My Plate

I push my plate away, heave a sigh, say “That was great”

Ask you if you’d like to go out and sit on the deck

We sip our drinks and watch the summer sun set through the trees

And marvel that life can be so good

Suddenly my thoughts stray to the tragedy that fills the world

The killing everywhere that seems to have no reason or rhyme

Parents finding kids enough to eat 

Just because of the accident of their birth

Between tar paper shacks and the opulence of wealth

Between disease with no cure and good health

I find myself

I push my plate away, wait to catch your eye and grin

The tables filled with many guests we like and some we don’t

The music playing is sensual and primitive

As hazy goofiness envelopes us all

I know somewhere there are bad folks hatching evil plots

I think back on some that found their way right to our door

I speculate a force for good helps everyone

Wants to be less trapped and more free

Between the myths and dreams that serve as my guide

And this ordinary world that I ride

I dance, I dance inside

I push my plate away, a hermit in a crowded world

Once upon I gave my all to make contact with kindred souls

That youth crazed search went bust with one exception I here note

Without whom I can’t imagine my fate

My past is haunted by the mocking ghosts of shame and pride

My faith rejects the world’s indifference is justified

The one I wronged the most has been the one most seen my good

A shining example, to forgive is divine

Between the secret list of my many sins

And times I rose to life’s occasions

I still begin