of the trail
Open my knapsack
Look inside

All these days!
All these dark days!
Why do I carry them?

I take out the bad days
Leave them beside the trail
Take out the broken days
Leave them beside the trail
Take out the days of shadow
Leave them beside the trail

The knapsack feels lighter
I walk easier
Manage even a skip in my step

Continue reading On Carrying the Days
Poetry by Patrick Jennings
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Old Sound, Britannia Beach, Howe Sound, British Columbia, Canada

Before ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #190

I float
Gently
Back in time

To an age before
This silence of spirit
And its sorrows
These days of hardness
And slight assurances

Back to a time
Of no small beauty
When time itself
Came in an abundance
Applied to the creation
Of wondrous things
While wonder was divinely inspired

Meaning was no fleeting connection
And purpose a life’s rendition

Before profit and growth and ROI
Became ends and means and purpose

A time long before
The remains of this pier
Were ever a pier
Before ever a ship
Sailed these waters
Before any European left the shores
Of a land not yet named Europe

Gently floating
I let waves and bird song
Dominate the frantic race
Of engines on the highway behind me
Breathe the ocean deeply in
Exhale millennia of progress

For a moment, at least
I exist in a time before
All that I am
Was ever possible

Can I let this self die
This day
Allow a time before
To lead me
To a time that follows

Continue reading Before ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #190