You Will Have Regrets

As I sit here a lunatic squirrel is just going chuck, chuck, snort, chuck in the tree behind me.  An odd bird is tweeting out a sound that to my worsening hearing sounds like water falling over rocks on a mountains edge.  The squirrel is hidden in the tree and I have no idea why I am aggravating him (or her).

These are good sounds.  They are not television.  They are not angry people.  They are of the world around me.  After days of rain the grass is as green as it is ever going to get.  Mosquitoes are starting to come out. But it is 8:44 p.m. and there is plenty of light in the sky.

I have taken this moment to write.  Over the past few days moments for real writing have been few and far between. On occasion as I walk in I will grab a snapshot of a door or a goofy car and I will post that to Facebook.  I will add a little bit of commentary.  Facebook posts are not writing.  Facebook posts are like saying hello as you pass someone in the hallway.

A walnut just wailed down upon the deck.  Damn squirrels. 

In this moment of golden late afternoon/coming evening I want to write about what is in my heart.  But what is in my heart has been buried so deep for so long I wonder if it still exists.  A long time ago there was an electricity that would arc when I thought of the scent of watermelon and of full red lips. A long time ago I could draw a picture of the naked form of the first woman I ever really loved from memory.  But time and hiding away those feelings have dulled the passion.

Life goes on and for some the passion will always be there.  I think of artists who keep working into their eighties and into their nineties.  Maturity was seen in those later works for sure, but the thread of red hot passion never left the images.  Poets as they grow older write poems that are more complex, but the raging heart is still at the core. I must recapture some of this lightning in a bottle.  My hand must raise up into the sky daring the jolt to pass through me.

Are there regrets in living?

Why of course there are my dear.

But are the regrets so great as to be unbearable?

Only if you make them so,

Only if you give them such weight.

And we must bear the weight of those lives 

That as the years have passed have attached themselves to ours

And from which entanglements there are no easy extrications.

And we must bear the weight of our heart’s desires, 

Of our passions not yet dead,

Of our dreams perceived only at the edges 

When we lie closest to being awake in late eve or early morn,

That bother us like fever.

And we must bear the weight of frustrations,

At not having more control,

At not having made things better,

At not having reached out and grabbed the golden apple 

That “they” have always told us we were capable of.

Are there regrets?

Of course there are silly.

But if you take the time to ponder on these things

Your heart will lead you to where you must go.

Regret comes with living and as long as you live

You can balance out regret with joy remembered.