Miscellaneous

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Necklace cloud, chain and jewels, strewn across the sky

Created by a jet, high up, and idly flying by

Travellers' minds, somewhere else, never asking why

They've left behind a necklace cloud, strewn across the sky

The frost decided to crawl

With a branching zig-zaggy sprawl

As it wrote its name

On the window pane

In a cold white, left-handed scrawl!

A tail among the toys

Softest of human joys

A laugh for girls and boys

Buried among the toys

"I want to make a circle", said the non-conforming vine

"I do not want to live life like a straight and boring line"

"But I", replied the shrub, "am quite content to play the game

Of growing all my branches, more or less, to be the same"

And so they grew there, side by side, beneath the same bright sun

Making different choices, but still living there as one

Vine said "Shrub, I must say that you wear the patterns well!"

Shrub said "Vine, your circles make you happy, I can tell!"

Too bad we, as people, feel the need to push our ways

Instead of giving neighbors gifts of plain, authentic praise

Circles, lines, branches, vines - they all should have their place

People should try seeing good in other people's ways...

Rocks arranged in a line, between what's yours, and what is mine

No one less than Robert Frost wrote that fences are the cost

Of neighbors functioning as friends, but fences often meet their end

As properties are bought and sold, and nature takes its timeless toll

I took a forest walk today, and saw, collapsed, and in decay

An ancient wall by farmers made, now snaking through the trees, in shade

Some sections, through the years, stand tall, while other stretches spread and fall

Not needed to mark fields, now gone, along with farmers' skills, and brawn

Lines in deserts drawn by men, derived from how the maps have been

Argued over, handed down, river, mountain, city, town

Religion, language, battle, war, and oaths that vengeful leaders swore

To keep "the others" far outside the line that stretches far and wide

Does God have the last laugh here, or does God shed a silent tear

On seeing the dividing lines, and scars, that trace our own designs

So low, so base, so black and white, expressions not of love, but might

Like prisons we have made, to lie, beneath God's boundless, sunny sky

It really isn't all that hard for folks to just let down their guard

A stile crossing stoney wall, or maybe just a simple call

Across the rocks, a "how-are-you," or hand of friendship stretched out to

The neighbor on the other side, through a gate swung open wide...