Believe politicians
Never buy extended warranties.
Buys vacation packages
… years in advance
Expect to win the Lotto
with the ticket they
forgot to purchase.

But they also, have
children and invest
in future education.
They build roads,
and infrastructure.
They vote, and pray,
and salute the flag,
trusting in all of it.

Thank God for Optimists!

Birds fall dead from the sky
cars, houses spun up to fly.
Snow comes whipping in mid-May
and winds push March fires into LA.

In just a day, forty-degree swing
confuses songs birds now sing.
We ignore warnings signs and calls,
as water rises above city walls.

The canary in the coal mine has died,
and yet in greed and avarice we cried:
Who is willing to pay for such change?
Deliriously, digging deeper into derange.

For now we’ll fight and tumble about
things of glory and riches we shout.
Trying to be above someone or another
forgetting this Earth is all our mother.

Daughters of dinosaurs, birds will find a way
to sing of rebirth when we are gone someday.
And Mother recovers using her power to restore,
and no-one will remember what came before.

In the mornings,
I see happy people
walking after their dogs
with the light step
of a brand new day
green bag in hand,
dogs sniffing and joyfully
retracing familiar territories.

In the evening,
I see now weary people
walking after their dogs,
with slavish indifferent and
desire to be anywhere else
green bag in hand,
dogs sniffing and joyfully
retracing familiar territories.

It seems the dogs know
no difference, and along
with the green bags are
the only constants
in this observation.

Clearly the dogs have
better days than
their masters who
become their slaves
by each day’s end.

As a child, I never thought
of water as something I needed
of education as something needed
… nor wanted,
or for that matter,
freedom (for whatever it means)
as something needed

For they were given freely
assumed and ever present…

As was love,  not thought of as needed.
It was just there, as too were
appropriate behaviour adjustments,
to teach respect for all others,
a form of love I didn’t know I needed.

These things given
without condition.
Come with no guarantee,
must not be returned unopened,
for they must be used,
if not understood at the time, until
they become a part of who we are.

Something to be added to
and passed down, and is this then,
not the essence of civilization?
Without which, only chaos
and the wildling of life
would live in its place.

Many worry about the future
and just as many lament the past.
And some too few are changing the present.

War’s refugees, the maimed, the dying,
the children, and destroyed cities
ever present suffering here and now…

Climate’s refugees, the displaced,
the economically ruined, the drought, fires,
ever present storms, here and now…

Autocracy’s refugees, the morally
corrupt, the domination of minds, body,
and ever present suppression, here and now…

What’s the point of lamenting later
about a future we’ve failed today
in this, our season of here and now…

Bald Eagles are amazing creatures,
building nests over years
that may weigh a ton, and living
twenty to thirty years in the wild,
and up to fifty years in captivity.

In the wild, Nature can be brutal,
she is all about selection and purpose.
Whereas we worship capture, and
comfort, as it is and should be.
Preferring longevity and comfort of the
nests we build for ourselves and
our hatchlings… who if they fly,
we wish will often return to home,
to recapture, remember, recoup,
and we can watch over them,
in their natural state.

Then for fun we go to be in Nature,
which we have captured and groomed
to be what we envisioned her to be,
even tamed her, or so we may think.
It is our nature to capture,
nurture, and redefine her.
But she has different plans for us,
as it is always to be her nature
and preference for evolutionary
selection and purpose.