We were the ones who would remake the earth,
Whose dreams spread wide as any morning sky —
Each decade stripped another hope of worth,
And still we did not learn to say goodbye.
The novel unbegun, the cause unmade,
The love that asked too much, the road not crossed —
Not slain by fate, but gently, softly frayed,
Until we woke and counted what we’d lost.
Yet here is Dorothea’s quiet art:
To find, within the compass of one day,
The letter written with a generous heart,
The small, ungathered life given away.
No marble tomb, no monument, no name —
The good we do in secret is our fame.
#899 On The Vanity of Seeking Fame
What profit hath the man who courts the crowd,
Who preens before the mirror of their praise,
And wraps his hollow worth in glory’s shroud
To bask within the lamp of borrowed blaze?
The tongue that sings its own unceasing song
Shall find its echo mute when silence falls;
The name that once was writ in marble strong
Becomes the dust that coats forgotten halls.
For fame is but a wind that shifts its face,
And those who chase it find an empty hand;
The crowd that now exalts shall soon erase
The idol it once raised upon the sand.
Then seek not what the fickle world bestows —
Before God’s throne, the truest self He knows.
#898 On The Cusp of Light
The mind is full, the week ahead looms wide,
With voices calling — wife and kin and all —
Yet in this quiet Saturday, I hide,
And let the pen and paper catch my fall.
I’ve chased the world and felt its tightened net,
Served everyone but left myself behind,
A glimmer stirs — not risen fully yet —
A soft and patient easing of the mind.
So let me breathe. Let cafe murmurs be
The gentle hum that loosens what is taut,
And in the hubbub, find that I am free —
Less lonely, more myself, more calmly wrought.
For I have loved, and still can read, and write —
Enough. Today, I’ll trust the coming light.