So kind,
so generous,
so compassionate,
words I feel evade me,
when in the lower moments
I forget about my
humanity.
We all possess this ability
to turn down
our opportunity
to live our lives
free of scrutiny.
Oh we do have paths,
we must learn to live by,
and yet when we become
self – aware,
it’s then our fears
do take over,
do take control,
do minimize who we might be,
until one day,
we trust our own humanity.
When while every moment of life speaks
with the echo of nature,
some choose a concrete sentiment.
Is it possible to know last words
perhaps spill similar sound.
~
I wanted to say every moment meant
the exact opposite of what remains,
yet, the words, the voice, our own
struggle to be the immediate in
what we might believe,
would not allow any reveal,
we did, I did, squandered away
such is this momentum to relive.
~
Now will be a slow silence,
forever quiet with resolve …
ambling, fading into the summer sky,
when a melody speaks aloud
its strength is less,
like some lost memory we
no longer find to be anything
ever so important as it once
maybe one time held before.
~
I could not be capable of compassion
if meaning were a facade in my mind.
© Thom Amundsen 7/2021
Usually news, not just an epiphany,
perhaps a tragedy, friend nearby, makes us want to
have a long cry
when we, well
similar sounding sigh,
we, well, I cannot really describe the loss of
uniformity
while chaos rears its impulsivity upon the
normalcy of our lives.
~
Last night a dear friend told me news
her friend, one of a lovely circle
of women I have had the privilege of stories,
an endearment of souls traveling the years,
and they will band together,
they will search and plead and pray
for some new authenticity,
allows all of them to feel
together.
~
She is a very kind soul this dear friend of mine,
I can feel her ache,
she has memory of the sort
we all carry around with us to different degrees
of understanding loss and pain and confusion.
~
So let the world remind us all
when in the quiet silence of a sunlit morning,
we can stand still,
feel the permanence of our frame of mind,
when life seems so apparent
its penchant for reminding us all,
standing alone is no place to know,
only a landing upon where we sometimes fall.
~
Perhaps there is a gesture we only know so well,
a moment of peace, of love, when then hearts do swell.
© Thom Amundsen 4/2021
(for Cherri)
I remember a long time ago, I wrote a little piece about John Lennon, the day he was killed and the newspaper printed it. I was 20 at the time, and it was simple, ‘Guns don’t kill people, people do’ and I couldn’t really take credit for something the world was repeating to itself over and over in the mass confusion of such a loss. I remember his second album was coming out – he was talking about 40 being his next life, just published ‘Double Fantasy’ and it spoke of saving relationships with one common denominator – that was love.
My mother saw my letter to the editor and cut it out and put it on the refrigerator. To me that was an honor and I felt loved by her actions. To me that has always been what love is, not something expected but just what happens in our lives. I think in my family my children and I would say to each other and their mother, ‘I love you’ to finish conversations on the telephone. I remember one time recalling we did it so often it would glaring if one day we did not, and so I maintained the tradition, we all did, until later on in life it became a question in our minds. Suddenly name value didn’t have as much impact.
One day when I was 20 years old, I worked in an intake office and took phone calls and directed them to the psych units I worked with, and the phone rang, I answered and the voice on the other end said ‘I love you’ and hung up. I remember being so touched it gave me a tear. I had really never felt that kind of love before and here was a young woman whom I was falling in love with just chose the moment, hung up and probably smiled as much as I did the rest of that day.
So how do we define love today? I suppose it doesn’t have to be ritual as much as it needs a genuine appeal. I recently came across something about a friend that caused me some judgment, a place I don’t often like to go because it makes me feel shallow. The truth is though, I wanted to know and the only way I could is if I asked her directly, and then my greatest fear would be her rejection. So how do we define love? We don’t.
We simply allow love to happen in our lives, and then smiles and light in our eyes become real.
© Thom Amundsen 12/5/2020
Listen to the birds singing in spring
Hear the cello at home in between
Each memory
Each moment
A song we could create in melody
If only the world not live parody
Such is the mendacity of our time
When still is beauty yet sublime
Each moment
Each memory
If in the midst of a traveled rhyme
We shut out a neighbor is a crime,
Only preserve that moment, oh 9/11
Restoration, is love in sweet Heaven
Each memory
Each moment
Now in wood, in silence find our Zen
A patch of forest heart and soul then
Speaks fond of a once nostalgic liberty
We would may always grasp this reality
Oh to know the sound a certain bird will
Sweet a peace of mind, distant cello still
©️ Thom Amundsen 4/2020
I haven’t felt like writing for quite some time, but today I received the inspiration I was pleading, and so it goes that I want to talk about this Covid-19 crisis that we will seemingly endure for quite some time. It will change our world, our lives. The number of positives today reach 169 in Minnesota alone, not to speak of the enormous numbers across the world.
Our lives are impacted as we all get used to this self-quarantine in our homes. The temps outside are just shy of my desire to take my bicycle out, though newly tuned, I am thinking at least a short ride in the late afternoon when the temperature peaks. That would seem a freely healthy move inside this isolation.
I am a coffeeshop guy and I went through early withdrawal with the words of our Governor shutting down any inside seating. It makes frightening sense to me now as I watch the numbers and their daily rise. It is important to recognize these are real people and not simply numbers. People’s lives across the world are changed, forever. People have lost loved ones like a germ warfare attack throughout Europe and now having reached the states, it is clearly an epidemic not seen since perhaps the Polio outbreak.
I’m a teacher so I don’t have to go into work. We are planning to go online with our courses in a couple of weeks, not only finishing a quarter but perhaps completing the school year online. I haven’t wrapped my head around that. At the same time I appreciate the time off to get my head straight with my own personal life, I realize our work, as experimental as it is, so vastly impacts the lives of our students. I hope to give them a solid foundation for their education in both core and elective classes.
I run a theatre program that will shut down for the spring if these effected lives do not begin a downturn in the weeks ahead. I don’t see that happening anytime soon. As I sit here with a mild cough, I get nervous, and wonder about the thousands of lives in Minnesota already infected. Again, I’m only focusing locally, because really that is all my brain can muster right now. Looking out my window, I know that on everyone’s mind outside that walks by, is the virus. We are living a summer blockbuster. The only difference is it is real.
I think as a teacher, someone said recently, maybe now our profession will be appreciated when families are stuck at home rather than sending their children to school. Well then I would say all of those people in all professions need to be respected for the impact staying home has on their livelihood, and then don’t forget the medical personnel in all capacities who are dedicating their lives to curbing the spread of a virus that they cannot even clearly see a vaccine that will brings this to a halt.
My car has 12 miles of gas left in it before empty, and I am not in any huge hurry to go fill the tank. There really is no need, unless I decide to just take a drive and never get out. That might be in the near future if the temperatures don’t rise and my bicycle remains hanging in the garage.
I wish everyone peace during this very difficult time. I hope you may all hold your family and friends near your heart and soul. I hope those alone don’t feel completely invisible to our society and world, and realize there are many in the same circumstance. I hope people may find their peace of mind within themselves and use faith and prayer, your chosen method of processing this incredible violation upon the human condition..
On a lighter note, I hope Netflix does not shut down.
Peace everyone,
@ Thom Amundsen 3/2020
We stood and watched,
heard about a couple of planes
ascending into the atmosphere
above and beyond a toxic city.
We wondered aloud,
thought oh my, such a tragedy,
imagined only a particular moment,
far beyond our backyard,
we don’t even need a fence,
so convenient,
so far away.
We began to stare
a certain shock
this calamity of our social
atmosphere,
shutting down,
closing, ending,
creating financial ruin,
the livelihood of so many,
suddenly matters little,
not a bitter response,
just one of humanity,
a time to understand,
find meaning.
There is ahead of ourselves a prelude
asking, universal, unconditional love.
© Thom Amundsen 3/2020
Just now,
in the quiet atmosphere,
where no one
might hear my sigh.
A silent recall
today a different time,
conversation and laughs,
and then a glance, a pause
when eyes purposely
met one another
again.
Quite evident is the changing focus,
something
exciting to us both.
I will remember you
a saying just out of the blue.
I will remember you
a vision, a different view.
Sometime we wonder,
what if,
when did,
no answers coming yet.
There will be those moments
when our lives
do recall the humor
held our lives together,
and then today in the sweet
reckoning of our reality,
we did glance,
we did look for
some solace
in a spectacular time.
I will remember you
a saying just out of the blue.
I will remember you
a vision, a different view.
Look at love said the obscure seer
who believed in harmony
look before a discord shook the enemy.
So it looks the way
we might imagine,
some purpose,
a reliance
on know
we will live upon our dreams,
share our fortunes
without any monetary
illusion.
I will remember you
a saying just out of the blue.
I will remember you
a vision, a different view.
© Thom Amundsen 2019
We live in a society of measure. Of mirrors and reflections and purposeful glances. We operate by sensing physicality alone, even when made aware of a far deeper context to what is beauty in our lives, in our society. This is an important subject to dwell upon in light of the ugliness we are experiencing in our own country, in the world itself. The idea of glamor far exceeds the recognition of beauty and how it operates in the well-being of ourselves, our friends and family, our planet.
I remember as a young child knowing what beauty was in an innocent mind. I watched Diana Ross on Ed Sullivan, I noticed the screaming young girls at the front of a stage at a concert for the Beatles. I was madly in love with Gidget or Marcia Brady of course. In all those examples I was focusing on their physical attributes, which gave me a foundation as young boy to know what defined beauty in my life. It wasn’t until I watched a dear friend perform her gymnastic composition on parallel bars that I began to know another definition. It wasn’t until I walked home with a school mate, though a couple years older than me, and striking in her glamorous demeanor that I noticed beauty in a different level.
In watching my friend perform I was struck by her commitment to what she loved at the time, an athletic prowess as a young woman, one that allowed her to become a state champion in her abilities. To me that wonderment of effort was beautiful to observe.
Later in life, listening to a friend of the family talk about what is important, as we crossed our familiar bridge on our way home from school, and descended a hill that held our neighborhood. She was teaching lessons as a 12th grader to a 9th grader, how important it was to love yourself before you could love others. In listening to her, I realized there was more than fashionable jeans, a chic style sweater, perfect hair to define the beauty inherent with my friend. She taught me about compassion and that began for me a different focus upon beauty in our lives.
One day as a twelve year old I was getting a ride from my sister to basketball practice. She asked me what was wrong as I slumped in the passenger seat. I told her I was lonely, didn’t know what to do about it. She stopped the car, turned to me and said you have to find a passion in your life. As a twelve year old, I blushed and imagined passion to be something sexual, and I couldn’t believe she was telling me this. She then explained the word passion is not simply about sex, it is about loving what you do, finding something that gives you the ability to believe in yourself because your energy is drawn completely to accentuating your own passion.
That lesson from my sister, the walk with my friend, the athletic prowess of my schoolmate, all of those pieces of my life gave me opportunity to recognize a more holistic approach to understanding beauty in my life.
Certainly as a young man, I was still drawn to the beauty of woman, the wonder of her elegance, in the summertime, the fascination of her stylistic manner of wardrobe on a cold winter’s day, how intriguing it was to know she would be cognizant of a look she wanted to have in the midst of a bustling society. I remember knowing a woman who I watched cross the street one day, wearing a striking rain jacket and green knee high rain boots.
Her image has stayed with me all my life, as did the day she and I were lounging in her apartment, and I commented on her jeans, and she gave me a smile and said she had been wearing them for eight days. I thought that was the coolest thing, her sweet comfort level with her own self image caused me to feel beauty about her person, well beyond a physical characteristic.
I think the deeper context of who we are is often easily forgotten about, put aside, neglected. I have a brother who in his elder life, now sits in an art museum and curates the lovers of a gallery in his home town. We had a chance to visit him one afternoon, and he was so in his element – he knew the history of all the works in the gallery, and his smile radiated as we walked through the rooms. I took his picture afterwards because I wanted to have a record of the beauty that shined from him internally. He looked to be a happy man.
Beauty for me holds a lot of different values. Seeing a band perform live, watching my students reach fruition on the stage with their efforts. Observing a student find their way in a classroom studying a subject they have never understood. Seeing students take chances and risks knowing one another beyond a superficial level. Watching my family evolve as I see my two children continue to strive for happiness in their lives rather than letting hardships discourage them. Having close friends dear to your heart that are there to support you, laugh at your whims, share dialogue and understanding for your own passions.
That word passion comes back every time I struggle. The passion to seek, the passion to address needs of concern, the passion to love. We are a vulnerable lot easily drawn to the pain in our lives rather than seeing the beauty of who we are and accentuating beauty in the lives of those around us. My hope is that the people around me, those I am closest to, can see beauty for what it truly is, to give meaning to what is important, beautiful and eternal in our lives.
© Thom Amundsen 2019
Though there would be
immediate disagreement in one,
quiet satisfaction in another,
in the final hour,
one would realize if they did stop
to glance,
a world beyond their own device,
would, might
still exist,
and in that social fabric ignored,
a pain,
a fighting soul
whose rapture not found
might emulate
the sorrowful nature
of a discompassionate ploy.
Yes, simply a game,
beyond the reality of our terms,
defined by the human condition,
a banter of
despondent disregard
favors
only the regarded one …
or two, or three, or miles of more,
so difficult it is to understand
the lemings at my door.
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