Hey, American Dipper Bird,
how is it that they say you
can fly underwater?

How is it your eyelids
are white?

Do they provide you with
protection and underwater
vision when you close
your eye lids underwater?

And why are you such an
anomaly that you are called
an aquatic song bird, unlike
the other song birds who
cannot swim underwater?

And how is if you can stand
in freezing water and dip
your beak into it to forage
for food?

Also, one last thing. I’ve
read your color is a
“drab gray.”

I feel that’s an unkind
and thoughtless
description of your color.

I see your plumage as
a magnificent
light gray color
and I hope you
have a great day.

Bob Boyd

I believe it’s plausible
that like rivers
flowing to the ocean
all beings
aninamate
and inanimate
are flowing to
the ocean of bliss
aka
eternal bliss consciousness.

Bob Boyd

Sure it’s nice to have someone,
but, alas, in this world it won’t last.
If you don’t break up, death will
eventually break you up.
One way or the other heartaches
will ensue.
In some ways it’s better to have
no one.
In some ways it’s better to be free.

Bob Boyd

In my youth
I lived a more
turbulent life

often hectic
often crazy

now I have
a more
predictable life

never hectic
never crazy

it’s a solitary life
it’s a quiet life

and the peace
is superior

to the noisy life
of my youth.

Bob Boyd

Did this universe really have a beginning,
and will it have an ending?

Or does it have many beginnings
and many endings?

Will Shiva ever dance again,
the creation and the dissolution?

Or is the universe a never knowable
forever without a beginning or an ending?

Bob Boyd

I was sound asleep until in a dream
I saw a spider hanging from a spider
thread in front of my face.

It looked so real that I thought it
wasn’t a dream and woke up
ready to bat it away from my face.

And I wondered why me, why did
that goddamn spider have to hassle
me in that dream?

I looked up meanings of spiders in
dreams, but didn’t find any that
applied to me.

Maybe the meaning was it was
just a goddamn spider that
visited me in a lousy dream.

Bob Boyd

When he met her at a high school dance,
he fell in love with her immediately.

She had an ethereal beauty unlike any
other beautiful girl he’d ever seen.

After a dance, they went outside, and
she said see the full moon?

That is my home, and one day I’ll
be going back there.

He thought she was kidding and
didn’t pay attention to her joke.

But the next full moon when they
were walking alone in a park,

She said look my home, the full
moon, and she vanished.

And he swore for a moment he saw
her face replace the man in the moon.

He never saw her again after that,
and nobody in his city,

not even the police, knew anything about
who she was or where she came from.

Bob Boyd

Drew’s friends told him Bree was
out of his league.

He came from a poor family;
she came from a rich family.

They met in their senior year
in high school and fell in love.

Bree told Drew she didn’t care
that he came from a poor family.

She also said don’t listen to your
friends; you’re in my league.

Three months later Drew and Bree
knew they were soulmates,

and they vowed to get married
after they graduated.

But Bree’s father objected
to their getting married.

He wasn’t going to let his daughter
marry a loser from a poor family.

A few weeks after he learned
about their marriage plans,

mysteriously Drew went missing
and was never found.

Bob Boyd

Lily always like to camp alone;
it was an independence thing
to show she could do it.

She learned all about camping
from YouTube videos
and got quite good at it.

After she’d been camping for
there years, she decided to
try stealth camping.

She chose her stealth camp
location in a cemetery
on a full moon night.

She carried her gear through
the open gates and camped
in the middle of the cemetery.

Her plan was to leave right
before the light of dawn
exposed her tent.

But when the sun came up
her tent still stood without
her inside it.

Her purse and a change of
clothes where found folded
neatly inside her tent.

The police did many searches
for Lily, but they never
found her.

They even used search and
rescue dogs to try to
track her.

The dogs couldn’t get a
scent, and there were no
clues as to where she went.

It was as if Lily had
disappeared out of this world
on that full moon night.

That was ten years ago
and Lily’s whereabouts still
remains an unsolved mystery.

Bob Boyd

Tears today

tomorrow
washed
away

time
the healer

perhaps
time is
an

ultimate
healer

it’s
greatest
healing

when
you are
dead

and your
tears are

washed
away

forever.

Bob Boyd