Family and Friends

Sometimes I feel trapped, in a self-created prison of affect, intricate and comprehensive as a spider’s web, catching me in an impossible miasma which filters perceptions through narrow mucous channels of negativity, where I create a world of dire expectation and frozen inevitability and where dreams die.

Then there is You,

Like a small, imperceptible crack, through which flows a weak, hopeful light, that even in its sparseness suggests a seemingly absurd alternative to the mind’s world, antidote to lost Self, to settling in baleful resignation, to giving up.

You,

A lubricious liquor suffusing energy, that permeates and animates, renders meaning and context, a life force and a light, forcing me to remember I am a light as well

You,

Together, a We for better than three decades, making a better

Me for three decades, give or take, giving and taking,

Let Us shine with clear, disentangling, miasma-clearing, world-expanding vision,

Together, for thirty more......

Give or take.

To the top

A 34th Anniversary Vision

We've been riding on this planet,

This lumberous, heaving blue-green orb,

Together, formally, for some time,

Thirty four years, its hard to absorb

This notion, this much time,

Even as everything changes, is true,

Yet It oddly stays the same,

Even me and even you.

Especially you and especially me,

The body may desiccate, wizen, and turn to flab,

Our cogent thinking and speech to blab,

What we physically were, we can't now be.

Except there is a jewel, you see

An ineluctable fact which drives me,

A miraculous and simply complicated idea,

A feeling, posture, and way to be,

That is; joyfully mired in the permanent, penetrant love

That binds us, frees us to each other,

Such that riding on this spinning globe,

Together, we grow ever closer to one another.

To the top

The Function of Conjunction: A 37th ANNIVERSARY MUSING

Some things go well together

Even though they are

Quite different from each other,

Like salt and pepper,

Cats and dogs,

Ketchup and mustard.

The “and” conjoins the separate and individual

Into a kind of Unity.

Sometimes both sides of the “and” are part of the same thing,

Like thunder and lightning,

Matter and energy,

Numerator and denominator,

Lux et Veritas,

Or kindness and gratitude;

Where the “and” teases apart a Unity.

And for other dyadic phrases like,

For example, “Cathy and John”

Is the “and’ joining two into one,

Or is one teased apart into two?

Well, both actually,

As both reflect the whirling, swirling,

Undulating, revolving, mutating, and evolving

Dynamicism over 37 years,

Since we walked down a Stone aisle

In official and public declaration

Of our “and”, our Love.

A Love whose life-affirming preciousness and rarity

Has only grown over those years,

And for which, from my side of the “and”,

I am humbly grateful for your salt… and your pepper.

Birthdays

CLS 61

One and three score,

Who could ask for more?

Yet, more is to come,

Regardless of desire, want, or wisdom.

That’s the way life is sometimes.

The wise call it fate,

the wizened are just late to emulate,

the former’s reforming perceptions,

Crafting exceptions, making it ok.

That’s the way life is sometimes.

To the top

60 th Greetings to CZ

Three score is six decades,

Enough time to know some things about life.

Enough time to look back

And to look forward.

To consider the places you’ve been,

The persons you’ve been in those places,

The person you are in this place, here and now,

Persons you will be, there and then,

All You’s connected through time and DNA

And memory,

Each contributing to your Self.

Separate and unto its own,

The creator of a world

Amongst many worlds,

Your world, at six decades,

That is, three score.

21 JPS2

Two decades plus one, your existence defining

The sweetest morsels of my life

And times, times and memories

Of nascent personhood,

Reflecting like a pool in your eyes,

The aspiration of my perspiration,

The future of my past,

The presence of my now.

In celebration on the occasion of your 21st birthday, in gratitude and love, for what you were, who you are, and what you are to be…….

To the top

Creationism #26

In celebration,

With cerebration,

And deliberation,

But without much festination,

Or further machination,

We come to the realization,

It’s not the destination,

But the journey itself,

That results in One’s self-creation.

Happy journeys,

Happy creating,

Happy birthday Jen.

To the top

Just checking in 27

Used to be that I would check in a lot,

Hearing your restless scratching on the crib mattress,

Or gurgling bowel, peristalsing your dinner

Through you like a sacred river,

Some becoming You

But with some left over at the end,

Always some at the end.

Now well into the third decade,

Your third decade, the time having also

Flowed like a river,

It’s not about scratching or digestion,

But more about watching the direction,

And wondering who is checking in

On whom?

Which is all good, speaking to remarkable,

Sustaining bonds, of love-tempered gratitude

For sharing a place where we can watch

Each other’s river flow on and on,

To our own respective seas,

Together,

Just checking in.

To the top

Jenny's 30th Birthday

===========

Milestone #30````

As miles go by

The passing landscapes of our lives

Assume a kind of soporific

Regularity,

Like a cartoon

Where one character chases another

Against a rolling backdrop that repeats

Over and over until there is some resolution;

The quarry caught or escaped, then

A new landscape brought in, and

A milestone declared.

But milestones become millstones

When we get caught within the layered tempos

Of the rolling landscapes

And forget

We are both cartoon character and cartoonist,

Pursuer and pursued, writer and reader.

With Serendipity and Luck as partners,

We plot the course, set the expectations,

And strike out,

Girded by the knowledge

That we are loved, inspired

By the love we have to give, and

Grateful for the beauty of

The landscapes passed and

For those yet to come, which,

Whether variegated or repetitious,

Become our sacred story.

8 July 2023

Jay, Esq.

I did dismay

My nerves did fray

Over what to say

To celebrate Jay,

Tis his birthday.

But fears allay,

If I only think like Jay

In words wise and gay

Fete without delay

The wonder, if I may

That is Jay.

Hey!

I’ii not be kept at bay,

Nor suffer dismay,

No matter what you say,

When celebrating the day,

On which Jay,

Did into the world, first foray.

To the top

Does This Poem Ever End?

A Collection of Words Rustled Together in Seeming Stochastic Fashion on the Occasion of Jay Pottenger’s 70th Birthday

3 March 2020

Seventy years is no small feat,

And one which we now all fete

With glasses raised

And words of praise

That let you know you are quite neat.

That is, in the wonderful sense of the word,

Not whether one sows sloppiness and discord,

But rather we're just a bit keen

On honoring your mien,

Along with other fans and adoring hordes.

For seven decades, that's three score and ten.

Just doesn't come around again,

We’ve just one shot to hit the mark

To celebrate the joy and with a spark,

To do this well, and then, when

All is said and the course is run,

When we've had our little bit of fun,

We will know deep in our hearts

or other body parts,

Our celebration of Jay is well done….

As it is right and meet, to raise up, to fete,

Something so neat, as Jay’s seventy year feat….

To fete the feat, that is our fate

To celebrate and cerebrate,

To drink wine of fine appellate,

To eat cake that is chocolate ….

Though there's more to say, I can’t resist,

And both my serious and silly instincts insist

To lastly, that is, if I may,

To Professor Pottenger, that is, Jay

Offer wishes for the happiest of birthdays.

Omni sunt ad finem ad absurdum

To the top

64 (Years Old)

Sixty-four is 2 to the sixth,

It would be incorrect to say “two cubed”,

Although a cube has six sides,

But alas just 3 dimensions, hence

That would be only 8.

And there is a lifetime between 8 and 64.

Could you imagine that when 8,

Where life would take you,

Where you would go,

Who you would become?

Pig-tailed, micro visage of Self,

What future did you conceive?

And now, 3 more orders out,

Another dimension, at 64,

Looking back, are you wistful and wise,

Or icy wizened or bitterly regretting,

Grateful and accepting or mourning

The loss of pig-tailed possibilities?

Having been your companion,

For me more than 2 to the fifth,

I would not change a nanosecond.

The casual spontaneous vitality,

Is rare, life affirming, cherished.

Besides, who else would so gently read my poems?

To the top\

Four score

To David On the Occasion of his Eightieth Birthday

I heard the word you’re turning eighty,

An event that can be weighty…

Or light, perhaps a source of delight,

For longevity well-done, even greatly.

For four-score years is quite some time

To find or forge one’s storyline,

Assuming new roles, refilling holes,

Until we’re holy whole, approaching divine,

At least in our heads,

Where thoughts are bred,

And attached to words

So that our truths can be said,

Sent out into the world,

A diaspora of words, one’s self unfurled,

Vulnerable, transparent, human, humble,

Hoping that these bits of ourself endures,

In those written words that come together

In story and prose,

To sniff out meaning and assess whether,

To lead with your nose

Or maybe the philtrum works better,

Who knows?

Regardless, my gratitude to your propensity,

To offer your words and intensity

In sharing this delightful diaspora,

A part of yourself, your magnanimity.

And so I now use my own words

To fete the feat of 8 decades told,

Wishing a sense of playful joy be yours

As your story unfolds and spirit endures.

In fine autem omnes absurdum

John Seibyl, MD

21 January 2021

To the top

WEDDING DAY WISHES 1 For Allysa and Jackson

May the joy you feel today be harbinger, in some small measure, of the joy you will experience the rest of your lives together.

May the love you feel today be like a small seed that grows into a stately and elegant tree holding you in its branches, even as it reaches out to the world,

May the love you feel today buffer against obstacles and tribulations, against mendacity and meanness, and the pettiness and distrust you will encounter in your journeys.

And may you always remember that the most powerful words known to humanity are, simply,“I love you”.

Wedding Day Wishes 2, in the Style of William Shakespeare

O blessed day, wherein your hearts as one
In rapture meet and pledge their steadfast troth,
May all the joy that crowns this present hour
Foretell, in gentle part, the bliss to come
That shall attend your lives in union sweet.

And may the love ye feel this sacred morn
Be as a tender seed, by grace bestowed,
Which, growing fair, in time a noble tree
Doth stand in strength and beauty evermore,
Its boughs outspread to shelter and sustain,
Whilst reaching forth unto the waiting world.

Let this same love, in trials sore and grim,
Be shield and safeguard ‘gainst all cruel turns,
‘Gainst falsehood’s breath, ‘gainst malice cold and base,
‘Gainst petty spite and doubt that haunt the way
Of mortal souls that wander through their days.

And evermore, remember well this truth:
The mightiest words that ever graced mankind
Are simple borne, yet wrought with boundless power—
“I love thee,” spoken true, outshining all.

Wedding Day Wishes 3, in the Style of Walt Whitman

I sing this day of joining—
the clasp of hands, the bright, unguarded faces,
the hour alive with breath and promise—
you, stepping forward together into the long unfolding.

Let the joy you feel now—yes, this very fullness, this shining—
be not a passing sparkle only,
but a beginning, a hint, a wide horizon opening,
stretching onward through your days, your years, your shared becoming.

I behold your love as a seed—small, almost hidden, yet immense—
I see it pressing into the soil of living,
rising, branching, leafing,
a great tree one day, with shade enough for storms,
with limbs that cradle and lift you,
and still reach outward—always outward—toward the world.

And I say, let this love stand against the rough winds,
against the trials, the missteps, the sharp-edged encounters—
let it be the cushion, the counterforce—
when false words creep in, when smallness and suspicion gather,
when the road narrows and the night seems long.

You shall return to it—
this thing you’ve made together—
and find it not diminished, but waiting, alive.

And do not forget—never forget—
the plain utterance, the simplest breath of truth:
those few words, carried on the voice, yet boundless in their reach—
“I love you”—

I say they are enough;
I say they are everything.

To the top\

Rocker #68

Years hence, I see you, as if in a film,

Soft focus, in a garden triumphant with colors,

Impossible colors.

Your rocker eases comfortably back and forth,

Not going anywhere excepting the few inches traversed

And then reversed as you rock back,

Over and over like the Ocean tides,

Or your very breathing- quietly essential, unpretentious.

Both rocking and respiration are a kind of personal metronome

Marking each sacred moment, flagging each ephemeral second,

And reminding you are contemporaneous with eternity

Making possible the colors of late autumnal gardens

And the impossible love I have for you.

1 November 2022

Forty Years

The number 40 has deep Biblical roots,

As in “forty days and forty nights” meaning

A very long time, hence not very precise.

Certainly not the precision of “forty years”,

It’s 107,827,200,000 ticks on my watch

Or 14,610 rotations around the sun.

(Including leap years).

Precision notwithstanding, our montage of memories,

Affects and experiences are a dashing, mumble-jumble, thrashing river

That over-runs our memory banks dropping downstream

Flotsom, glistening wet, pieces of our prior selves

That we dry out and try on for size,

When it still fits,

We receive a kind of validation,

If not redemption.

My redemption, if not validation,

Is also rooted in the persistence of memory

Where these forty years, give or take forty days and nights,

Kindles a deep, penetrating gratitude to have spent them

With you.

For the Record: A 33rd Birthday Wish for Jenny

Congratulations on 33, which by the way,

Is the rotational speed of an LP.

Plus the 1/3 for a vinyl record, that’s long play,

Similar to 365 plus ¼ to orbit the Sun.

You can hear the same song with high fidelity,

At 45 or 78 revolutions per minute,

But alas, less efficiently,

Taking more ground to cover the same Truth.

So, whether you clock along at 33 1/3

Or at 78 rpm over these next 365 ¼ days,

May you play your song with fidelity and authenticity,

Joy and personal growth, discernment and wisdom,

And most important,

For the record…….. with love.