“Give me an inch, and I’ll take the world.”

is just the return.

To that life before love.

Loss

is nothing less

than where we’ve always been

in our light.

Except that moment

of warming bloom

that, for now, we call ‘life’.

Loss is the contrast –

the impending return

from our light in the dark.

The dark is not lost.

but back’s the much winding way.

As if hindsight were sight at all,

When winds whip fall leaves in my face.

But without hope, why bother then?

Suppose that’s how how it must begin.

IF we don’t try to reach our dreams

then what are we but heart beat dreams?

So what’s the rush?

Sunset Reed by Jen Gorman

Today was the last Tuesday

of this chapter.

My coffee steamed just as hot.

My formulaed whole grain bagel about as buttered as before.

But soon memories.

Nevermore.

It’s not that profound –

this last Tuesday at work.

This fourth to last paragraph

in just one chapter

of my still much, much greater work.

But still,

it seems somewhat profound –

this live dream to come

of Tuesdays now past.

I guess I’m dreaming now

as I dream of my next chapter to come.

ever since my sunset squiggles

of a grade schooler’s scrawls –

those birds that seemed to rise

up and away to some world

where light never lacked.

Whatever that meant.

Perhaps, now, where love’s never lost.

Whatever that means –

if ever such a thing could ever last,

or be ever lost.

Sunset Rays by Jennifer Gorman

But these clouds only curtain.

They simply mask what light still shines while it sets.

Always setting.

Always rising.

Ever rising.

Ever setting.

But its light still shines

somewhere in those old grade school scribbles.

But I miss those Florida-bound birds;

I miss their glistening wings on warmer winds.

I miss their sunset world

I could never imagine.

I can only imagine.

And though, now I know why,

I still wish to fly.

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And enjoy the rest of your holidays!

It was the year 2111.

This man had a machine. A time machine.

In 2111, this was possible.

This man was just a man though,

and so when he went to escape to times long past,

he miscalculated his calibrations,

and instead of a trip to the summer shores of 15^th century Long Island,

he ended up in 1811 Germany.

A small miscalculation.

He ended up in a young farmer’s field.

Naturally, the young farmer wondered and asked who this stranger was.

The man explained to the farmer about the century to come.

He thought it’d be funny,

and make time go by

while he worked his recalculations.

The farmer could hardly understand this foreigner’s strange science fiction story.

The farmer asked, in broken English, “vut iz a telephon?”

Just as the man completed his recalibrations,

and was gone again.

The man reappeared,

one hundred years later,

on that same farm

in 1911.

The farmer’s great great grandson

found the stranger in his great great grandfather’s field.

Again, this newcomer spoke of the century to come.

Had he plugged in the numbers wrong?

Or titled the axis incorrectly?

The farmer spoke much better English than his ancestor had.

A young fellow, who had just finished grade school

in the year 1911.

He asked what in the world an atom was?

And how could a net connect across continents?

But then the stranger was gone again.

But he returned,

once more,

one last, frustrated time,

as far as I know.

He reappeared on that same farm,

in the year 2011.

A young farmer came up to the stranger.

He was a polish fellow.

A second-generation immigrant

working the German family’s field.

He was young, but well spoken in several languages,

with a Bachelor’s in Arts,

and in Science.

The vacationer wondered what he had done wrong

yet again.

Another mere miscalculation.

He could be on his way now.

But first, he warned the young farmer of the century to come.

It was the year 2011

after all.

The young farmer would have laughed at the stranger’s ridiculous science fiction tale,

if he’d had any idea what the hell he was talking about.

But before the young farmer could try to understand the stranger,

the man was gone again,

finally to the calm beaches of Long Island in the year 1411 or so.