Author: Roy Compton

Who me?Why would I want to?What I’d like to change is …             by Richard Hugo (1923-1982) SECOND CHANCES by Richard Hugo (1923-1982) I can’t let it go, the picture I keep of myself in ruin, living alone, some wretched town where friendship is based on just being around. And I drink there a lot,…

Questions for Myself Do I love my father?How did my father wound me?How did my father change my parenting? Fathers and Sons By Eugene Marckx Dale lived alone with his mother, except on nights when the banker’s top hat was hanging on her bedroom door, or the senator’s homburg, or the general’s roughrider hat. Dale…

Was it mothering or smothering?How was it to be mothered for me?Was I mothered by my father? Nestor By Eugene Marckx A featherbrained idler – what your grandfather said of him, and farmers hereabouts who should’ve known better, long after Nestor took to the road. Then he was forgotten, but the forgetting couldn’t quite fill…

Who mentors you?Are you a mentor?Did a mentor change your life? The Seven Directions LOST BROTHER Recording includes the poem and a short story of Baal Shem Tov (The Besht) By Stanley Moss I knew that tree was my lost brother when I heard he was cut down at four thousand eight hundred sixty-two years; I…

Where did he go?Was he here but not present?Did he struggle to connect with me?Did he feel the loss like I did? Direction Calling [cpm-player skin="device-player-skin" width="450" playlist="true" autoplay="false" shuffle="false" type="audio"][cpm-item file="https://www.agatheringofmen.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/DirectionCalling.wav"]DirectionCalling[/cpm-item][/cpm-player]

Do I give the speaker my undivided attention?Do I use body language (nods, eye contact, etc..) to show I’m engaged?Do I ask clarifying questions?Do I immediately rush to judgement?Do I respond to win points? Mullah Nasrudin's Flower Garden Told by Eugene Marckx The Tangled Hills  By Eugene Marckx Find a place at the edge of…

My Anger tells me to...When angers in charge of me what can I do?When angers in charge of me what must I do? A Thorn in the King’s Foot Adapted from a tale by Duncan Williamson, Scotland’s greatest storyteller ‒ Penguin (1987) Many years ago lived a king in a large castle. All around his…