Dear Writer

And suppose there wasn’t
a single soul in your audience.
Would you write any more or any less?
Would you write any better or any worse?
Or would you write despite the fact
that no one heard a single word?
Yes, I believe that write you will
and write you must,
whether you fly
or turn to dust too soon.
Such is the nature
of the gift to write.

To Write

To write is to grasp
at the greatest of fantasies
and to hold them firmly in the hand.
To dream the greatest of dreams
and to capture them in words.
To seize upon the most
elusive of thoughts,
to harness them for a moment,
but then in time, let them too run free.
To reflect, to acknowledge,
to propose, to wonder.
To me to write is to be.

His Words

I shall long remember
his words for he said,
“If you should learn anything
from this class, learn how to see,
to observe, to find symmetry in a leaf,
beauty in a stone,
architecture in a seed,
structure in a bone.”
And so it was
that I began to see, to study,
to find in my own way,
that which had always been.
And though my pen
was often laid aside,
what I found were not only
the artifacts of yesterday
and the technologies of today,
but the spirit, the emotions,
the intellect, the essence of life,
the sensations of being.
And with these observations,
I began to write.

Something to Write About

There will always be
something to write about
so long as our reason
and our passion
are kept alive within us.
It’s only when we
settle for the superficial
that writing will cease
to serve a purpose.

That Old Mailbox

I came to that old mailbox
when I was ten, and years before
and years since then,
and there’d always be
some letters from home
and from those I’d missed,
good times, fun times,
and some still kissed
by the memory of that old mailbox
when I was ten.

Notes on Design/The Magic of the Moon

I always thought there could be
a wedding of the arts and sciences
as much as there could be
a union of our
reason and our passion.
So having been schooled
in the heat and sweat
of a summer-like science,
I longed for the fall
and the magic of the moon.
And herein, within
I have found it.

Old Siddhartha

Old Siddhartha came home
to his place by the river
and he listened to its mournful cry.
And he heard it this time,
yes, he heard it this time
like he never had heard it before.
But the time soon came
to pay the bills, and heal the ills,
so Old Siddhartha went back to work
locally.

All pieces ©Peter Bray sometime
while writing during the past 48 years.

Peter Bray lives, works, and writes in Benicia
and has written this column since 2008.

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