68 Years on the Planet: What have we learned?

Time telescopes

Some events in your life suddenly snap into focus from a distance of decades past. 

A thought, a smell, a taste

The alchemy of time

A cocktail of memory and invention. 

Time fades

Ephemeral

Sepia toned

The pain will pass if you let it

But it can come back strong and in full color

Avert your gaze. 

Time is fluid

Rushing past

At the speed of dark

Leaving sandy seconds in your hands

Slipping between your fingers

Quiet eddies and swift rapids

Go ahead

Make a plan

Hear God chuckle. 

Time is a liar

Directing your gaze 

To the past, the future

Anywhere but now

This moment the only

Real thing

Now it’s gone

Gone again

Again and again and again

Memories stacked in cords

Like wet firewood. 

Time cannot control love

Because love lives

Outside the tyranny of time

Never dies

Doesn’t seem to age

Once formed

Love exists

It’s own thing

Eternal

Hot as a two dollar pistol

And yet icy and sharp. 

Love

The enemy of time

I remember

But can’t recall

A trick of time

Memories hoarded

Precariously

Smooth stones in mountain streams

Might sit there forever

Might fall over in the next minute

Might not

Time will tell

But love keeps its mouth shut. 

Time carved caves

In my chest

I filled them

With  crystalline carvings of people

I love and loved

Plus the souls of dogs

And one cat.

Time

Can’t exist without music

The notes illuminate

The hidden rhythms

Designed to elude your grasp

Until a song 

Paints a portrait

And hangs it where

You can find it later

With the aid of a strummed string

A blown horn

And the sweet voices

Straining against the world. 

Time is steady

Until it isn’t

Warm until cold

Surprisingly illusive

It sometimes it just evaporates

Until a glance at a clock’s face

Reveals

Hours have passed

Without notice

Just gone. 

A Letter to My Children

I miss you both terribly today.

I am sitting in my apartment. Enjoying fine coffee from Africa, a newspaper from New York, a cigar from the Dominican Republic and a heart forged in the mountains of East Tennessee.

I admonish you, and myself, not to settle.

Don’t settle for the mundane.

Don’t settle for the ordinary.

Don’t settle in love.

Don’t settle in any part of your life.

I require you to strive for greatness, to make a difference, to question authority and to face each day with your eyes hard upon the horizon.

You will make mistakes, as have I.

You will be hurt, as have I.

But if you hold yourself to this high standard you will survive and prosper.

Take the hurts and disappointments and press them out of your system. Do not carry them with you.

You are not a victim.

You alone control your ultimate destiny even when you can’t control every event.

This is a hard task I lay before you but you are equal to it.

Live your life without regret and guilt.

This I require of you.

This I expect of you.

No one has the right to diminish you, including me. Do not allow it.

Stand strong beneath the sun and moon and against the fatal wind of mediocrity.

Know that you have my love at your back – a firm hand pushing you forward but not away.

My love is not a crutch but rather a rising tide.

Go. Be. Thrive.

This I require of you.

Your loving Father,

William Burke Fletcher, Jr.

March 24, 2007