Offer May Vary

Now, for a limited time only,
You get to live.

That's right!

Against the odds posed by billions of years of wanton destruction, wholesale slaughter, disease, famine and environmental upheaval;

And thanks to evolution, DNA and your mom and dad, you have been chosen to receive this limited, one-time-only* offer!

You get time on Earth as a living, sentient being.

And that's not all.

You also get

• Limbic
• Nervous
• And immune systems
• Extremities (complete with ten-digit grasping set)
• Ideas
• Musculature
• And 14 ounces of gray matter to organize it all!
  
  

Amazing, isn't it?

But wait! There's more!

You get
Sneezes
Bereavement
Hysterical laughter
Sexual release
Tingling sensations
Righteous indignation
Burning love --
All right here in
the Milky Way!!

The only place
in the known Universe
Hospitable to life!!!

Our offer comes with
An almost infinite supply
Of sensation
Experience
Emotion
And action!

All in one body!

All you have to do
Is get out of bed,

And your life is on its way!

Act now.

This offer expires
At some indefinite point
In the future.**

You won't want to miss this exciting experience!

We're so confident you'll enjoy this one-time offer that we'll even include a Skeleton internal carrying frame at no extra cost!

But hurry:
Supplies are limited.

The Operator
Is standing by...

--Mr. Gobley

* Offer may vary according to your State. Contact Maker for details.
** supplies are limited. Not available on Mars, Neptune, Mercury, Uranus, Saturn, Venus, the Planet Formerly known as Pluto, or other planetary or astral bodies. No refunds. Please live responsibly.

Please forgive the rerun...

Friends and readers:

i hope you will forgive this rerun. It is the expression of my deepest wish for you as we take part in our ritual feast: true gratitude, which creates its own bounty.

Yours-

Mr. Gobley.

Three Days with No Sun

i believe in seasons --
but this is ridiculous.

i believe in rhythms,
but a rhythm requires
regularity, alternation,
syncopation --
some state that changes,
some mood that banishes
this continent of gray flannel
that floats over my frosted town.

The day has three phases:

dark,
kind of dark,
and dark.

And yet
i will give thanks:

for another brief breath
i am singing through telephone wires
sighing into a child's tousled hair

watching a squirrel eat an apple
laughing at bumper stickers

listening to a jazz guitar
on a scratchy LP
and understanding
that one solitary blink of an eyelash,
one tear,
one dented smile
is an untold bounty

that only You can give --
and given You have,
with constancy
outshining all ambition
and all hope,
and lasting even until
the Sun decides
at last
to shine again.

--Mr. Gobley

Now and Not Now

Thin wisp of Time, threaded into Mind like sinew into bone, and yet, blown by like brittle leaves, skittering on frosted pavement;

Brittle wafer of Space, a shaft of Presence in a world of Absence, wavering and yet impossibly still like the blade of a candle's flame;

You are sustained along these thinnest of membranes,

From moment to moment and from place to place:

A miracle, consisting of millions of smaller miracles:

You are worked through the narrows of suffering, and squeezed again onto a vast plateau of plenty: truly, what do you lack?

From birth, you have emerged from narrow space into vast space; from one crisis to the next, you have squeezed through dire straits into new opportunity, from dark confinement to brilliant contentment. You will suffer again; and again, you will be freed.

All peace is Now. All suffering is Not Now.

Stay in the Now: as long as you are present to the Present, your suffering is an abstract painting, hung on the walls of your darkened mind. Admire it; respect its maker; but do not live in it.

For each and every Now is a brilliant promise kept, a Treasure unearthed at your feet. It will ever be thus.

May you know it to be so,
Now and
Again.

--Mr. Gobley

A Meditation for the Newly Heartbroken

Was it each other
That we loved --
Or was it our demons
That drew us in?

Was the sacred moment
Our coming together
Or our being thrust apart?

No matter.

Now we are two
And we must swim
Upstream together
Toward the headwaters
Of forgiveness.

I forgive you
For being afraid
And for the dark weapons
That hid behind
Your shadowed heart.

I forgive myself
The heart I gave you:
What is left
Will harden and heal,

And a new bud will emerge
From the ancient center.

Please forgive me for
The pain
I caused
When I wrenched
What was left of me
Away from you.

In time, we will move away
From shared history
Toward common mission:

To love wholly,
To fully forgive,
And to pour light
Into dark places

Where for aching centuries
Nothing has grown.

--Mr. Gobley