Author: Jeff Shapiro

In memory of my sister Lucy or someone special you may have lost in your life…

Let’s talk together about love…
So, we may know the secrets of each other’s hearts…
These secrets are ours, and ours alone…
Let’s celebrate our triumphs out of the ashes.

It is time to dance in our love…
Trace the banks of our rivers and streams…
Travel in our hearts to a different world…
Like two stars being born.

Wow! That’s a lot of water under the bridge!
So many sunsets behind our backs…
Our lives are as big as what we are today…
Starting from such small a seed.

There it is! The dwelling place of your love!
I can see that you have the blood of a sculptor or painter…
Your tears like a biblical rain…
So intense, they rise us up to the heavens.

I see now that love can be both a blessing and a curse…
As we disclose ourselves to ourselves…
Yet probably the most important lesson I have seen in our hearts…
Is that when has love called, we have answered.

I love you,

Annie

I have seen the angel that lifts the morning sun…
I have seen the angel that turns on the stars…
I know the guardian of the night who fills my soul with oil…
She is the one that gives me sweet dreams to dream.

I know the spirit who every morning gives me a brush and pallet…
Who teases me with the light on the margins of each opening…
Telling me to pull back the fabric and walk forward…
Wow! The fabric is as soft as velvet!

I find all this in the lowest of places…
If you want to see the prophets, sup with the poor…
You will then know that the poor are beautiful and noble…
And that their love never knows its own depth.

Yes, there are angels present whenever there is a mountain to climb…
You may fall, but they will pick you up again…
Or if you are lost in a maze-like tunnel…
An angel will lead you home.

The words of life are quite legible…
There is always a running description of the present…
Get off the train of those blinded with doubt…
And come meet my friends.

I love you,

Annie

The word “beautiful” has many different meanings…
Sometimes it is the fog tucking in the mountains and the valleys…
Sometimes it is the mere dots from crayons…
Sometimes it is the morning, wearing robes of crimson and gold.

Stop! Take another loving look…
Can’t you see that beauty is a sleepless mother…
Clad in sapphire blue…
With arms wide open.

She is waiting like a tree, heavy with fruit…
Never needing salt, pepper or any other spice…
She doesn’t know the words, “almost,” or “merely…”
And guess what! Today is the day of the harvest!

I give myself each day wholly to Her…
Now I’m dancing among Her shifting patches of color…
I feel like a boundless pup in a boundless land…
Because what is a show without a performance.

We, ourselves, create “dull…”
A world full of beets and turnips (yuch!)
When there is a spectacular beauty on the other side of our door…
And also, in the mirror.

I love you,

Annie

Have you ever tasted the nectar from a flower?
Somedays that is all I do…
Into the wonderful serenity of so many gardens…
Such natural sweetness…
If you don’t want to call it a miracle, call it a gift.

This for me is the best way to escape pain and aloneness…
Mixing each bloom with a ray from the sun…
Into the silence of my soul…
Which by the way is not difficult to see when you are inches away,

When we close our eyes, we are blind…
Then comes the feeling of total isolation…
Considering all day long the “almosts…”
As a sojourner who has lost their way back home.

Listen to me!

The glacial winters have past…
There is nothing but vestiges left of that frozen ground…
Your heart break is best left in a book on the shelf…
It will only leave you with wrinkles and spots (kind of like my cousin).

It is time to become a rider of the tides…
Push the boundaries of the modern stage…
Play life with a grander volume…
Take a sip from a flower.

I love you,

Annie

Sometimes, I can barely see the sky…
The world is empty from horizon to horizon…
Cut off from the sun and the wind…
I must use all my energy just to stay on the footpath.

It all comes clear with time…
As those hard memories drift away…
I guess I was reading and rereading that faded old address…
The one I used to live in decades ago (in dogs’ years of course!)

Now I can consider the before and the after…
And the hand that has always protected me…
I yell, “Get away from me old shadow!”
And take all those meaningless syllables with you!

My little head is always doing the math…
And I figured out that nothing means anything when I am a slave…
Freedom brings so many kinds of brightness…
Each like a curtain, opening a new sky.

Yes, you and I are miracles…
But miracles are only miracles when we believe…
Chasing money (or biscuits), makes the miracle disappear.
Why do we strive for such meaningless things?
When, it doesn’t cost anything to see the butterflies.

I love you,

Annie

There is a different color ribbon for every moment…
Yellow for happy…
Gray for sad…
And the colors of this earth for everything in-between.

Overflowing from your heart like a rainbow of silk…
Mixing, settling, enriching…
Like flowers on an old stone stump.

Always bringing fresh hope…
The tangles binding us together…
Yet, there is always one problem…
There is never a bow unless we believe.

And then there are the wise…
Those who have seen twice as much of life…
Understanding each fragment of memory…
Because, they have tied that ribbon too.

We have seen season after season throughout our lives…
Watched the ribbons blow…
Sometimes mellow, sometimes difficult…
Yet somehow, all ending up on a present we give with love.

I love you,

Annie

My world is full of depth…
If I look long enough, everything turns into a story…
I guess I’m getting closer and closer to the other side…
You know, the other world we know so little about.

The first issue, is that I move way too fast
I have to tell myself each moment; “Slow Down!”
You’ve been given short-legs for a reason!

I have found that…
There is nothing but worry on the other side of hurry…
And the autumn colors disappear when I hurtle though their leaves.

I always seem to be a season behind…
Time being such a peculiar thing…
Everything in this world corralled with parenthesis…
And margins created by worrying about what other’s think.

But consider this…
When you see a star, your eyes are looking light years away…
Past the mellow moon and darkened sky…
You really can see a long way…
All the way into the depths of your life.

I love you,

Annie

I have a book that is a million years old…
Written in the rings of the trees…
Did you know, there were giants in those days?
And things that were actually shorter than me?
 
There are many tear-stained pages…
That people have skipped without notice…
An equal amount of bad and good…
All the little rags and pieces.
 
On page 105,000, I found my spotted cousin…
She would howl all day for the shooting stars she missed the night before…
In the next chapter she was so happy…
Because one of those stars exploded right over her head.
 
There are so many familiar pathways…
So much territory, belonging to us all…
My great, great, great grand pups’ lucky charm was a hairball from a cat…
It told him everyday that everything was going to be alright.
 
Ah, I found you and your family!
All coming together like children at a family reunion…
Like pillars of a beautiful temple…
Oh, how blessed you are.
 
I love you,
 
Annie

Sometimes I sit, and just stare at the wall…
As if I can see through wood…
Today, I’m contemplating a very poor decision I made…
I sold all my possessions for 25 cents…
And then found out there is no such thing as a biscuit machine…

Thinking, thinking, thinking…
Without stirring a paw…
Hmm… the best I can come up with is to bury the quarter in ground…
And continue watch Shark Tank (It really is a good idea!)

As I continue to stare…
I can see stars, then deeper stars and then I’m swallowed into some kind of black hole…
Now I’m floating in the realm of the unreal…
I can smell the crisp country air…
Hear the ocean’s call.

Okay, now someone is at the front door…
Do I bark or just remain in place?
I always ask myself why I didn’t open that door…
It could have been someone with the answer…
And then I remember, I don’t have a thumb.

Now, I’m contemplating my genealogy…
Trying to figure out, if maybe, there was a Doberman in the line…
And other curious things; like….
Why people always plant flowers before the Spring frost…
There’s a lot going on, on that wall…
It seems to be a place where the sky is set free.

I love you,

Annie

To me, the earth is like a merry-go-round…
Filled with colored horses going up and down, round and round…
It looks good because it is good…
As it spins 1037 mph around its axis.

With miles of rejoicing streams…
Violet morning mists…
Bark, branch and needle…
What’s that smell?
I think it is a ladybug.

This world casts a soft glow around me…
Making me shine…
Making me less and less afraid…
As we circle around one more time.

Of course there is also sadness…
So many people whispering words that are just too hard to understand…
What a hodgepodge of signals this world gives…
Worst of all…
There is a never-ending supply of the lonely…
That is why I have been put on this planet…
To rest on the laps of the broken hearted.

Now the sun is passing over Asia…
Crossing the breach until our noses touch…
Stretching its rays into the bright blue…
Good morning, friends!

I love you,

Annie