Choices

Choices

Too many choices now

I could spend the rest of my days

Searching for everything that is nothing

Toys, games, vacations, wares

Clothes, phones, mutual fund shares

I don’t even have to get up from the couch

I can sit here like a leather slouch

Consuming all that comes into my orbits

Yet there is always this stirring

There is always this stirring deep within

No rhyme, no reason, no cry, no whim

Seems to meet it or explain it

I think we all are made for something more

I think we all go beyond the meandering bore

Of the retail mall circuit

Not that any of the things we need are bad

Not that any of the things we want are ugly

But they do not define the who we are

They do not fulfill the rising star

That is continuously rising within our chests

I look for answers, I look for rest

It seems like it is only where the stillness resides

It seems it is where the mystery hides

It seems to go beyond all the reason

No shape, no circle, no time, no season

Seems to contain it at all

I look forward to the cool of fall

As I choose to go walk up the mountain

8/9/17

Reclining

Reclining

I could sit here in this chair all day

Pondering the mysteries and wonders before me

And when the day is over and done

I am deeper into the struggle than ever before

Knowing less but feeling more

Closer to You than ever before

Closer to me

I can watch the sweeps dance across the waters

I can see the ducks resting in the rain

As I sit here in this recliner seeing it all

Writing out a simple refrain

I sense I am walking to something deeper

Something beyond the dark and the pain

Though I am more still than I have ever been

The rain keeps on falling and falling

The water keeps on accepting the earth

The sound of its music brings laughter

Its moisture brings clouds in the mirth

Heightening mirth more than ever before

Changing the sounds of the earth

Closer to You than ever before, still even closer to me

The wind has joined in with the laughter

The grasses now see they are green

It reminds me that my heart is a flower

It blooms in the realms that aren’t seen

Changing the sounds of the earth

Closer to You than ever before

Ever closer, even closer to free

I see

K, Duane Carter 3/24/12 

Discovery

Discovery

I sit here quietly, pondering

Waiting for words to drop like the rain from the sky

A constant, a constant wondering why

Looking for reasons that don’t exist

In the place where I understand

Things formed by a greater hand

Infinitely great, infinitely small

Infinitely vast, infinitely all

Which is why I am quiet in my pondering

Somewhat afraid to journey into that

For when could I ever return?

For when could I ever learn,

When there is no end to the learning?

Yet I cannot deny the burning, yearning

Heaven strikes its most beautiful note

And my heart just sings and rings

Sounds I don’t understand

Lyrics I don’t comprehend

Yet they are placed right here before me

In the faces of my wonder-filled children

In the smile of my beautiful wife

In the breath that flows through my being

In the Presence that gives me my life

I take the step,

Discovering I actually have wings

See what happens when heaven sings?

My heart still rings…

K, Duane Carter 3-5-11