Life Abundant

Butterflies flitting, 

        birds chirping. 

                the river bubbling and burbling along. 

A cat leaps across the road, a dog

             scoots away as we five two-legged beings approach,

 e-biking up the hills, powered by

        our own breath and muscle, aided by the stored energy 

       of Nature’s bounty married to human ingenuity. 

 

Life’s glory announces itself and we gratefully receive it all, as we swoop and swerve and glide up and over, around and through the exquisite

Slovenian countryside. Life abundant. 

 

Even as Death’s dark descent hovers close by. Two souls

whose lives touched mine taken away, just in the last two days. 

I am here and they are not. 

 

So I remake my vows to savor life’s sweetness yet more fully, 

to drink it to the dregs, to raise my glass

on behalf of all those I’ve known 

        who cannot.