Top Three Most Important Things I’ve Learned:
(Everything, but This is IT!  This is What It All Boils Down To.  !!!)

1.  Every Being, Every Where, Just Wants to Give and Receive Love.
1.(a)  That’s All We’re Ever Doing.
1.(b)  Ever.
2.  We haven’t all figured out yet exactly how to do that to Everyone’s Complete Satisfaction.
3.  We’re working on it.  (And Doing a Pretty Damn Good Job of It, From What I Can See.)

And Also We’re Damn Quick – look at how much We’ve Figured Out in Just the Last Hundred Years!  And in the Last Five Minutes!  Look at what we’re figuring out NOW!  (Hey, MOM!  Lookit lookit!  Watch what I can do!)

With Eternal Love and Thanks for All That,
From the Bottom of my Heart (Hello, Down There!  Echo, echo...),
and the Middle of my Soul (Nice Place You’ve Got Here!),
and the Top of my Spirit (what a Trip!!!),
Charge!
XOXOX!

The perfect leathery leaves begin to leap and dive airily with quickly-remembered joy,
    at the hour the sun decides it’s time
Enchanted to follow and carry the easy laughter and serious shared industry of the
    children who’ve left the playground for the day
And will be back tomorrow!

At (the periphery of) the sight and sound, and then at the realisation that I’ve been
    invited as a guest of the ghosts
My heart leaps to join with them in the air, and races, chases, their circles with them
My eyes and the rest of me follow too, as they wake up and fly and run one by one,
    and join with the softly rustling droves.

It all blurs again and I blink again and smile the smile that never left, of neverending
    love and thanks, because it’s time again
New-frog-jelly-kneed, and yet like the rock I stand on, I watch and rewatch the
    thoughtless dance in this free, protected place
And I am in it too

As last year’s leaves remember and wake with a start, already in the air
With gleeful whispering shouts and repeated flypast salutes at the sky and dirt
On this bright blue afternoon in the first days of spring
In the middle of the cushiony silent bustling antique forest of downtown Gatineau.

And I’m filled again, again and again, with the beauty of yesterday, today and
    tomorrow, here and everywhere.

And I will always be filled, thanks to you, old and new children, who want me to see and
     share this joy.



This much joy is worth far fewer words, but I am an old and new child too
It all spills forth like a river released (Hello, Big Joe!)
Indefatigable as the towering creatures of the next-door world

And, after all, it’s all in my head.