We’ve never been so connected
and yet we fail to communicate.

We have a lab test with pages of
results, telling us nothing of how we feel.

Caller ID provides our names,
but not who we are.

Polls and surveys ask our opinions,
and yet, leaders fail to understand us.

We have everything delivered
to our door, but there is always more.

AI is anticipating our wants,
but does it know our needs?

We’ve never had such information
at our fingers and yet so little wisdom.

Entertainment always at our beckoning,
may allow creativity to fade.

Are we leaning forward,
while appreciating the past?

Let us pray we not lose our humanity
and creativity in all this modernity.

May Flowers

If we are afield and dancing in a summer wind
We are a spirit of life and love alive within
Aspiring to be the object of desire
A part of life’s spiritual fire
Seeding the color of future days refrain
Feeding the story of life’s magical chain

But rather we are here,
in the vase as a glorious display
in a position of prominent array.

Mixed together by select and art, we’re here to show you
The beauty and spirit of our collective design and hue
We, of the world outside, are here inside
To bring you our beauty, glory and pride
To bring the joy of Mother Earth’s miracle today
As endearment in a vase on this, your Mother’s Day!

Happy Mother’s Day! 

Droughts end with a crash
of rain, and all storms spend
themselves against a rock of  land.

And this too, they say shall pass
This too shall expend its energy
against immovable immortal histories.

The people will choose an
appropriate end to the self-important,
to the agents of chaos and doom.

Just as nature will repair itself
and cleanse itself, and quench
itself as it must to restore order.

Everything returns as a full-circle,
as we forget the lessons once again,
bringing us back over and over again.

Consequently…
An early bird
dines, as a butterfly
vanishes.

Life Struggles…
Love streams
down rosy cheeks,
the river rumbles.

Appearance…
Still waters
belie turbulence
as a heart beats.

Other side of Midnight…
Stars twinkle
at night, finding
the other side.

The sea churning up a storm with winds ferociously
whipping the wave tops into white foam, sending a
salty freshness, belying the power of ominous forces.

The rain pushing forward a dust storm in the desert
billowing, it appears apocalyptic and brings an earthly
musky scent of the world remaking itself.

The scent of love in a springtime afternoon, bringing
life-love of two together as one, in the connection of
bodies, heart and soul.

The leather glove with oils and dirt and the scent of
something that was alive, and lives on in an extension
of a young boy’s hand, living to play.

The dog that played outside with us, wet with the
experience of summer grass, the muskiness of a
spirit unchained by nothing but the will to play.

The lingering presence of fried foods, the scent of
tobacco in a pouch and the curls of smoke that
find attachment to childhood memories.

Until arriving at the beginning where milk is the
ever-present earthy scent, the promise of life
the promise of future and of growth.

And back to the present, where my socks, post-
workout or long-walk capture all the experiences of life and are purportedly apocalyptic… and unresolvable!

Trying to touch the sky,
without knowing how to fly.

Finding that one sentence, that one phrase
which unveils a universal truth, that reveals
the founding thought, the purpose of life,
the exposition of the heart and soul, this
is what we are seeking in the art of the words
of the first lines…

“Two households, both alike in dignity, / In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,” (Shakespeare) 
“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen” (Orwell)
“To the red country and part of the gray country of Oklahoma, the last rains came gently, and they did not cut the scarred earth” (Steinbeck)
“Call me Ishmael.” (Melville)
“All this happened, more or less.” (Vonnegut)

“In the beginning God created the Heavens and Earth” (God)

and so on… for what we want to express,
as the signature of the story, as the soul of
the author, the brush stroke of the artist,
the poet writing a song in our hearts.

Let us be taken on a journey.

Little boy, the world is big
no matter how small it seems
in your mother’s arms, some
fine day you’ll get to see.

Young boy, you’ve learned
of geography and history,
the world seems big now in
eyes filled with wonder.

Young man, there is so
much more to learn of
others, with customs and
beliefs so strange from yours.

Grown Man, see the world as a
bright blue orb in a dark vastness
as you fly far away, exploring
the vastness of space.

Man of power,  how is it
we could be so small,
in the way we see each
other in this shared life?

Old man, see now the world
is small, in the arms of others,
we find we are more alike and
closer than we could’ve believed.

—-

Shared experiences makes
the world seem as it really is…
small and more connected
than we pretend it to be.

Happy Easter! 

A lily is not a rose
a daisy or iris knows
nothing of each other
except they are a flower.

And they have no name
other than what came
from others long before
who’ve we come to ignore.

What of this matters
to a world in tatters
except to remind us lazy
that words can be hazy.

And maybe we are not
as different as we think,
as we use words to
separate one from another.

As sure as the clouds rise in the sky
to paint a majestic ephemeral picture
so too the princes of the world use
wealth to form an ornamental vision
for themselves using the world as their
canvas, and sycophants to tell them
they are wonderful, where as clouds
just have poets of the heart to entertain.

And as sure as the clouds can only hold
so much blood, sweat and tears until
they must explode in thunder and
rain and drive the winds to certain
destruction, so too the princes of the
world who would demand to be kings
will reign their own destruction on the
innocent and not so innocent alike.

But neither will be anything but
temporary,  a difficult and violent
passing moment in the long arc of
this world, and yet they will leave
scars upon this Earth, and scars
upon the hearts of memories that
have suffered their passing and
their violence.

And we will all say never again,
but just as new clouds will rise,
new princes will be born to a wealth
of power they could never have earned
and they will rise when memories
have faded to again bring the world
to bend the knee to them and
create new scars upon all the land.

This is the destiny of our kind,
the legacy of our hubris, and the
nature of princes, as is the nature
of clouds… and history like
summer storms will be violent
until there is violence no more
because there is nothing left
to destroy… just scars upon the land.

Then we can start over.

A Tragedy is when both sides are convinced they are right; a Philosophy articulated by 19th-century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel.   The conviction of being right hardens positions, and makes for great conflict and loss.

TRAGEDY IN THE MAKING

I am righteously on this side of the divide.
Yet you claim, the righteous patriot side.
I am committed to the lesson of love they neighbor.
You committed to law enforced, if need be, by the saber.

Manifest destiny fuels your imperious nature it seems.
While I know there is room for all peoples’ dreams.
You disdain the sciences you say have oppressed and masked you.
But I know that science and reason is best for all but a few.

Right deepens the gulf between your side and mine,
between the beating of heart and the reasoned mind.
Careening towards a tragedy of conflict, violence and loss
as our prosperity, our shared history and our values get tossed.

Thus, we have a tragedy of our own making
due to such extreme positions taken,
due to our failure to imagine a better place,
our failure to see beyond this tragic race.

IMAGINE HEAVEN

The difference between me and you
Is smaller and easier to get through
than any problem that’s been observed,
that this world or the next has ever heard.

When it’s a hug that is simply needed
and all perceived differences receded
as we feel the humanity of each other
and you know me as your loving brother.

With all the faults, failures and fears
having experienced, love, hurt and tears
for a hug to make us as one
in the brilliant light of the sun. 

As we shine now too with wisdom of the ages,
as we take our place with saints and sages
enjoying the harmony of life-everlasting, singing
a song that is right, loving and forgiving.

WE CHOOSE