places of power

I find myself googling museums and art galleries
frequented places and "must see" sights
13 things NOT to do in New York
20 minutes of things you MUST see

I get to tag along with Randy on a trip to Ottawa
I'll explore those streets and spaces while he
does the work accomplished in meetings with a diverse and
invested group of people

and then we will take a train to New York

kaleidoscope of known landscape and places
events and scenes
documented in a thousand songs and screens

we will miss the lighting of the Rockefeller tree by one day
we will see one show - one of a thousand possibilities
we will see a choir - Randy's sister in a choir- in Carnegie Hall

we will walk
and smell and taste and listen

people used to prairie spaces
trying to drink in this intersection of life
with a teaspoon of time

Janine Karen

I have a sister
who leaves music in her wake
melodies fly from her fingertips
sing themselves through her heart and mind

she finds them for me
as we sit, laughing
or talking on our pillows at night
on those rare weekends together

plays them on my piano
or hers
or any piano standing idle

I can sit beside her with my guitar and sing along
and she grins and keeps singing
Randy can pick up the violin
and she grins even more
and keeps singing

but whether we join her or not
the music just keeps bubbling up
and running over and watering my soul


I shall not want