Often a phrase, a quote, or a verse sets off the muse to create a poem. Yesterday a book on my shelf served as the spur. Its title is

Decide to Live

Decide to live, for life is choice
   between what is and what can be;
Rejoice at growth's small risk, rejoice
   in right decisionry.
___

I'll probably revise this before long, since I had to depend on an invented word for the last line. ...

Well, it was back to work on Thursday and even yesterday, my supposed day off, I worked over the Forthright Magazine site. Here's something today to warm your innards.

Good Morning

Outside my bedroom window, trees
   wave greeting as I rise;
Their quivering fingers play the breeze
   and bring today's surprise.

With you a year is but a day,
a day, a joy in flight;
I wish to seize the hour and stay
forever your delight.

A Healing Season
by Gary Kuhne*

She cried tonight.
Tears of remorse and concern
flowed from her soul
for our destruction.

She sighed softly.
Quietly resigning herself
to the rebuilding
of our love.

She smiled today.
Not very deep or extended,
yet betraying healing
deep within her soul.

She laughed aloud.
An honest, hearty sound,
responding in true joy
to a renewed me.

We touched at last.
Each reaching deeply
to grasp the self
of the other.
__________
*Karen Kuhne, A Healing Season (Marshalls, 1984), p. 146; quoted in Joyce Huggett, Marriage on the Mend (Kingsway, 1987), pp. 164-165.

Here's the Cloud Couplet I sent out today on the list.

Two Spirits Win

In weakened flesh the willing spirit fails;
Before God's dwelling Spirit the carnal quails.