I’m sitting in the stillness
Watching the birds fly
Watching the sunset
Give colour to the sky.
I hear my neighbours in their garden
Talk muffled behind their kids play
And I’m not intentionally trying to listen
But I can’t help but laugh at what the kids say.
 
They talk of missing school
How it feels like summer is already done
And they list the things they love
Like just to do that is fun.
 
There is such life in their voices
I’m lifted by the words they say
As they are so excited making their choices
Naming the things that make their day
I’m taken back to my own youth
Something that is forever slipping away
But kids have a way of giving it back to you
Effortlessly, in their play.
 
Talk about their favourite sandwiches
Simple things they love
Giving off the feeling
That this world is inherently good
And I return to me
As they venture back inside
And I look up a little differently
At the sunset in the sky.

I sit in the stillness
Feeling the breeze, watching birds fly
And I sense the loss of youth
To be a trick of the mind’s eye.
 
© Daniel Breslin

Every day I’m learning
Through trials and tribulations
Learning about pain
Learning about patience.
 
Learning we don’t always get
For what it is we’re waiting
Learning about love
Learning about creating.
 
Learning about vulnerability
And the different ways we show it
Learning how to move in it
Learning how to grow it.
 
Learning what I want
Learning what I don’t
Learning what I no longer will
Learning what I no longer won’t.
 
Don’t always get it right
That’s a trick for the dead
But those of us with life
Need to learn to love ourselves through our mistakes instead.
 
Learning how to be more open
Let others deeper in
Learning how much I’ve kept closed
And as those doors open, of new paths to begin.
 
Always looking for improvement
Trying to learn and move with them
Set backs through bumps and bruising
Upsets to our rhythm.
 
Learning what I can
Learning what I could
Learning what I hate
Learning what I love.
 
Learning is the key
As I search for growth
And where there’s learning for me
There always remains hope.
 
Don’t always get it right
That’s a trick for the dead
But those of us with life
Need to learn to love ourselves, through our mistakes instead.
 
Every day I’m learning
Every day is a new one you see
And every day I’m churning
My mistakes into future opportunity.
 
Don’t always get it right
That’s a trick for the dead
But those of us with life
Need to learn, to love ourselves, through our mistakes instead.

© Daniel Breslin

I see love in the distance
I see love in a nod
In strangers who are neighbours
Who take to the street to applaud.


Players I can’t see
But a player or players I can hear
As they play music in a sign of unity
And to show that community is still here.


I see love in the distance
As I lean out and squint my eyes
To see neighbours coming closer
Keeping space, while leaving their homes inside.


I see love in the distance
In how they meet and greet each other
Their nods of applaud hold such significance
Non physical hugs, we now give each other.

I see community, I see spirit
I see strength, and I see will
And what I can’t see I can hear
And I feel the love, that distance can not kill.


I see spark and I see heart
I see unity and I see hope
In the spaces kept between neighbours
In strangers up the road. 


As they gather in their outing
For twenty to forty minutes maybe most
At a time full of doubting
To show in distance we’re still close.


I see love in the distance
In how we greet in a nod
And the physicality that’s now missing
Is replaced in a different bond.


I see love in the distance
I see love in music and a nod
In strangers who are neighbours
Taking to the street to bond in an applaud.

© Daniel Breslin