Idle Moments

Idle moments frittered by

        Children and adults alike,

Leads them not to nobleness,

        Deeds of greater worthiness.

 

Idle minds seek idle things,

        Numb the brain, stunt the dreams,

Great and good can never rise,

        In those who foster idle minds.

 

Those who idle moments seek

        Dress their minds in fantasy,

Independent, unrestrained

        In nothing more than mindless games.

 

Industry is free to sleep,

        No need to work in make believe,

Idlers lives, pass idlers by

        Leaving hopes and dreams denied.

 

Idlers seldom understand

        The toil and sweat success demands.

Lost in day-dreams reverie,

        Unaware--they're blind you see.

 

                                                   Copyright 2011 by Layne S Porter

 

 

 

Side Notes by Layne: We live in a day of distraction when almost everything and everyone is vying for our attention.  Lest we are vigilant, much of our time can be frittered away in idle pursuits.

 

 

 

    



 

I Am Who I Am

 

I am

Who I am,

and who I am

is reflected

in how I am.

 

Even though

who I am

is not

pleasing to some

still

I am who I am.

 

I have

not always known

who I am

and

that discovery

has not

been easy

simply because of

how I am.

 

I ask not

for forgiveness

for how I am

just for

freedom to become

who I really am.

 

For until

I become who I really am

I must remain

someone

I am not.

 

Copyright 1980 by Layne S Porter

 

 

Side notes by Layne:  I have always had an insatiable desire to understand the underlying reasons behind the way people interact and relate to each other.  It is this propensity to seek even a rudimentary understanding of human nature that appears in much of what I write.  It was in one of these moments of reflection concerning my relationship with my father that generated this poem.  Reading it after all these years still takes me back to that day when I was tending the cash register in Hastings Hardware Store in Afton, Wyoming .  That was the moment when I penned this poem during a lull in the afternoon.