deedeewisdom

When I get there versus here
I shall be burned and charred like everyone else
Passed through the torments and trials of this material world

Wherever “there” is, I will be there…
Heaven
Hell
Hale-Bop
Middle Earth
Here again
There again
This too shall pass

Yet for now
The promise of each day
The sounds of the birds and the children
The spouse graying and pruning like myself
And it keeps going round and round
Passing from hand to hand

The circle of Life

3/21/13
Diane Findlen Garrow

       Dreams

Dreams come from that other place
Where time spins back and forth

And as it spins, it shoots dreams
Into our sleep like shooting stars of insight

Helping us to make sense of the nonsensical

Helping us to integrate and synthesize
Fears and tears that otherwise would
Make gashes or dig graves

These blessed dreams
Create warmth
And breathing
And children’s warm caresses on our breast

These blessed dreams
Bring us from despair
To dare
To live in our world of woe

And bring from the past
The very truths
That will make it possible
To live in the today

Oh dreams
My dreams!

I thank you for your warm
Soup of life…

Diane Findlen Garrow

Blessings

I’m blessed to live in this age, over sixty
With family, friends who are all quite nifty
I’ll start with my husband, a smart, cocky guy
He cooks and he cleans, laughs a happy laugh

Then come our kids, 2 guys and a gal
A blended family, we treat each other well
The 2 grandsons are fun, we laugh and we play
And go see their games, baseball, football and what may

Next are my siblings, an amazing lot
Even at 80, vim and vigor they’ve got
They’re able to thrive, even in strife
Possessing a luminous love of life

Though 2 have passed on and one lives afar
We manage to gather and sing twice a year
These times are quite precious for us 12 you see
We raise our voices in thanks, joy and glee

The time passes swiftly, much faster of late
Today is what counts, to make it as great
As destiny let’s us, our folks taught us well
Treat all with kindness, smile a lot and sit a spell!

Diane Findlen Garrow 8/1/12
Findlen sibling sing-a-long

The universe has its follies
This we know for sure
And each of us fits into it
Just like a hinge and door

I know I’m part of majesty
And yet I feel so fraile
The only thing I figure is
Within my life, travail

There exists an imperfection
To human eye so raw
But to the Infinite appears
The exquisite, the flaw

Within that variant exists
The way that nature molds
And makes us all more beautiful
Our soul, the Divine it holds

Diane Findlen Garrow 1/28/12

Four P’s (For Peace)

When haunts of this life
Come forth with a sting
I go to a place with a comforting ring

The place contains things that begin with “P”
I’ll spell them out so you can see

The first is piano I learned as a child
To sit and play
Makes life less wild

The second, my plants
They adorn every room
They soak up sunshine and drive out the gloom

The third are my photos
They’re framed in delight
The smiles they capture bring joy to my life

The fourth are my poems
They come from so deep
The gift arrives swiftly
Sometimes out of sleep

These four “P’s” are precious
Indeed I must say
They also bring to me

Much peace for today

Diane Findlen Garrow

We Are the People

We are the people
We heard Patrick Henry
As he cried “There is no peace.”

We heard Paul Revere
And saw the lantern in the tower

We saw the father of our land
As he crossed the Delaware
As he addressed the brave soldiers

We battled brother against brother at Gettysburg
Our blood remains on that sacred soil

We landed on the beach at Normandy
And saved the world from Hitler

We marched hungry and hopeless at Bataan
We lay in the jungles of Vietnam
Wondering where our leaders were leading us

We are the people

We felt the collapse of the Twin Towers
We suffocated in the dust
And prayed for those around us

We stand together, only knowing
That what we possess is precious
And beyond any one time in history

We stand together, only knowing
That we cannot surrender

Only knowing that what our fathers
Died for
Is what we must live for

Diane Findlen Garrow
2002

The Door

It leaned against the dusty wall
Within the cellar deep
Forgetting all the good it served
In days that now just sleep

Until the gray haired gentleman
Did stir its knob and hinge
To nail it near the kitchen stove
To serve a home again

He fit it, coaxed it, shave it, hung
While in his mind years flashed
Of doors, floors, walls, in homes, schools, halls,
Which he, himself, had patched

The tools, they hummed like violins
He knew them to the core.
And then that piece of wood he held
Was once again a door.

The kitchen now is guarded by
That door, so strong the boards.
As bacon, eggs, and muffins cook
Next room, the old man snored!

In 1984 my Dad came to my home with his tool box and got the old door out of the cellar
and placed it securely between the kitchen the the living room. He passed in 1994 and this
poem was my thanks to him for his service that day.

Diane Findlen Garrow

Morning Prayer

The morning shadows
Catch my eye
It’s still and quiet now

My family sleeps
It’s early yet
My time —
To life I bow

My time to think
My time to pray
To get the blocks
Out of my way

So I can serve
The cause of Love
The cause of Good
As up above

Diane Findlen Garrow 6/4/11

Sitting by my window on a Sunday morn

Crack open the window on a rainy May day
What are the pleasures that come my way?

First is the feel of the cool May air
It kisses my cheeks, breezes so rare

Second the sweet drift of lilacs and such
Resplendent in glory, aromas that touch

Third is the portrait of colors I see,
Green meadows, red tulips, the sight is a feast

The fourth sense of hearing is given such gifts
With songs like the robin’s, our spirits they lift

And lastly I thank God for the gift of the pen
To write these reflections of wonder

Amen

Diane Findlen Garrow 5/15/11

Above the Clouds

We’re born, we live, we die
But up here there are no lies;
The fluffy cotton balls below
As we hear the engine’s roar

Somehow remind us
That this life is but a tour

Whether first class or coach
The ONE who really knows
 Won’t tell
Because the truth may encroach

Upon the many, many things…
And things…
That we insist we hold and keep…
As time goes on we see and see…

That closest love and destiny
Exists within those clouds below
Those clouds we see but never hold;

So much like life

Diane Findlen Garrow