DUCK WAVES

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THE NOSE KNOWS

                    This little creature snuggled by my side
                    As I sit in my armchair set to write,
                    Seems, if I asked, that she might well confide
                    Some secrets only she could bring to light.

                    I wonder what this pup would have to say
                    So I might get the dog’s-eye view of things,
                    Although it’s more her nose that shows the way
                    With the olfactory pleasures that it brings.

                    There is more sense in scent for her than me,
                    A fourth dimension of experience
                    Since I lack her refined acuity,
                    Yet I observe those pleasures are intense.

                        To read and write is much of my delight;
                        Her smelling’s, though, a keener kind of sight.

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PHC

                    The Prairie Home Companion’s changing hands,
                    Chris Thile standing in for Garrison,
                    Much to the consternation of old fans
                    Who see in him there’s no comparison.

                   Though Thile is a whiz on mandolin
                   And sings his tenor part with vim and vigor,
                   To Keillor’s baritone it sounds quite thin,
                   And Garrison in other ways is bigger.

                   Keillor is a presence who will haunt
                   This show that he has honed for forty years,
                   A hefty specter who makes Chris seem gaunt
                   By geniality that wins, endears.

                       No, Garrison, though you have earned a break,
                       To leave forever were a sad mistake.

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WATER SKY

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GOOD GARDENING

                    Since we’ve arrived, then others have as well:
                    It cannot be, in all this universe,
                   Though it’s too soon yet for our search to tell,
                   The Cosmos did not other life disburse.

                   We’ve long imagined so in fantasies
                   That myth and science fiction have devised,
                   But yet the distance between galaxies
                   Forbids discovering what we’ve surmised.

                  Our enterprises should be focused on
                  Not searching space and things celestial,
                  What we may merely speculate upon,
                  But on what’s palpable, terrestrial:

                      We need to do what lets this planet thrive,
                      A model world, should visitors arrive.

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EDGAR MITCHELL, R.I.P.

                      Now Edgar Mitchell knows the truth at last,
                      Or not, revealed in his epiphany
                      While standing on the Moon, with all the vast-
                      Ness of the circled cosmos clear to see.

                     It might as well have been the mind of God
                     Made manifest and wheeling in his view
                     And he no more a merely mortal clod
                     Now capable of knowing what is True.

                     Then with this visionary insight he
                     Proceeded as a scientist would go
                     Investigating wide and carefully
                     The gnosis that had overwhelmed him so,

                          And out of this, Noetic Science came
                          To verify what mystics all proclaim.

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WISDOMPAGE.COM

                       Copthorne Macdonald was a modest man,
                       Soft spoken and big hearted as men come,
                       Who in the course of his accomplished span
                       Of life grew wise: of life the very sum.

                      And better yet, he left a legacy
                      So others might pursue him on that course
                      Toward wisdom, often thought a mystery
                      And yet of happiness the truest source.

                      A matter of the highest consequence,
                      Pursuing wisdom offers something far
                      Beyond wealth, power, fame and eminence;
                      In all the heavens, it is our brightest star.

                           Though it will take awhile to realize,
                           No time is better spent than growing wise.

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