Beauty and Anger

     The mind sits.
     Images, thoughts, memories, feelings and memories of feeling
     floating in and out, appearing before us like pebbles on a changing
     beach without end.
     Some go almost unnoticed.
     Some go unnoticed.

     Some are prettier than others, as Newton once described.
     We pick them up and live with them a while.
     Some are less than pretty, but revealing nonetheless.
     We pick them up and live with them a while.
     A thing is always done for itself; reasons for doing it are simply 
     excuses.

     They are illusions, these pebbles, phantoms after all,
     and they dissolve in our grasp whether we will or no.

     There are illusions of these phantoms.
     Sometimes we hold onto those, thinking the phantoms still are there.
     They are not.
     They never were.

     In the meantime, many pretty phantom pebbles go unnoticed.
     Maybe we will see them.
     Maybe not.
     The mind sits.


			-- Bill Hammel, September 7 2004


   Natalie's Response


                              Heart and Chaos

     The heart is seated,
     the center of images, thoughts.
     Movement of emotions;
     Waves clutching the shore, grasping at memories,
     moved by the rolling, moonlit waves.
     Chaos and calm.

     The heart awaits,
     seeking meaning,
     the elusive rhythm, beating.
     Each pebble and grain moved by the tides,
     endowed with grandeur and meaning.
     Awaiting.

     The heart recognizes
     each illusionary, clutching emotion,
     pulled by waves, roiling.
     Pebbles and grains tumbling,
     each with a remnant of life,
     transformed.

     The heart stills,
     taming the forgotten night.
     Shifting tide the sole witness
     to fading moonlight, retreating emotions.
     Departing waves,
     enthroned in stillness,
     silent in retreat.

                            -- Natalie F., September 30 2004.

   COPYRIGHT NOTICE REGARDING ALL ORIGINAL WORK HEREIN:
            © September 2003 by Bill Hammel (bhammel@graham.main.nc.us)
	    and Natalie F.

            Permission to use for any noncommercial, educational purpose.
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