“We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us really happy is something to be enthusiastic about”

Charles Kingsley

Today, I would like to grant myself the honor of paying tribute, as it were, to a fellow of my acquaintance, David St. Lawrence. David is a wonderful chap, cheerful, intelligent, hard working, good company and married to a lovely woman named Gretchen. David and Gretchen live in the hills and valleys of southwestern Virginia near the town of Floyd.

I say 'grant myself the honor', because I believe that it is my honor to have had the fortuity to meet and spend a few days of my life in David and Gretchen's home and environs. Why? Well, that's a good question. I'm not exactly sure I can explicate, in an organized concatenation of symbols and spaces -- in words -- why, exactly, I like having met David. Actually, why I like David and find him a valuable fellow.

(Which is, a lot, different than merely liking to have met him. You could have liked to have met someone because they are much uglier than you are, and it made you feel better to know there is someone worse off in the world, in terms of ugliness, than you are. Mind you, however, David is not ugly, but a rather handsome chap in his own right -- which I feel I must make clear lest someone skate through this tribute over quickly and draw an invalid inference.)

In any event, David and Gretchen live in a lovely and charming home just suited for the two of them and their two cats, Buffy, who is a sweet, cream colored, friendly and appreciative tiny cat, and Sherman. Sherman doesn't socialize much with those he doesn't know very, very well, so I really never got to learn much about Sherman, except that he is diffident, or timid, or shy or whatever the appropriate term might be. And, he is pure black. I also hear, through the grapevine that he is a more than passable hunter, and has recently taken pains to show David so. David, Gretchen and the cats live on a good sized parcel of property, once covered uniformly in trees and assorted creations of nature, but which now sports a central clearing within which they built their home a few years ago.

I suppose the best way I could describe David and Gretchen's home, from my point of view, obviously, is to say that it is well-ordered, peaceful, welcome and creative respite from the turmoil and strife and vagaries of the world. One feels, when one is at David's and Gretchen's home as if the world is alright and, despite the horrific matters that seem to threaten to inundate us all every day should we pay too much attention to the "press", everything will be alright. You feel, when you are around David and Gretchen, in other words, that "It's all good." as a friend of mind is wont to say.

I'm afraid I could, however, write for eons and not tell you enough salient facts about David to give you a full enough understanding of him and his nuances and the goodness which he brings to the world, and so, what I figured I'd do is let you see David for himself, by providing you this link to his very own blog:

Making Ripples

I invite you to make the acquaintance of Mr. David St. Lawrence and to join those many others who have found that David acknowledges portions of themselves which they had forgotten, or never had known, existed.

Cheers and salutations ....

It was a rather conservatively adorned day. Not too bright. Not too dark. "Just", as the baby bear is said to have said, "right". Oh, well, it wouldn't have been just right if you fancy a nice clear sky bright blue sun blazing kind of day. Today, however, I'd have felt even more depressed than I already was, had I had to suffer one of those glorious bright blue clear sky days. All I wanted, and perhaps all I needed, was some peace and quiet, some insulation from the spiritual -- or perhaps 'metaphysical' -- noise that almost invariably seems to pervade my subjective universe when I'm walking near where I work. And, it seemed like that is what I was going to get. At least until I rounded the corner and spotted him. That same fellow who has darkened my path many another day. That homeless street dwelling fellow loudly hawking the "Street Sense" newspaper on the street for "just one dollar". He is very loud and very invasive and makes you (or me, at any rate) feel as if I've committed some crime against humanity by passing him by without having contributed a dollar to him. I find myself having this conversation in my head in which he insists that it is my moral duty to buy this rag, this paper, even though I have not the slightest interest in what it is "reporting", for the simple reason that it costs "only" a dollar. And, then I feel bad and come up with a 'rational argument' in my head why I shouldn't have to buy it, and why he should get a job and why it is bothersome of him to stand in the driveway of the CVS and slow people down before they get to their cars in order to guilt-trip them into paying for something that 'no one' wants.

It doesn't matter whether I'm "right", whether he's "right", whether my imagination is over active or whether he's selling the next Pulitzer prize winning short story. What mattered to me, today, is that, instead of being left alone, I had to walk by his contribution to the metaphysical noise that I so desperately wanted to avoid.

Next time, when I first catch sight of Mr. Street Sense, I'll turn right around and walk all the way 'round the block in the other direction. That'll teach him!

Today is a new day. Of course it is. But, in particular, it is a new day for this, Magic Poet, blog. Up until now, I've treated it, more or less, as a neglected step child ... yearning for my attention, which I only sparingly meted out with the most stingy of dispositions. No wonder it never gave me anything back. And, in addition, I suppose I treated it like a disguise, instead of a river from which to wave to my friends and meet new adventures.

I'd quote some Emerson now, to the effect that I'm happy if I've changed one life for the better. But that would be entirely too erudite (and perhaps even using the word "erudite" is too erudite) and possibly pedantic (another one of those words) for this forum (or should I call it a "venue"?). And, it wouldn't be true. I won't be happy, at the end of my current life if all I've done is improve the life of one being, besides myself. A tiny little goal like that is a bit like admitting that you're a failure before you even get started. Goals were meant to be big. Life is meant to be lived. Not shyly diffident, but with head-high-chest-out-balls-to-the-wall-gusto.

Let me smell you
Let me have you
Let me eat you with my pie
Let me see you in the night
In my dreams
In the dark and glistening sky.

I am enamored of your soul
As much as I am intoxicated with your smell
Feeling my heart beat like a drum
When ever I chance upon your scent
Giving me ideas of wonders heaven sent

All that I am sometimes feels all that you are
And it then becomes nearly impossible
To know an unhappy thought, a moribund joy
To know anything that is not graceful and free
This having begun the moment I met thee.

13 November 2007.1
Copyright by Scott Weible
All Rights Reserved

there will never be a time when i am not with you
never an instant when i am less than enthralled with you
never a thought in my head that you are not the one
that the others who caught my eye might have been better

and this is because you are the essence of the beauty of life itself
you make my blood warm as you approach, even in the most disheveled state
and you, even in your most intemperate times, smooth my wrinkles
make me feel as if the energy of the universe is flowing through me

i know that there are those moments when our reactions throw us against each other
so please hold fast as you run into me at high speed and i will catch you
and i promise that i will not recoil, i will not rejoice in your misery
for that would be jubilation at my own death, my own annihilation, my nothingness

of course it can sometimes feel hard, as our passions seemingly seek to incinerate us together
hoping, against all hope, that this match made in heaven, is consigned to bitter hell
but that is the jealousy of dubious and debauched alien spirits, feverish at our approach
appalled at the immortal and unforgettable beauty of our allness, our love, our souls together.




31 October 2005.1
Copyright by Scott Weible
All Rights Reserved

Climb Aboard

Climb aboard little darling

Climb with me to the heavens

Let’s go where spirits soar

And, love each other ever more

Let’s laugh amongst the grasses

As we crest that long, long hill

Before we plummet with lovers’ gleefulness

Straight down in to the blue green pond

And when the fireflies are on their nightly parade

I want you to give me your arm

Let me smell your pretty scented hair

While we relax beneath those bright, sparkly stars

Oh, how good it is to be me

When I am with you

When we are on our path together

When love is as it should be

When you are mine


5 June 2007.1
Copyright by Scott Weible
All Rights Reserved

-the imposter

-well, it wasn't you after all, but an imposter, masquerading as love, covering for a damaged, unintentionally critical heart
-it wasn't the beacon that i had hoped for, although she seemed like she knew where she wanted to go
-it was not the essence of the artist's heart, the beauty that creates and enlivens all eyes, blesses the soul,
-no, it wasn't you, after all this time, after all this searching, after all of the trials, tears and tribulations of the hunt,

-the hunt? the hunt? the hunt, for what? for a woman? for a love? for a companion? for a heart as pure and true as you
-you who elude my grasp, elude my soft and gentle kisses, elude any snare that might retard a spirit's flight
-you who rise above and far beyond the pettiness of this eventually moribund existence to occupy my thoughts,
-my heart's words, the sounds of the notes of music that pervade the breezy afternoon when the band is inspired?

-i thought it might be you. i was, sure, in fact that i loved her, and, in truth, i do. more than my heart can stand, almost
-more than i thought it possible and not have found you. i love her in her beauty, in her skill, in her talents, in her directness
-in the way that she emulates the soul of the artist that i know you Are, that i know you exude from even your most intimate pores
-yes, my eternal love, i love her, as i have loved many, as i may love many more if you do not, first, save me

-if you do not show me mercy and swoop down from the heavens (and from Zeus' own table) and take me, lead me
-encourage me to accompany you along a path of greatness, of understanding, of a translucent love that is never shy,
-never bashful to report upon it's own goodness, and to exhort all others to match it, to revel in how sweet a love can be
-how utterly endearing My love will always be, no matter the year, the lifetime, the universe; no matter if at home or at God's table.

- i had really thought she might be you, my darling, sweet essence of the bird's soaring flight, unruly spirit who cares,
-cares not just for me, not just for the others, but for an excellence of manner, deportment, of understanding and grace,
-who unstifles the imagination, gives free reign to the creations of cooperative souls, striving to erect a monument
-to that purity of creation that is stoked and fired with the emotional resonance of those multitudes of who have loved by your example.

16 December 2002.1
Copyright 2002, by Scott Weible
All Rights Reserved.