The Howling...

The Howling... 

In November the winds remain,

Diminished in force,

Yet colder and sullen,

A foreboding season,

Still the cornucopia of harvest is celebrated,

A gathering in,

Comfort and rest with kin and kind,

A season's labor behind.

The cold comes,

Guard you well the embers of fires,

We must stand strong Winter's bane and icy bluster,

So that in Spring,

The colored leaves of Autumn will feed the blossoms soon to green the long hot Summer.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford

© 11/05/2019

Crescendo...

Crescendo... 

Rains fall like Niagara in the soaked and shivering East,

Snow builds mountains in the Rockies and Northern Plains,

Devil winds and fire tornadoes paint ashes in the West.

The winds of anger blow everywhere,

A common commotion at the center of it all,

Loud-mouth louts online and on stage,
Screaming the energy that feeds it all,
Building and howling.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford
© 10-28-2019

Flying Home...

Flying Home... 

Cool grey skies overcast blanket,

Corn-stubble muted tawny gold,

Canada geese blend into either,

As the grasses join in to wave goodbye,

Summer's fireflies long gone.

I watch my breath drift off to Heaven,

Draw my jacket a bit tighter,

Daydream of places that I used to be.

As simple as a burst milkweed pod sends seeds on October breezes,

As easy as Autumn leaves fall to Earth,

As natural as a flock of geese in formation.

I am flying home,

Just in those moments.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford

© 10/27/2019

The Old Stories...

The Old Stories... 

i cant tell now if the old stories were wilder,

Less inhibited,

More macabre,

Or just less tainted by "correctness."

All the lessons buried,

All the warnings of powers larger than ourselves,

Was it just because the forest and jungle laws were closer,

Or is it because we hid in concrete and dead wood?

Tooth and fang are going extinct,

A mistake,

Because personal extinction may be more remote,

Yet we are animals too.

True,

Fairness is a virtue,

Yet so is resilience,

Even more so nature.

Watch the seasons dance,

Tell me what is truth,

What is myth,

What is a lie?

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford

© 10/26/2019

The Grand Opening...

The Grand Opening... 

At this time,

On this night,

Through the thinnest of veils,

Spirits may rise and shine,

As we all turn to the inside,

Contemplate the passage of time,

Watching grass and flower and leaf,

The colors of myriad endings,

Countless signs of the long cold rest to come.

Drumbeats and howling winds,

Twinkling stars dance in and out of dark gray cloud curtains,

Swirl 'round the bright and lovely Moon.

The otherworlds beneath my feet and above my head,

I wander in the heart of the night.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford

© 10/24/2019

Only Over The Moon...

The Originals...

The Originals... 

The people you grew up with,

Scattered like Autumn leaves from the same tree,

Some from the very same branch,

Other from across the tree.

No matter how far the wind blows you away from the tree,

In a quantum universe,

You are still entangled.

The memory of the branches that bound you,

Of Springtime and budding,

Washed in same rains,

Of the rustling winds of Summer nights,

The shared glow of fireflies and stars,

And Autumn's cool frost and bluster.

No matter how we crumble and mulch and scatter,

You are the originals,

And I remember.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford

© 10/22/2019

The Ghost Of A House...

The Ghost Of A House... 

Autumn leaves dance on old branches,

Large and stout arms to hold the falling rain of color,

A luxurious russet blanket covering the still-green grass,

A palette yet to be painted in the crystalline tones of Jack Frost,

That wandering vagabond of cold and breath-hushed nights,

A trillion mirrors on Earth of the billion twinkling stars in Heaven's night.

I saw its bones once,

Boarded up with faded and chipping paint,

Not long before the bulldozer struck.

It haunts me on Autumn nights,

The old farmhouse at Eaton,

Where love must have been made,

Children raised and played,

Where the old oaks shade only the ghost of a house.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford

© 10/17/2019

They Call Him Vampire...

They Call Him Vampire... 

Like many things that move through the night,

The tales are taller than long shadows,

The truth is the iceberg below the surface,

And the mystery is a sought-after whisper of fantasy and dreams,

Never to be truly known.

Its said he is ancient,

This I believe.

By some freak of nature,

Some deeply-twisted whim of fate,

He never ages,

Not even a speck of grey or the smallest wrinkle.

Can you fathom what that must mean,

The cold curse it must be?

You and I lament about "never going home,"

That refuge of childhood and youth,

Yet imagine seeing it by daylight a thousand years from now,

Every sign of its existence crumbled,

Dust and built or grown over.

Could you bear to walk in the sun?

Perhaps his talk of blood flows from a time when that was all most had to give,

A time when there were no zippers,

All was buttons and ties,

And sewing needles were made of stone or bone.

To hail from an era where clocks did not exist is t be timeless,

Ruled all by Sun and Moon.

There was a time long ago when a lack of manners was cause for blood to spill,

Is it any wonder his are impeccable?

Perhaps his love died one night in a kitchen,

Red-rose blood flowing in among bits and cloves of half-minced garlic,

Solver necklace hewn from her lifeless body,

A stake driven through her heart by a jilted Von Helsing,

In an era where romance was the only true coin of life.

There are many reasons to hide in the mists of the night,

And he has lived them all.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford

© 10/15/2019

The Shallow Pumpkin...

The Shallow Pumpkin... 

The shallow pumpkin has shallow roots,

An empty gourd of poor seed,

Thin of skin and rotting from the inside out.

It is a false jack-o'-lantern,

Decaying and caving in 'fore All Hallows can even begin,

Raising a horrendous stench,

Leaking a mess upon the world at the earliest frost,

Amounting to a waste of time and effort.

Pin your hopes upon the pumpkin of deep roots,

Look for that to glow true upon the night of thin-veiled spectacle,

The light of the past illuminates a magical future.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford

©10/13/2019

I'm A Dreamer...

I'm A Dreamer... 

...And I'm not the only one.

That line was so good it deserved a welcome reprise,

Thank you John in the sky.

In the seventies and eighties sense of the term,

I believe that if we dream big enough,

Miracles can be baked out of even small potatoes.

If we let the "pragmatists" have it their way,

We would live in dark and cold caves,

Nary a wheel or spark in sight.

Dream,

All I have to do is dream...

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford

©10/08/2019

Mental Twinkies For Nerds...

Mental Twinkies For Nerds... 

Magazines on glorious glossiuss paper,

In hand at a bookstore coffee shop,

Triple-shot latte and oatmeal-raisin cookie,

Slightly warmed.

Atlantis Rising with everything from alternative energy to ancient Egyptians in the Grand Canyon,

Races of ancient giants and lost pyramids in Eastern Europe.

Nexus with much of the same plus aliens and quantum physics,

Don't forget the occasional dinosaur.

Ancient American with copper mining in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan four thousand years ago,

Hebrew fortresses in down-State Indiana in 50 BC.

Be it biblical mysteries or libraries under the paw of the Sphinx,

Electrical power plants inside the Great Pyramid at Giza,

Or even hints at finding Atlantis,

I am in geeks' Heaven.

The hours are mere minutes,

And I am an arm-chair Indiana Jones in the temple of Caffeine,

The Eterniverse laid bare at my feet.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford

© 10/10/2019 

The Poets' Ache Redux...

The Poets' Ache Redux... 

Of what use is poetry?

Where does this drive to record the stream of words from the subconscious come from?

Is it seeping into our souls from the shared intelligence of the Universe?

The mystic whispers of Muses and Angels?

Transmissions across time and space from other dimensions?

I know beyond any doubt that we poets are connected by and in it,

This adoring of the written word,

The unstoppable drive to produce them.

A clue is how it screams to me in Autumn.

An ephemeral yet undeniable force,

A drumbeat of psychic power

It manifests in an acute sense of the passage of time,

An urgency to salvage traces of moments soon to be gone forever,

Otherwise lost and forgotten.

I know in my bones that every beautiful and unique Autumn leaf will end its dance,

Become dull and moldy,

Crumble into the Earth and feed insects and worms,

Forever gone and faded from eye and mind.

Every snowflake and frost crystal will melt away,

Blades of grass mowed and mulched.

We are all leaves and snow.

Once in a great while an Autumn leaf lands in amber.

I am writing this with a pen from the late 1990's,

Shocked that it still writes,

Caught in amber like a tiny miracle.

Perhaps we all hope to be so lucky as the leaf in amber,

Or as pyramids and sphinxes,

With enough mystery to be worthy of memory or at least investigation.

How many notebooks full of art and poetry lie in musty boxes,

Lost to attics and basements and old garages,

Or buried in landfills,

Perhaps sitting on a shelf in an abandoned gold mine,

In a dusty nightstand in a bedroom of a ghost town saloon,

And worse,

In abandoned poetry boards scattered in forgotten dark attics of the internet?

It would need an army of love to save them all.

I ache for our words to be blessed with Amber.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford

© 10/08/2019

No Spectators In The Pumpkin Wars...

No Spectators In The Pumpkin Wars... 

I tend to fall...well,

Autumn,

In with the traditionalists,

Tories of pumpkin as it were.

Pumpkin pie and coffee is sacred,

Nearly as hallowed as jack-o'-lanterns,

Though not so far as to need a turnip harvest,

I find Linus quite modern,

Searching for some "Great- Pumpkin".

Spice this and spice that,

Ceareal and ice cream,

Probably shampoo and soap,

Destroying perfectly good bacon,

Will asparagus be next,

Or is it caviar and champagne?

I'll go as far as pancakes,

Just leave my devilled eggs in a natural state,

Zucchini too.

There is only one way I'll consort with the enemy...

...Venti,

Triple-shot,

No whip,

Don't skip the nutmeg and allspice,

There in the land of magazines and good books,

Or perhaps poetry.

Look!

Look at the pretty leaves!

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford

© 10-6-2015

A Leaf Dancing In Dreamland...

A Leaf Dancing In Dreamland... 

Blowing down the street in the heart of the night,

I whirl in the air and skitter over pavement,

Tickling obstacles before rolling over and around,

Spinning color changes in the show-light pools of street lamps.

I am the dry rustle that scares you at first,

The troupe of dancers in the company of foggy-breathed chill nights,

With a supporting cast of fleeting charcoal clouds and blinking twinkle stars.

I am the prophet spectre of a year's ending.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford

© 10/05/2019

Midnight Oil...

Midnight Oil... 

...Or maybe a candle,

Well,

Ok,

A lamp,

After all,

We are in a post-Edison-and-Tesla era.

And yet,

The lights are soft,

My heart is open,

Pen in the hand gliding over paper,

A spiral notebook,

My favorite,

Filling with poetry,

At the cadence of my Muse.

I am thinking of our far-off Paladin,

With a vision of healing,

Heartful of hope,

Future still clothed in fine robes of possibility.

There is something powerful about these hours in the season of Autumn,

Indeed all the year,

Yet now the most.

The cool nights,

Low golden angle of afternoon sun,

Promise of Orion's return to the bejeweled Heavens.

The tinge of color is creeping upon both tree and bush,

Leaves not yet skittering down the streets,

Yet I find that I can't stop from turning them.

AquarianM

© 10/02/2019

By: Daniel A. Stafford

The Sunday Paper...

The Sunday Paper... 

We were watching the Sunday Morning show on CBS,

A Sunday tradition of ours,

Her passing comment took me back decades;

"Like in the Sunday Paper..."

I remember a time when you were lucky,

Maybe a single gas station in town was open,

Family and friends home together.

The expanded comics section was in color rather than black and white,

"The funny papers" some called them.

The arts and theater for the week listed in all their glory,

Reviews and previews.

The local community section with local accomplishments and festivals,

Who won the bake-off,

The local boy who my officer,

College and high school graduations and weddings,

Honorees,

Exotic vacations townspeople were taking.

Himtan interests were the best,

How to keep blacksmithy alive,

Or cutting ice on the river fifty years ago,

Maybe how a new museum was being planned.

Of course there was a gossip section too.

The best days of another era.

AquarianM

© 09/29/2019

By: Daniel A. Stafford

The Pits...

The Pits... 

As my Mother used to say,

"Sometimes in life you get cherries,

Other times it's just the pits."

What was never mentioned;

Sometimes those small hard things might just crack a tooth,

Yet with a little effort and a lot of luck...

Well,

Cherry trees are large,

Fruitful,

Beautiful in bloom.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford

© 09/27/2019

The Scent Of The Grind...

The Scent Of The Grind... 

The beans spill into the hopper,

As I spin the handle in and antique tradition,

The scent washes over me,

Serenity and satisfaction falling,

Ground down and landing in a brown paper bag,

Old-school air freshener,

That rich brown,

Percolator-bound brown gold.

For a few days,

I have the best-smelling garage on the planet.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford

© 09/25/2017

Tarash Sparau...

Tarash Sparau...

There is an ancient name,
They say it was sung by the last summer winds,
In chorus with the stormy gales of autumn,
Tarash Sparau,
The Song In The Breeze,
A magical creature of a season's moment,
The essence of the edge of summer and fall,
She wears a cloak of many colors,
It's vista is that of summer flowers,
Dancing with the turning leaves,
As the season turns all tawny and fire,
Last vestiges of soft pastel and brilliant riots,
Tarash Sparau's cool laughter in grey clouds,
Billowing pillows in the vast sky dimming,
There when mortals are not seeing the wood for the trees,
With their leaves of flaming crimson and yellow gold,
As the leaves broadcast the sunset of the season,
Tarash Sparau bears the horn of plenty,
Carrying it to now hale Autumn,
And Tarash Sparau's fine cloak of colors,
Whipping and flapping in changing breezes,
Resembles owls in the woods,
Or sometimes flocks of blackbirds upon the wing,
And this year Tarash Sparau cries crystal tears,
Raining from her pale sunset eyes,
For her sweet sister Summer is stained crimson,
And Angels with Soul Catchers surround her abed,
Dark eyed and solemn as they await a winter of the spirit,
Their halos of golden light offset by black feathered wings,
Their eyes all a mist for the duty they bear,
For again men's souls have taken the chill of Winter,
Haughty and cold and bringing endings with no remorse,
They have become minions of the Ice Queen,
Their souls puppets on strings in a frozen celestial lair,
And sweet Summer has wept herself to sleep,
Verde, Summer, buenos notches, y vaya con Dios,
Sleep in the arms of God,
Your sweet sister Primavera,
Oh angelic Spring and her gentle blue eyes,
Had no ill winds sweeping through her wild blown hair,
No, Tarash Sparau is bade by Autumn,
"Carry the prayers of men to the council of angels,
Let God's own ear hear the plight and wailing voices."
As an angel cups palms 'round every lit candle,
Tarash Sparau sings her tearful message,
Begging for kindness upon the ears of all,
Or at least all with a heart to hear.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A.Stafford
(C) 09/25/2001

Author's Comments:
I feel a sadness in the passing of summer, even more
than in so many years before, because this year,
winter took hearts and froze them still so long before
their time should ever have come, and those chill
hearts that have lost all mercy and caring wish to bring
more death into the world. I wish their eyes could see
visions of the summer's sweetness instead.

American Corn...

American Corn...

Cheesey,

Embellished,

Kitschy,

Ticky-tacky knic-knac,

I love all these roadsides,

Waving brash history's hat,

It's all fascinating,

The stories of bygone days,

The glories of our bric-a-brac.

Polish up the bullhorn,

Paint up a new sign,

Print it in the paper,

Blogs and social media,

Everywhere you can think and find,

Radio and TV,

Podcast and YouTube,

It's all very well.

Bring out the children,

Animals and local celebrities,

Old coaches and whistling trains.

From the world's largest ketchup bottle,

To castles in death valley,

Mining caves and ghost towns,

Cotton candy and carnivals,

Snap crackle and pop,

I love American Corn.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford

© 09/22/2019

Author's Note:

Inspired by adventures with my wife, remembered through Huell Howser.

https://www.kcet.org/shows/californias-gold-with-huell-howser/episodes/wedding-of-the-waters

The Great Spinning...

The Great Spinning... 

To cover our nakedness,

The first cloth was long-ago spun.

All of life is made up of vortices,

Perhaps everything in the Great All must spin.

Every galaxy in the universe has been spinning since the beginning of time,

Just as do the planets around the Sun,

Jupiter's great Red Spot,

Saturn's majestic rings.

Water down a drain mirrors currents in the seas,

Winds and waves swirling and twirling,

So too tornadoes and hurricanes.

Sound waves spin the air,

Like pressure sculptures invisible.

Love is a vortex always reaching for our center,

Epic whet a brief tornado,

Endless jet stream,

Or brief Summer zephyr,

Leaving us forever changed.

Lies must also be spun,

Like a spider's web,

They are sticky and difficult to maintain,

Anchoring their author in time and place,

Often destroyed by larger forces.

Just as maple seed and Autumn leaves spin to the ground,

So too I imagine the breath in our lungs,

The blood in our veins.

Even electrons and atomic particles spin,

Made up of spinning quarks and magnetic fields.

I imagine other universes spin in dimensions we cannot see,

Perhaps meeting at the center of black holes.

The seasons and our lives exist because things spin,

Even rays of light and snowflakes wind their ways to their destinations.

Perhaps that's why I wrote this in cursive,

My pen spinning to the Muse's lovely tune.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford

© 09/22/2019

Did They Bury Candyo In A Car?

Did They Bury Candyo In A Car? 

So the music died again this week,

Another splinter universe created,

A place of fewer songs.

If all the Earth is salted,

Are there still places for a Muse to land,

Ears not too tired to hear a subtle whisper on the wind?

The guitars are dusty,

And I have to go back to work tomorrow.

My soul says "Let's go."

AquarianM

© 09/15/2019

By: Daniel A. Stafford

Author's Note:

I just got word of Ric from The Cars passing away this evening.

I Hear A River...

I Hear A River... 

It is easy to imagine sound as a river,

With all its twists,

Changes in pitch,

Gentle or fierce.

I hear silence as the river.

Bounded by banks of sound,

Silence flows deep or shallow,

Shaping and giving meaning to the landscape of sound.

It is the silence at the end of our course that returns to an ocean of void,

Carrying the dust of our ending into the depths of eternal quiet.

When the silence evaporates,

We are found back upon its river,

Recycled once again.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford

© 02/10/2019

Dream Visions...

Dream Visions is an antique book of sheet music that I purchased many years ago. It's a series of waltzes. I love the cover art.

I scanned the cover many years ago:

I love the idea of using this with a poem at some point.

Dan

Antiquity Went Green...

Antiquity Went Green... 

In the verdant springtime of mankind,

The world was lush and rich with life,

Varied of color and shape,

Wealthy with the force of life.

Then the coins came,

Were swallowed by peasants and bankers,

The wee folk loved shiny objects,

Lusted for bread without labor,

A trick of magic.

Nobility was crafted out of gold cloth,

Inedible,

Inexorable.

A masterful game of death and darkness,

Playing charades of light and glitter,

A Mardi Gras masquerade,

Unleashing softly-covered breasts and treasures,

Of every description and nature,

A trick of light and sorcery,

Woven into the fabric of language.

What a dark psychic poison it is.

Sloth begets a lust for shiny baubles,

The most ancient of psyops,

Infowars from the infancy of Humanity.

Can you imagine life without the language of the bank?

How much of every tongue would require excision,

How much mental space would need vacation?

I can easily see a green new deal,

It existed before we did.

It's why we are,

Likely to be why we were,

Failing a recognition of the dream as the nightmare.

Rasputin was legend,

Mesmer fabled.

They pale under the gleam of gold and silver,

The ringing song of coin and register.

Wake up,

Make a bed of swaying boughs,

The singing rustle of leaves,

The swaying of flowers and buzzing of bees,

The rise and set of the Sun.

Go back to the green and bury the gold.

May Day, May Day, May Day!

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford

© 05/01/2019

Battle Cry...

Battle Cry... 

It used to shriek and ding,

Now it softly groans om,

The drumbeat of sleepy feet,

Never truly rested,

Off again to be tested.

Pet the cats,

Slip on slippers,

Start the coffee,

Set out clean clothes,

Brush and shower,

Master the comb.

Dress and button,

Zip and tie,

Pour the pot,

Kiss on the fly,

Hop in the truck,

Turn the key.

Flip on the radio,

Start up Maps,

She reads me directions,

Where the traffic is at.

Tick-tock-tick,

I'm racing away,

I won't slow down,

Not 'til the end of the day.

Every which way,

My attention is split,

In fours and threes,

There's never enough of me,

Slap and dash,

Fire of the moment,

A job truly well-done,

That's way back in history.

Produce with the least,

That's the new American battle cry!

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford

© 04/24/2019

Wistful Thinking - Columbia...

Wistful Thinking - Columbia... 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_(name)

The people's goddess,

Part caricature,

Lady Liberty's elder sister,

Protector in spirit of the Underdog,

She is wrapped in an archaic and tattered flag,

Threadbare and mud-stained,

With blood at her feet.

What happens when goddesses are all but forgotten?

Rot, 

Decay,

Withered trunk,

Yellowed laurel leaves,

Yet with life under the soil,

Roots precariously alive.

She walks limping with a cane,

Sleeping under bridges,

A thousand purple hearts jangling her tattered pockets,

Thousands more littering ditches and landfills.

All for a lack of unity,

A missing depth of compassion,

The carnival barkers' auctioning of the great society.

Ghostly tears wash through tracks of concrete dust,

The bridges and railroads crumbling about her head,

A cloudy wreath for a dull halo.

The empty towns her feet have trudged,

Lifeless soil and vanished insects,

Frankencrops tended by robotic tractors,

Flaming faucets in delapidated farm houses,

The empty backyard swings rusting to nothing.

There used to be promise and honesty in a plow,

Eggs on tables and fish in creeks,

A land of an abundant future.

Columbia is humbled by the seashore,

Microplastic tatters falling from her dishevelled raiments,

Waiting for us all to look up from our screens,

Actually see our neighbors and our world.

Long ago it was said all that glitters is not gold,

But I think everyone has forgotten.

United we stand,

Out of many are one,

So it was said.

We were all once American,

And Columbia was our darling.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford

© 04/14/2019

Melodic Nostalgia...

Melodic Nostalgia... 

Sometimes they come to me,

An ear-worm in a box frame of faded memory,

Playing over and over in my head,

Bringing me to the haunting days of youth,

An iridescent shimmer tinged with yellowed age,

Seen through misty rose-colored glasses.

I wonder who will sing these songs in ages to come,

As snippets slip from my lips in moments of early-morning reverie.

I thought many were forgotten,

Now I know there are hidden corners in my head,

Treasure boxes faded with time,

Priceless and ephemeral.

There are rose gardens tucked away in Southwestern ghost towns,

Rose rustlers occasionally visit for lost treasures,

Forgotten flowers from long ago.

Are we all the rose rustlers of musical history?

Break the burning silence of sunrise,

Perhaps you'll know,

Especially if the tune is light and easy to carry.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford

© 04/12/2019

Old Songs And Karaoke...

Old Songs And Karaoke...

I was told as an early teenager that I sang like a frog,

Of course that crack made me jump back in the pond,

Not so much as a croak for decades,

Young egos are like silly putty,

Soft and pliable,

Unless I was alone in the car.

As a young child I loved Elvis movies,

So did my brother and sister,

Pretty melodies,

Pretty girls,

Pretty cars and boats,

Wide-eyed poet child with open ears.

My childhood hero faded,

We moved,

Other music was everywhere,

So were books,

Along with pre-teen angst,

That longing to fit in,

Somewhere,

Somehow.

Decades passed,

A chance vacation with my pretty wife,

An Elvis CD in a rack,

And the King sang to us all the way home.

It all flooded back,

That simple joy.

Soon the King rode with me to work,

And back,

My new voice coach,

My old childhood friend.

A wayward karaoke party,

Elvis in the list,

So the frog hopped back out,

Maybe not a prince,

Maybe more than a croak,

But I still love it,

An old secret passion,

Some right-brain splash on a left-brain world.

Those rusty old pipes still work a little,

Who knew?

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford

© 04/08/2019

Boing-Boing-Bang!

Boing-Boing-Bang!

How I long for the internet of yesteryear,

The simplicity and easy read,

The uncomplicated pages and sweet graphics,

The possibility of depth,

Of unbroken concentration.

Today's American web,

It's like NASCAR on methamphetamine,

Fast,

Likely to crash into the crowd,

So highly unstable.

In the UK they remember the better age,

The worth of a long read,

A slow afternoon and a good story.

I think the Ferenghi have invaded Earth,

Flash boom bah,

Boing boing bang,

Click-bait poison,

And I have to ask now,

Do I still have your attention?

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford

(C) 02/08/2019

Touch O' The Night...

Touch O' The Night...

The constellation Orion snapped with a Galaxy S10.

They say space is the final frontier,
I'd have to agree,
Whether it's an innie or an outie,
Thinking about it in the average Jane and Joe's context,
Well that's tantamount to navel-gazing,
But pleasant.

It's the wee hours again,
So here I am playing in the poetic garden,
Dancing with my old friends,
It's not often the gate's left open these days,
But I'll take a sip of dreams when I can get it.

I need that quiet,
That recharge,
The drop in stimuli,
All flight depends upon it.

At least I got to look up for a bit,
Before Monday's alarm sounds,
Cool as it is that I made it play Om.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford
(C) 03/31/2019

Alien Holiday...

Alien Holiday...

Are elves really green?

I mean,

Like Vulcans in love,

Crazy in a strange and magical way,

Driven to toy-making as a form of exotic release?

Is it a sleigh or a saucer,

And reindeer or Cheshire cats in reindeer suits,

Wearing bells and antigravity boots?

Be it a pipe or a sonic screwdriver,

That bottomless bag of presents,

Well,

From around here,

Not are they.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford

© 12/15/2018

Circular History...

Circular History...

I dream of esoteric knowledge lost to the steel march of Rome,

Of Druids among trees,

Branches burned by empire,

A dusty mirror of Europe lost,

Reflecting still today,

A sullen angle of greed amok.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford

© 01/04/2019

A Tree Of Celebration...

A Tree Of Celebration...

Rooted in the lower world,

Land of spirits and ghosts,

Loved ones from seasons past,

Their stories remembered once again.

Ground beneath blanketed,

With snow and a great sharing,

The bounty of this year given,

With love and joy wished to all.

The stars and spirts circle up to the heavens,

Spinning about the pole star,

All beautiful,

Tucked away in boughs and branches of reality,

Or out at the edges shining.

Past,

Present,

Future,

Mystical and mundane,

All in Spirit are one.

Love rules this Universe,

Vision helps us ride it,

And today we must see and send to all.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford

© 12/24/2018

Nearing Solstice...

Nearing Solstice...

A cool crisp night,

Sharp pretty stars hidden by charcoal clouds,

I sit outside with a jacket,

Shivering out poetry to the scent of a quiet cigar.

I need poems in my life,

I need these quiet moments,

A brief bubble in which my soul can echo,

And commune with those riding this wavelength,

Taking a pen and weaving the frayed threads of life into wonder.

It's here in this space that I can recharge,

Vent the pent-up artistry this world devalues,

Salute my peers,

Distance myself from the dog-eat-dog,

Dream of bourbon and nog.

There are mysteries deeper and deeper,

What is and what lies underneath,

Reconnection to the Universal,

Unformed by the blasphemous treason of human desires,

Simply be and be me in the world I would wish.

Perhaps if I could see it vividly enough,

Write it clearly enough,

A world that values love and compassion might emerge,

A vision of a future of light.

So much we could do,

If only I could somehow share the gift of Thor's hammer,

The electricity of insight,

Meant to build rather than batter.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford

© 12/14/2018

Sartia's Halo Polish...

Sartia's Halo Polish...

Even halos get dulled,
Centuries of flights in all weather,
Missions of mercy and constant scenes of agony,
The acid in an angel's tears pits even the best materials,
And the corrosion of the soul facing death,
Time after time after time,
Followed by the healing expansion of spirit,
The one you get in the joy of a miracle delivered,
The flowery scent of tears of joy,
When a mother sees her child cry away near death,
Surviving with no longer fevered little curls,
Still damp with the sweat of fate,
Sartia's hands have always been brave,
As she scrubs the crags of woe from their halos,
As each touch brings a flash of the visions,
The sight of what the Heavenly host have borne,
As Sartia rinses them with martyrs' blood,
And tears of requited love,
Under God's golden moonlight,
In her little garden world of pale roses,
Her blue eyes are ancient,
And her soft face is ever young,
As the shaken hug her in mutual comfort,
Their halos returned after each brief respite,
Their crushing weight for a time lifted,
She cries but softly in her state of gentle grace.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford
(C) 12/18/2001

Rowan's Promise...

Rowan's Promise...

Rowan had long locks of hair,
The color of Autumn fire,
Streaked through with chestnut brown.

Her eyes like amber and cinnamon were filled with an easy smile,
Warm like morning embers,
Easy to rekindle the bright light of laughter.

Rowan was the first-born daughter of Summer,
Her childhood filled with yellow dandelions and their seed-children flying on soft breezes,
Tickle-chin and bumble bees,
Butterflies and clover,
Beautiful lilac bushes and fireflies.

Soon enough came cool days,
Grasses grown tall and tufted,
Rabbits hiding abed and birds in big swooping black flocks,
Milkweed bursting with soft white and acorns falling,
Their caps like lost hats,
With breath hanging in the air like magic.

The leaves on the trees were mimics,
Vivid mirrors of Rowan's bright hair or her mother's,
Brown and red and orange and yellow,
Like cartoon fire decorating the land.

In what seemed like only a breath of time,
The air turn ed shimmering white as young Rowan exhaled,
Ponds became dark reflecting sheets of the soft charcoal-gray skies,
White flakes fell to Earth,
Days shortened into long and dark nights,
The stars became sharp and bright,
And drifts of snow rolled across the open fields,
Tufted by the tall locks of tawny-gold grasses and dark leafless trees.

Rowan and Summer lit candles and watched the Hunter dance across the cold dark nights.

It was one these long dark nights that Summer began to teach her daughter of their family:

"Rowan,
My love,
The time we just passed with the turning of the leaves,
The harvest and the falling of seeds,
The flight of the milkweed seed and the seeds of tall grasses on the wind,
The time of first breath steaming the air and first frost upon the prairies and windows,
That time was your time,
Your beauty lavishing the Earth."

Rowan smiled and remembered the beautiful colors,
And the feeling of the Spirit World close to the world of the living.

Summer continued the education of her daughter in her soft and warm voice:

"The time before that when all was green and hot,
When bees were busy and flowers turned to seed,
When leaves were emerald and creatures were swimming,
When dandelions showed their yellow heads and nights were warm and soft,
When birds raised their chicks,
That time was my time,
My beauty lavishing the Earth."

Rowan closed her amber eyes and remembered her youngest days,
When she roamed barefoot and waded in ponds chasing pretty dragonflies.

Summer continued on by the flickering light of candles,
As the snowy winds howled strong and frigid outside their house of stone and thatch,
An ancient abode made warm by the fire in a large hearth:

"Now we are in the time of my Grandmother Winter,
And this is her time,
And she will lavish her beauty upon the Earth."

Rowan's eyes opened in colorful surprise,
Full of doubt and disbelief.

"Mother,"
Said Rowan in a voice of dry leaves rustling in the tree tops,
"How can you call such as this beauty?"

Rowan gave depth to her question in a voice like a honking flock of geese and the flapping of many birds' wings:

"I can not bear to move far from our front door,
The trees look dead as sticks,
The paths I ran upon are treacherous with ice and snow,
The birds and bees and butterflies are all gone away,
And even the spiders,
Every pond is a sheet of ice as black as night,
And if the frozen winds do not chill my bones,
Then they howl and shriek about our door,
Worse if they are gone all is silent and dark as the days are short!"

Summer smiled as a wolf howled at the bright full Moon somewhere across the fields.

She replied to her daughter in the tones of a babbling brook and gently-rustling grasses:

"Look in the morning at the silver and crystal of the icicles in early sun,
And hear tonight the quiet inside,
For this is the time of rest and reflection,
Of learning and stories and tales of things long-gone and grand,
The time when old things pass and are either forgotten or woven into legend and songs,
As all the world makes ready for the arrival of my Mother,
The ever-lovely and new Spring."

Summer went on in the voice of bees buzzing and birds singing in the rustling boughs of trees:

"My Grandmother Winter is the source of all that is or ever will be,
She is the cold and the night,
The great void in which the Sun and Stars all nest,
She is the endless river of Time that allows the emergence of all which is new."

Upon these words a knocking came to their front door,
As if a sheet of snow and ice were flung at it,
And Summer smiled when she reached to open it for her dear Grandmother.

With a chill draft and a swirl of flurries,
Winter stepped over the threshold,
And the fire leapt and crackled as a burst of cold air rushed into the hearth,
Thereby feeding the burning of the logs stacked within.

She was beautiful,
With long and pale white hair trimmed in glittering ice crystals,
Her eyes as pale a blue as twinkling starlight,
Her hand like gnarled tree-bark clutching a staff of long-dead oak,
Her shawl of frost lace,
Covering the shoulders of her long black dress of deepest night,
Clasped together with the Moon as her brooch.

Winter looked down at her stunned great-granddaughter,
And she smiled like moonlight peeking through the dark clouds of a snowstorm in the night.

She spoke then,
And it was like the thunder of a distant avalanche accompanying carolers singing:

"Granddaughter,
You are lovely,
Born to herald my coming to the World,
The color before my pale and dark presence,
And I give you your True Name with love,
Autumn you will always be,
And a tree with red fruit will bear your child-name,
For all to remember your first season."

As Winter spoke,
The first rowan tree appeared,
In the ground at the foot of the path leading to Summer's door,
Just in the place where Autumn had first played as a toddler,
Its red fruit blended against the deep green of the pines,
And so we have the colors of Yuletide,
To remember the passing of Autumn's time to that of Winter.

Autumn's amber eyes danced with delight,
However Winter had further to tell her lovely great-granddaughter.

Winter's voice this time was the shrieking howl of a gale upon the frigid sea:

"When the wheel turns past my time,
Will come my first daughter Spring,
With flowers and new creatures born,
Early rains and new leaf-buds upon the trees,
Though you will never meet your lovely Grandmother,
Nor she you,
I shall tell her of you dear,
And you must tell all the World each year that I am coming,
So that All may be renewed."

"I will and I shall dear Grandmother!"
Autumn promised in a voice of a scythe singing among stalks of wheat.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford
(C) 11/24/2018

Flying At Night...

Flying At Night...

Meditation brings a deep buzzing,

Like a power line resting on your body,

Through your very bones.

Suddenly you are free.

Adrift in time and space,

A mere whim takes you away,

Touching the face of a star,

Or perhaps spinning your favorite galaxy like a top.

To see the beauty of Atlantis,

For that I would gladly fly.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford

© 11/12/2018

All The Things Santa Ana Left Us...

All The Things Santa Ana Left Us...

The mountains so pretty,

Green after a fresh rain,

Golden when dry,

Boulder-strewn and dotted,

They underscore the sunsets,

Orange-purple-indigo reach for the fading sun.

The winds so fierce,

Blowing hot and dry,

Bellowing like a politician,

Stoking the hellfires we dread.

The humming birds so nimble,

Around us they flit and flutter,

Hover above our flowers,

Red caps and green vests,

We feed them sugar-water,

Giving thanks for blooming fruit.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford

© 11/12/2018

Where There is Smoke...

Where There is Smoke...

The scenes look like a fire-breathing minister went to confront the rattlesnakes in the desert brush,

Probably with a can of gasoline.

Paradise is totally in ashes,

Just gone like the title of an old book,

Malibu is completely evacuated under smoke clouds the size of Texas thunderstorms.

It's on a biblical scale alright.

Ninety thousand acres here,

Three hundred thousand acres there,

Top off with people fleeing walls of flame doing eighty.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford

© 11/09/2018

Pastoralis...

Pastoralis...

The vista is immense,

Expansive and panoramic,

At once immediate and timeless.

A water buffalo lives next to a Holstein steer,

Camel the next pen over,

Just before the wallaby cage,

As a honeybee chases me off the shady bench.

I have been watching the sun shine,

Down onto the mountains and the vinyards,

Glorying in the silence of the winds as crows soar on thermal spirals.

Our granddaughters and their new friend have been playing in the chicken coop.

The rabbits do not mind.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford

© 11/04/2018

Life On The Small Screen...

Life On The Small Screen...

All motion ceases as the world comes into focus,

This narrow lens that feeds our minds like a fire hose,

The stream of thought bought from others,

Limited to the goods in someone else's bazaar.

Where is the contemplative silence of our own meditations?

The intricacies of bygone times may be beyond us now,

Lost in the race of electrons and photons hammering our brains with paid programming.

Thus are we encoded.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford

© 11/07/2018

Dissonance De Ego...

Dissonance De Ego...

I am purposely mixing languages in my title,

Just to give a little jarring note,

Like the atmosphere around me,

A jangling and discordant ambiance.

Here I am,

Oatmeal-raisin cookie eaten,

Favorite coffee to hand,

On the tiny sliver of weekend,

The eked- out hour,

Where I might be here.

Immediately behind us is an animated conversation,

Intelligent and intellectual,

The highest level of whining,

Complaining gossip on a level I have never before heard 

Might I growl yet??

Carrumba!

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford

© 10-26-2018

Author's Note:

Last Friday evening at Barnes and Noble.

The Tinkerer...

The Tinkerer...

A gadget is an object of delight,,

Better yet retro or steam punk,

Whiz-bang spark and flash,

Function with flair and panache.

It's always about making it work,

But making it look good never hurts.

Iron and steel and steam and wood,

Sparks and fire,

Hot air and smoke.

Resourcefulness is an art form.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford

© 10-28-28

A Poets' Moon...

A Poets' Moon...

...can withstand a more varied light,

Or forlorn weather,

The coldest of winds and baleful gusts.

A lovers' Moon needs fullness,

Soft Summer night breezes,

Twinkling stars and music,

Candlelight or a gently-flickering fire.

A poets' Moon can withstand the flight of a raven across its gaze,

Or a dragon or witch or bat,

The first flurries of an encroaching blizzard,

Even the distant thunder and lightning,

Echoes of storms passed,

Anything in the Universe might appear.

A poets' moonlight will bare it naked,

Expose its core for all the night to see.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford

© 10-28-2018

The High Priestess Of Sound...

The High Priestess Of Sound...

This world we live in is all out of tune,
Changed to fix a mathematical error,
Sometime back in the sixteen hundreds,
A convenience for the composer's sake.

Don't worry the wineglass,
Darling,
It may shatter explosively,
Yet only if it is the finest crystal of purity.

Pure notes devoid of linguistic meaning,
Therein lies the magic,
The root form of creation and cohesion.

A community of pure sound.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford
(C) 10-26-2018

Autumn In California...

Autumn In California...

A subtle change of hue,

Delicate tilt of Solar angle,

Tinges of color lend a subdued glow to specific plants and trees,

Especially in late afternoon or evening.

Nothing so overt as the blazing colors and tawny grasses,

The visible breath and frosted mornings of my native Wisconsin.

Here in Summer's Winter home,

Jack Frost is a rare guest in court,

Though mist and fog blanket the tops of mountains,

Ceiling over canyons in hushed morning reverence.

Verdancy is only limmed by Autumn fire,

Yet Orion rises.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford

(

Brain-Shaking The Universe...

Brain-Shaking The Universe...

A quantum field is the waving grass of endless possibility,

Waving this way and that,

Depending on the winds of thought,

Tickling the feet of minds all about the Multiverse.

If an ordinary human has the wing-breeze of a monarch butterfly,

Then poets are as an albatross,

Where a shaman or yogi may be a Thunderbird or Dragon,

Shaking fluid reality,

Or soaring on the shared winds of monarch migrations.

We all dream of being hurricanes.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford

© 10/18/2018

I Want To Dream...

I Want To Dream...

...Of a sound,

Maybe a droning hum,

Or possibly a drumming drum,

One sound that lets me see,

Drowns out all the wicked noise.

I will dream it so clearly,

So tight to the sound,

That I will see a new universe,

One full of trees,

With clean air and crystal-clear skies,

I'll see for miles.

There will be no clocks,

No tick-tocks,

Everyone will wake when they do,

 And fall to sleep then too,

Work at things that they love,

Where art and crafting are of value...

They and I will write there,

in beautiful flowing cursive,

A beloved finger print.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford

In The Moment...

In The Moment...

Joy flows from the smallest of things,

Sunrise to open eyes,

The scent of a grandmother's kitchen,

A warm coffee mug on a frosted morning.

Gold may bring ease,

Possibly,

But it is cold in your hands,

Will break your teeth,

Make you look over your shoulder,

Always glancing side to side.

As long as there is food,

Friendship,

A beloved face to see and touch,

A voice intoned in warmth,

A fire and a candle,

Somewhere soft to lay your head,

Wealth is all about you,

Simply awaiting definition.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafgord

© 10/13/2018

Inspired by Anil's poem above.

Public-Domain E-Book: "The Great Book Of Blizzard..."

Preface to "The Great Book Of Blizzard":

The Poetry that is contained in these pages is the result of a lifetime spent mostly in places with real Winter; The Great Lakes for the most part, yet also the Great Plains, the Rockies of Colorado, and even mid-North Texas and Northern New Mexico.

In the face of Climate Change, I wanted to save and preserve what it was like to live in these places in the era of actual Winters.

Many of these poems are what I like to call “Poetic Memoir,” and are based on real events in my life. Some are simply fantasy based on a lifetime of experience with snow and Winter...real Winters.

Although I have lived in Southern California for four years as of the completion of this compilation in 2018, never forget that I am a native of Wisconsin who spent fifty years in the Midle West of these United States of America. My family still lives there, and lives with snow.

For those of you who find snowy Winters a novelty, or know it not at all, I hope this book can give you a deeper understanding of what it was like.

What so many forget is that almost everything in nature needs a period of rest and renewal before the busy regrowth of Springtime. Even humanity needs – and mostly neglects – quiet time to turn inward, reflect, and recharge.

Thank you for reading.

With love and light,

Daniel A. Stafford

10/07/2018

This book donated to Public Domain

Download .PDF e-book for free HERE.

The Whirling Dervish Of The Middle Country...

The Whirling Dervish Of The Middle Country...

They bide their time all the long Winter,

Finally dry enough to fly as Spring renews the Earth.

At some point,

The dry and dead stem snaps and releases,

And the mother tree is left,

Towering immobile above the soil.

If the only moment a plant knows in its long life is as a seed,

These must be among the most graceful.

Spinning,

Whirling,

Twirling.

They settle softly to their bed of chance.

Maple seeds are a wonder of nature.

A single-bladed helicopter, 

They have been toys for children as long as children could see them flying.

I wonder if Igor Sikhorsky was a maple-seed child?

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford

© 07/06/2018

Ever So Much More So...

Ever So Much More So...

Not a moment goes by in quiet,

Clock hands whirl in a furious rush,

Every second wrapped in a harried agenda.

We are infinitely more connected to the wider world,

Lost in the demands of the little rectangular devils in our pockets.

I have not read a complete novel in two years,

And there are people besides me who would consider that evidence of a collapsing universe.

Carry on,

Wayward souls,

But quickly.

Tick-tock.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford

© 09/30/2018

Nostalgic...

Nostalgic...

There is something about this poetry board,

A feeling,

A look,

An essence.

As close as I can come to holding paper and turning pages,

When there is really glass and plastic in my hand,

Glowing.

It almost seems the older posts might yellow with age.

This is a good thing,

In its way a glorious achievment.

I only hope the place keeps its soul.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford

© 09/30/2018

Elvis In The Temple...

Elvis In The Temple...

It was a strange dream,

Odd and disjointed,

Nothing new for the painters of night graffiti.

I was walking down an old street in the deep South,

Walking up to a seemingly abandoned ruin.

Oddly, it was a place I knew by deja vu.

An enormous concrete pyramid,

Overgrown with vines and ivy,

Shaded dark at night,

Imposing and immensely heavy.

The entrance was under the light pool of a lonely old street lamp,

The kind that resembles a gaslight.

Just as I was about to walk up to the door,

A long black limosine pulled up,

Disgorging three very unexpected spectres in the flesh.

Elvis was in the middle,

An old man in a suit first with a key,

A beautiful woman followed.

All of them were dressed in fine black clothes, looking sharp and purposeful.

Elvis glanced and me, said "Hello, Dan" in a kind but lofty and dismissive voice,

Leaving me acknowledged,

Yet neither declined nor encouraged.

I followed the trio into the temple of night,

A place oddly mixed with finely-appointed rooms and crumbling bare-concrete empty spaces.

In the empty rooms were crumbling statues,

Cheap concrete replicas from the look of it,

Chipped and barely standing in places.

There were high ledges about the perimeter of these empty places,

A black cat seemingly trapped on one high ledge,

Mewling.

I climbed a statue that threatened to topple at every move,

Rescued the ungrateful beast,

Which promptly dashed away into unseen corners.

Finally I made my way into a softly lit room,

And the three spirits in flesh were there lounging,

About some unearthly business I never learned of.

The place was carpeted finely,

Rich tapestries all about,

Clearly that had not been seen by human eyes in at least a decade,

Perhaps more.

Elvis glanced at me briefly,

A glimmer of momentary observance with no depth,

As if I were a distant acquaintance,

And I sat in a chair nearby,

Watching.

Whatever they were conversing,

It was not audible to me,

Hidden,

Not for my ears clearly.

Elvis stood up as they were leaving,

Stepped over and silently handed me a lamp that no longer worked,

Having its form but robbed of its function.

I briefly elated,

Thinking the King had given me some odd gift,

Foolishly,

For attached to the bottom was a tag,

A note with a hand-scrawled name,

Not mine.

"Servant, a service to the King,"

I thought.

I took it in stride,

A deliveryman for a musical nightshade,

And opened my eyes to yawn.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford

© 09/29/2018

Memoir: A Cigar With The Lost Sugar Queens Of Old Havana...

The night is one of quiet celebration. Appropriately, it is the evening of the Autumnal equinox.

The air is cool in the high desert of Temecula; A light jacket perfect. The stars shine above me as aircraft slowly blink their way across the sky. The palm trees are still sentinels in pooled light of amber streetlamps. It is quiet except for crickets and car tires in the distance.

I just achieved the two certifications that have saved my new job and launched my second career. I had only nine days left to spare.

I have tokens for marking the months of hard work it took me to achieve this.

I just finished a very fine cigar, the best I have had in a year. It was bought from Bob - at least that is the name gives.

Bob is the fellow who sounds and looks as if he is from India, and runs the strip-mall smoke shop down the hill. His shop is small, but he built an excellent walk-in humidor for his shop. He is rightfully proud of that humidor. He assured me that this cigar from one of his top humidor shelves is truly excellent. He was quite truthful, and I will tell him so when I see him next.

The other token is the first novel I have read in two years. Most people who know the younger me would be slack-jawed in shock to read the sentence immediately preceding this one.

I just picked the novel out this evening, and it is different from my usual fare of science fiction and fantasy. It is a story of a woman of Cuban decent, and her sugar-industry heiress grandmother who fled Cuba as a teenager immediately after Batista fled the island.

It is written in a poetic and romantic style, and jumps smoothly from the late 1950's era of the young woman fleeing Cuba to the days of her Journalist granddaughter returning her ashes to the land she loved.

"Next Year In Havana" is the title, and I am in love with it after the first chapter.

The book is paper in my hands, a tactile joy I have missed. 

The cigar was so good that it was painful to have finished, and I was loath to put it out. It was completely synchronistic for the tone of the book I am reading, on several levels.

So is this writing poetry? What I am giving my reader in this moment?

I would argue that poetry is the art of putting heart into writing of the small poignant moments of life. It is the art of bringing those moments to life and magnifying them for the reader. 

A piece of the story is all I can give, but let it be a piece that you can look at in words with your heart's eye and maybe fall a little bit in love with.

Yes, I am living this, loving this moment, and laying it at your fingertips.

Perhaps the air here in California tonights smells faintly of the ocean after the afternoon breezes from San Diego have finished their journey up the Temecula valley.

Just as one of the characters in my book is scenting the warm salty air of Cuba upon her return to the land of her immediate ancestors. 

The rest of her journey awaits in the soft paper of the pages in my hands.

The rest of my journey awaits me on Monday morning.

For this weekend, however, I will have my feet in Temecula and my heart and mind in two very different times in Cuba.

All I have to do now is turn another page...

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford

© 09/21/2018

Compassion is the greatest sign of humanity.