went searchin', went huntin'

not for coon nor gray possum

though these at times were sought

but for mama, for papa

for people i never knew

for grandpas and grandmas

for uncles, for aunts

for brothers, for sisters

long to mem'ry lost

went searchin' 'neath trees

into records of the country seat

in cabins, in graveyards

in mementos that have been bought

some glimpse, some earful

of tidbits deposited there

went huntin' for recovery

through swamps and bayous

among cypress, neath pines

to anything that might speak

a name in rings buried 

or agein' 'pon secret sites

still huntin' for an inkling

for signs of our shattered past

longing and working

to straighten our burdened, broken backs

*Reflections of Alan Jones:

  -True loving requires the kind of commitment that assumes a future where things might get better or they might get worse, but the loving will go on.

  -We use each other as a means to something else: food, narcissistic gratification, power, to scratch an itch, or as a means of diminishing another person.

  -The making of the soul as well as the making of a lover requires the receptivity to life of the mystic rather than that of the problem solver.

  -Love is transformed into psychic poison when it is used as a means to an end, as a way of "solving a problem."

  -...we need to understand that our basic relationship to reality (we might even say to God) is one of gift, the wild card.

  -Souls come into being when they are willing to contemplate gigantic things, when they are willing to allow the wildness of the wild card to enter their systems.