Category Archives: Peter’s Stuff

Things Peter is doing, interested in, or otherwise feels like posting

Inch Deep

Once fed by melting white snow
Tumbling quickly with great energy
Living rock yielded to the potent push
As it carved deeper and built strength
Life's elements careening down stream

Then dreadfully harnessed and tapped
To suit the intent of designers
Pounding and frothing for naught
As twist upon turn changed the course
Sapping the potential and power

Till an inch deep and two miles wide
Sluggishly creeping along the way
Stagnantly pooling, nearly halting
Releasing what was suspended
All is lost by expanding too wide

Story Time: Doctor Destructo

Sitting around my parent’s house over the Thanksgiving holiday, my siblings and I started doing what we generally do on the rare occasions when we get together — we started telling stories from when we were younger.  That got me to thinking that many of the earlier stories haven’t been written down anywhere and might be lost if I didn’t change that fact.  Either that, or they would be told incorrectly by my siblings (almost certainly in a way that minimizes their roles).  So, after encouragement by Liz, I’ve decided to write down a few of them that came up … Read the rest

Is it selfish, and is that okay?

If you read these pages, it should be pretty obvious that I like to write.  Why I write is a question I’ve been asking myself a lot lately, and I’m having difficulty coming to a reasonably believable and simultaneously satisfying answer.  The truth of it is that there are many answers, but when I consider the implications of those answers the results are highly contradictory and/or unsatisfying.

When I started writing, I pretty much wrote for myself.  Writing was a chance to organize my thoughts and either deal with what was on my mind or divert my attention away from … Read the rest

Left undone

An afternoon unallocated
Retreat to the shop, pick something up
"Dad!" -- A call for my help
It can wait... I whisper to myself
As I answer the call of a child

An evening to write -- maybe a chapter
Open the draft and read what I wrote
Memory refreshed, prepared to compose
A knock at the door draws my attention
A neighbor needs help
The story will be there tomorrow I guess

The oil needs changing -- maintenance deferred
A banging noise calls for investigation
It'll only take an afternoon or so
Maybe I should just pay someone else
Read the rest

More to do than time allows

Time is a teacher, but many of her lessons are about herself.  One lesson time repeatedly and frequently tries to teach me is how fleeting, rare, and precious she is.  It always seems I am putting some project or another on the back burner to wait the day when I’ll finally have enough time to finish what I started.   In fact, as a college kid I would joke about what I would do when all I had was a day job and school was over.  After graduation, I joked about what I’d do when we had enough money so that … Read the rest

Final Thoughts

What will you ponder 
When providence calls
And you must answer soon -- 
Passing beyond mortal life
And leaving all else behind

Concern for loved-ones remaining?
Freedom from sorrow and longing?

Fear that there's yet more to come?
Hope for what is yet to come?

Regret for things left undone?
Satisfaction in successes hard won?

Hot anger and spite?
Or calmness and quiet?

 

A Penny For Your Art?

Would you pay a penny for a poet's rhyming words,
That sent your soul up soaring in the heav'ns among the birds?
Or the beauty of the artist who had captured morning's light,
Painting a young mother who has nursed a child all night? 
And don't forget the music that inspires, calms or thrills, 
Took hours and hours of practice just to master simple trills.

So please do not insult us and demean a pricelesswork work,
With worthless bits of copper tossed with pity in your look.
The slighting little tokens meant to ease your inner shame
Are little more 
Read the rest

Free Range Kids

Not quite feral and yet not tame
Undisturbed by hovering parents
Who watch quietly from a distance
And see the joy of discovery

Mostly free they wander the landscape
Exploring the wonder about them
Touching and tasting and seeing
Excitement in the plainest of things

Pushing limits and boundaries
Taking risks and meeting danger
Taught by nature to judge and adapt
Learning lessons no school could teach