Garret Mountain to McFaul April 22, 2018

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NYBG April 21, 2018

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Celery Farm April 19, 2018

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approaching conclusion

In not so many years from now or sooner

My end of days will bring a final compilation

To whatever last word I have written and shared

Completing the collection of images I have gathered.

A few people tell me sometimes they like what I write

Putting words together about my thoughts and feelings

Giving me affirmation for what comes together slowly

Being easier for me to write carefully than to think out loud.

A few people tell me sometimes they like my photographs

Finding pleasure in the beauty of wildlife in a nature scene

Looking at images that frame my view of a picture of a place

Seeing what I see captured as a still precious moment.

These are the people who matter most to me

The only critics whose reviews are personal knowing me

As an imperfect person who means well hopefully forgiven

When my attention drifts if I am lost in thought.

Perhaps in the years ahead someone will look over

The accumulation of words and images I have produced

Thinking their thoughts about whatever matters to them

Knowing it no longer matters to me what they think.

More likely these words will disappear along with the images

Blending into the background of the collective commons

But permanence is not the point of doing what I do

What matters is how the act of creating infuses being alive.

We have a wooden toy truck we keep on display

Made by my partner's father who made the oak furniture now ours

Beautifully worked wood expressing his joy in the craft

Something for us to cherish the memory of him.

Those toys he made to give away at a children’s shelter

Wishing a truck could bring happiness to a child

Remain with us as a symbol of his kind and caring self

While I will leave nothing of substance like that good deed.

Perhaps a poem can serve as well by saying something kindly

Some words to give comfort when our lives are most difficult

Providing solace like an embrace to know you are loved

Meaning with feeling to console a person in distress.

If perchance you are reading this long after I am gone

Your world has changed in ways unknown to me

As has the world I have known been largely lost to you

But possibly something resonates with you.

That would make a bridge across our temporal life spans

Into your different context constructing a different meaning

Larger than my limited understanding of human existence

So circumscribed by the circumstances of my time here.