SENSITIVE MIMOSA WEEDS    (sometime around 1991 or 1992; far end of EAST BEACH, Galveston Island, Texas)

your poems touch me deeply and inspire me to seek outside myself for enlightenment..peace Crim

so very gracious & generous of you to say so Crim, I feel truly humbled & honored & I'm so happy to hear that some of my poetry resonates so profoundly with you!  That can only be, if & because, there 'IS', something innately deep & kindred 'inside' of 'YOUR' heart, senses, spirit & being as well, which is open & attuned enough to being receptive to such transcendent, subtle  frequencies of that very same resonance & it's (universal) source, which is in all things & in this case, for you, that part of your being which longs for more of it, seems to have connected to some bit of that resonance through my poem(s). (I don't know if what just came out of my finger tips here in these words (so far), makes any sense to you at all (that was my intention at the outset, but then the words seemed to race ahead of my initial thoughts I was trying to express to you & just came out the way they are, but I didn't mean for them to sound so cryptic or mystical?!?  Basically, I had only wanted to tell you how much your unexpected response's, simple one line comment, touched & moved me with a still lingering sense of surprise, wonder, inner warmth & a meaningful, more lasting sense of 'validation', in that age-old, internal, gnawing fear, doubt & question, which many poets, writers, artists & musicians (etc.), ALL seem to have had, at some point in their lives, in regards to the worthiness, quality or fuility, of that which by their very own nature (in some cases), naturally comes out of them, through & in their creative works...  So thank you again for giving me a wonderful dose of that sense of 'validation', which even after over 40 years of writing poems, I still often question these days!  The other thing I wanted to say to you here & share with you, in regards to your comment about "seeking outside myself for enlightenment...", is, that which you are longing for or seeking is already within you, not ouside yourself externally!...  It always has been there & always will be...  You need only to open yourself up to it more & trust that it will come forward more & more, when you yourself feel you are sincerely ready.  Believe it or not, you most likely are already, at least half-way there, if not even more & now that you know that it's something you do not need to seek or go looking for somewhere outside yourself, then that resolves most of the struggle & then the rest is up to you, through simply becoming more consciously aware of it's presence in you & openly tuning into it's central core resonance & presence within you, through all your senses, mind, heart, spirit & being & it will all come & you will know it is coming well before it is there, because you are inseperable from 'it' & 'You' & 'IT' are one in the same, as 'ALL' things are... All life, all beings & all things in Creation are made of Consciousness & ALL IS CONSCIOUSNESS!...  ooooops!... the words took over & took off again, right past my intended thoughts... (sorry & thanks again & if nothing else, beyond all my spontaneous excessess here, just always remember "TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE."... - William Shakespear

-  love & light...   ~  O.I.N.