Rick Hartwell- Three Poems

Rick Hartwell is a retired middle school (remember, the hormonally-challenged?) English teacher living in Moreno Valley, California. He believes in the succinct, that the small becomes large; and, like the Transcendentalists and William Blake, that the instant contains eternity. Given his “druthers,” if he’s not writing poetry, Rick would rather still be tailing plywood in a mill in Oregon.

Grace

Geckoes and a jackrabbit greeted her
on the way to church today,
as I dropped my daughter off
to study God and learn to pray.

Many more parishioners were there,
but only these had stopped to stay
within the Sun’s encircling warmth,
without the wooden cave to play.

I wonder if “The good Lord’s grace”
is just another way to say
“’Tis by fate and not by choice we live”?
Yet here my thoughts begin to stray.

Oversights like these have been
circling to all circumstance,
bent by recognizing chance in choice
and not to see the choice of chance.

Learning the Lesson

Sliding downward from Monday,
climbing back out on Sunday,
beating on the door of the
Home Ministry of Truth.

No entrance, but also no exit,
no excuses; just no place to go;
waiting for someone to call
my game on account of pain.

I am the classroom of my
own daily experiences;
my life is the lesson for
those surrounding me.

You must be the teacher.

Think About It!

Oh

Here I am

Again outside

In the hall of my life

Sent to “think things over”

Unable to withhold myself

Something I said

Returned me

Here again

Well!