Archive for the ‘Chris’ Category

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1984-04-29

Sunday, April 29th, 1984 
           Today I was shaving
           and putting in my contacts
           and Chris sat on the sink watching
           like he's done a lot these last two months.
           Suddenly, from this random behavior,
           came pattern and purpose.

           If I were making a fire or tanning leather
           or stringing a bow or gathering herbs
           there...
           there he would sit, receptive
           to what he would need to live;
           the transmission of learning
           parent to progeny.

           Wolf cubs, seals, monkeys and man
           all the same...small eyes learning.

           And in our plastic electronic world
           where this has little validity
           the instinct still lives.
           he looks to me to show him the way.

                        gallagher
                        apr 29, 84
                        San Juan Capistrano

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

Posted in 1984, Catalyst, Chris, San Juan Capistrano | No Comments »

1984-06-01

Friday, June 1st, 1984 

         Mists of time around me, sweeping.
           A lamp in the moving fog
              of some greater darkness, I.
         Impressions of progress and decay, fragmented
           small glimmers of understanding
              against the animal’s short run.
         Film spliced, images racing, overlaid
           in bursts of light and shadow.
              But what cares the screen beneath.
         We run unarmed, to battles unwinable
           and our love’s the only comfort taken
              and our small awarenesses
                 the only progress made.
         Death and pain and dissolution and decay.
           We are motes in the vortex of life’s sink.
              Our children only a momentary reverse.
         Come the mists and darkness, I wait …
           weathered and drawn in animal skin
              receptive to an unknown God.
         Rose and Danny and Chris
           and these lines on my face
              and those on these papers I’ve traced
         these are the only measures I can discern
           of what I’ve wrought
              in this time and mist and darkness.
                              gallagher
                              1 jun 84
                              Irvine, CA

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

Posted in 1984, AAA - Recommended, Chris, Dan, Irvine, Rose | No Comments »

1984-06-24 For the pictures

Sunday, June 24th, 1984 

                    For the pictures


   In the gray half light I saw the picture patterns she'd hung;
   imperishable for this moment, and so fragile for all the rest.
   Someday, I may remember these, that tonight I can see.
   Somewhere, down the imponderable paths our lives wind,
   I could be dropped into another world - far from this
   and Rose's pictures and Danny's manhood and Chris' cheeks
   may all be photographs and memories then ...
   indeed...we all will be, someday.


   So this moment ... I cannot stop it, cannot delay it
   and I cannot waste it, least I regret.


   So easy to lose it against hungers or moods or fatigue.
   The kindness and love we give and receive...
   it seems so mixed with the mundane and the trivial sometimes.


   But all the lessons of our lives wait before us;
   lessons from which no one escapes alive.


   What more could God give us than the people we love
   and the passion of living out our lives with them
   in family/friend chains of living change?


                           gallagher
                           24 jun 84

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

Posted in 1984, AAA - Recommended, Catalyst2, Chris, Dan, Rose, San Juan Capistrano, Spiritual | No Comments »

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