love-notes.jpg

love notes

a ritual to start the work week

Monday, December 4, 2023

passions compete for focus       disorder
grief takes over       withstands       rain
vicious reign        genius       seeks disciples
left       shivering       so quickly cast aside

holiness       fades once given form

 

love notes
a ritual to start the work week

Christopher Shepard
Monday, November 27, 2023

Floating in the frame
of an east facing picture
window, a prism
swallows the rising sun,
takes its untouchable
light into rock solid innards
and sprays rainbows around
the room, revealing
the multitudes we bask in
day after glorious day.

 

love notes
a ritual to start the work week

Christopher Shepard
Monday, November 20, 2023

Release the pain your heart’s been
clutching. Let go of that safety

blanket made of swords. Did you
know your defenses were so sharp?

That thorns grew from the hedges
planted to protect you as you

slept? Beauty, rest. Sit still in
the power only peace offers.

 

love notes
a ritual to start the work week

Christopher Shepard
Monday, November 6, 2023

to choose means
means to choose
to move to make
ends meet their maker
stand fall try fail take
the necessary risk
the waiting step
that waits for none
but you for you
alone took steps
that you alone
could take awaited
the choice made
made the choice
to make now move

 

love notes
a ritual to start the work week

Christopher Shepard
Monday, October 30, 2023

My eyes droop; yellow
over-watered leaves wait to
widen in the sun.

When, we wonder, will
the clouds loosen their grip? Jaws
clutch what they can’t have.

Hair on fire, hoping
for hoses from who knows where.
Fall finds us slipping.

 

love notes
a ritual to start the work week

Christopher Shepard
Monday, October 23, 2023

Trees blaze above our harvest feast, a bustling array, glowing in the pale light of the cool half-moon.

A chill whispers through arching branches, stripped to the bark, proud and brazen, outside our twinkling windows.

Our hands squeezed into a gentle knot, glimmers of green poke at the warming blue sky, leaning in toward the sun’s pursed lips.

Laughter rustles under umbrellas raised against rain and heat, our bare toes toppling toadstools growing among thick roots.

 

love notes
a ritual to start the work week

Christopher Shepard
Monday, October 16, 2023

stand for life
when the world wants spectators
stand for life
arms taken up and blown apart
stand for life
rivers teem with crossings
stand for life
in craters in canyons
stand for life
as the ground tips underfoot
stand for life
and the glory of creation
stand for life
whispered bedside prayers
stand for life
cupped hands and soft skin
stand for life
the stitch the song the simmer
stand for life
eye crease and furrowed brow
stand for life
how every line becomes

 

love notes
a ritual to start the work week

Christopher Shepard
Monday, October 9, 2023

Awe strikes me
like a match—a
flash of brilliance, a
sudden warmth—before
settling down to a
cooler flame, ready to
pass from stick to
wick like a morning
glory vine reaching
across a chain-link fence.

 

love notes
a ritual to start the work week

Christopher Shepard
Monday, October 2, 2023

You’re ready.
You’ve mulled and meditated
and considered your options.
You’ve weighed and waited.
You've bit your lips
and slid your right thumbnail
under the nail of your pointer
about a billion times.
You’ve wondered what if
the worst happens
or something just bad enough
or if there’s a chance
even the very slightest
that this will lead
unalterably
to your untimely demise.
But it’s time.
Now go, love,
and live.

 

love notes
a ritual to start the work week

Christopher Shepard
Monday, September 25, 2023

It’s so easy, isn’t it,
to clutch the cloudy
cloak around our necks,
hunched and hooded,
hiding in the rain,
and forget the sun,
as if it isn’t still
shining just there,
as if it won’t ever
warm our skin again,
as if Annie, after
belting it out every night,
snickered and whispered
“suckers” under her breath,
as if we didn’t have
a light all our own,
just as constant,
just as warm.

 

love notes
a ritual to start the work week

Christopher Shepard