Put your magic glad on, baby.

“Put your magic glad on, baby.  The world needs your sun.  You just could be the one, you know, who saves somebody’s day—hauling it out of the gloom pool—setting it on its feet again.  It wouldn’t be the first time.

Don’t give me your aw c’mon.  I know your power.  I’ve seen it in action with my very own eyes. 

Why just last Tuesday, you turned it on that old dude up on 4^th and Vine, giving him that sly wink as if you shared some precious secret just between the two of you.

‘Hey, Pops,’ you said.  And he lit up like a Christmas tree just because you knew he was real.”

© Susan K. Minarik

The Only Thing I'd Really Like To Be

"Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around - nobody big, I mean - except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff - I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be." — From Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger

Let us work together for unity and love

“I offer you peace. I offer you love. I offer you friendship. I see your beauty. I hear your need. I feel your feelings. My wisdom flows from the Highest Source. I salute that Source in you. Let us work together for unity and love.” ~ Mahatma Gandhi

How Men Are

YOU KNOW HOW THEY SAY MEN ARE…

by Dr. C.P. Estés

I met a man today
a young man
with muscles
lots of them…
a weightlifter/ bodybuilder…

People say, they’re so taken with themselves
you know,
“all about themselves.”

He was clerking in a power-vitamin store
where I was buying the 4# jug of protein powder.
Upon leaving, my daughter pointed out
I was driving around with my new
license plates on the seat
instead of on the bumper
where they belonged,
and my temporary paper tag in the window
had expired yesterday.

I didnt want to get a ticket, so…
‘Can I borrow a screwdriver,’ I asked bodybuilder man…
thinking the store’d have one in back.

But, no, bodybuilder man
bounded out the door, across parking lot,
rummaging in his Jeep, but came back empty handed.
‘Thought I had one there,’ he said.

Today I met another man,
old construction guy with tool belt…
you know how people say
all those guys really do is lean against the girders
and whistle at girls and plan the perfect beerfest
in the Stratro-lounger each night… all while pounding
a nail or two daytimes.

Well, muscleman had hiked three stores down
where he knew construction man was working.
‘Got a screwdriver?’ he asked.
‘Sure,’ said tool belt man.

I had my hand out, ready to take the screwdriver…
but no, bodybuilder man was already squatting
at my pickup truck, unscrewing the rusty fat bolts
and slapping the plates on front and back, right smart.

He stood. Grinned at me like he just caught
a mermaid on a safety pin with no bait.
I blurted out,
‘You’re one of the last of the royal knights, you know.’

And he did that ‘guy thing’ that any woman
who’s a woman, loves so much, that ‘duck and blush’
thing men do when they are heart-pleased.

And carpenter man came to the curb to get his tool,
and bodybuilder man said, ‘Thanks Bud.’
Carpenter man said, ‘Happy to help.’
I said thank you too, and his  whiskers expanded
and went wide as he smiled.
‘It’s my job Ma’am,’ he said, and he saluted me…
Marine eagle on his arm flexing over the anchored world.

You know how those tattooed carpenter construction
worker bodybuilding weightlifter young/ old guys are.
You know how they are.

They keep horses
down at the river,
an old underground river…
which still runs clear.

“You Know How They Say Men Are,” © 1999, All rights reserved.  Dr. C.P. Estes, poem from, La Pasionaria: Collected Poems of Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes: A Manifesto on the Creative Fire