And a cold wind blows
but no-one really knows
how it may change us yet
turning away so we forget
the bite the wind may hold
and the sorrows it has told
for long and painful years
freezing mothers’ tears.

And we look away as best
we can, or impugn them lest
we would feel what they feel
and it would be painfully real.
And it is for us in dubious denial
it could not be our problem or fail
when it is but slim fortune and fate
by which we avoid such a sorry state.

Foolish following of a fawning fool,
Acerbic, acrimonious, and alien
Rabid, rotund, rancid racist
Tantrum throwing terrible tool.

Trump, terrorizing and treasonous
Running rueful Republican rabble
Unhinged, unamerican, uneducated,
Malignant, misogynistic, miserable
Pompous, preening Putin puppy.

Thought I’d play around with Alliteration for fun… 

Maybe we are all Frankensteins
creating our own monsters,
engaging technology to be
more than we otherwise would be
to gain more than we are owed.

Inventing ourselves as something new,
but inescapably missing something,
something of the soul,
something of the heart,
and thus we fail to love this new creature.

There is ugliness in the new us,
and in the world for which we
toil in self-invention, as we
see it turning around only
us, the narrator of our story.

Redemption is possible with empathy,
and love, and the practiced art of seeing
the world as tangential to ourselves.
The accident which is making us late
Is something far worse for the injured.

The world turns with or without us,
the time is not for me, it is for everyone.
We may choose to be part of a great love story,
the actors most beloved for the love-shared,
rather than the lonely narrator of a horror story.

It’s MLK Day
the mail will not come
some people take a day.

Too few people think
about what his words
really mean to them.

Too few people share
his dream, for it
requires reaching out.

Too few people find
his words in their
sheltered hearts.

Too few people will
understand what
I’m saying here.

Only that the
mail didn’t come
and school’s out.

We’ve spun out of control.
So I heard it said.
It did not start this way,
but here we are in the
spin-cycle.

We start with a spin
around the room,
a fun look as babes
at the world so
beautiful, so small.

We spin for the joy
of disorientation
as we stumble
and fall about,
still growing.

We spin for love
in the ever-blessed
dance-of-life for
which it is perfect
to celebrate.

We’ve seen the world
and room spin
as we take fun and
celebrating a bit
farther than advised.

But the spin we can
really do without
is imposed by those
who deceive in their
sucking whirlwind.

They spin so fast
they confuse the
momentum of the top
as stability.  But it
surely is wobbling.

When it crashes,
losing power against
the resistance
of truth it will
spew out a mess.

However, in the end,
the world will spin-on
unchanged no
matter how we
or they tried to spin it.

I was listening to an article on the topic of lost and found, and the writer was putting things from her life into these categories.  But what was not said, at least in the NPR audio, was what I thought was the essence of the words Lost and Found… that only something of value could be lost and anything lacking value will never be found.  Value is the determining element… and so this poem:

LOST and FOUND
Look here, look there, look in your heart
for only what is precious can ever be lost.
Find this, find that, and feel for this, for it
must be valuable to be worthy of being found. 

And what is valuable to me may not to you,
for there are things and more than things
of which to consider.  

What can be replaced, and what never 
will be replaced, and what can be repaired,
and what will never be repaired, and if
the value is no longer there, it is no 
longer lost, nor could ever be found. 

But what we can never lose and we can
always make valuable is what we do
and say and feel in the precious moments
of now we find for ourselves by grace of 
fortune and spirit.

The swing swings devoid of spirit
while strolling sad and quiet near it.
Dusty groan of a merry-go-round
objecting to being pushed around,
and teeter-totters tilt no more without you.
As a lithe light carefully filters through
and the shadows are familiar gray
as trees whisper, but don’t quite say
what they mean when lost leaves fall
cluttering the grass just a bit too tall
walking in remembrance of time long ago
when we blissfully didn’t quite know
how tired such a thing could become
without the blessing of youthful fun.

Another cold December morning,
too cold to walk, as is my custom.
Seems better to sleep-in
and rising to write
some thoughts
put a log on the fire.

It burns warming the room,
giving a nice golden glow,
like a sunrise in the room,
it is peaceful it seems,
but of course it is violent
just as every sunrise is both.

It’s Christmas Eve and all through the world
many are stirring restlessness in fitful sleep.
For there are storms of evil exposed in the East,
and faithless father-figures failing everywhere.

And though there’s surely a renewal of Christmas faith
with those who in the dark and bitter cold, and flashes
of war in the night sky and with those protesting with
uncovered hair, or fearing life-threatening diseases.

The world in danger, as it was four score and seven years ago,
with a rise of this evil presenting a third type of hell.
It is now it seems a baby of future-hope may be born,
In the most humble of beginnings, and difficulty of times.

Will she be cold in the dark with a star of fire in the skies,
Or in the Kurdish mountains with defiance in her eyes.
Or possibly in oriental lands threaten by disease and strife
Or even along a border as her mother seeks a better life.

She will come in this world of ours and we’ll come to know
there’s more to Christmas then decorations and lights aglow.
There is hope for salvation beyond religious show, and the spirit
brings us wisdom, love and hope if we’ll open our ears to hear it
… and hearts to feel it.

Fortune favors the brave
is what I was thinking when
writing Ambition…

But it is not bravery, but truth
which drives us forward
the truth about ourselves.

Being clear about ambition
is understanding  the value
of making dreams come alive.

We are who we are, this is truth,
but this is but the beginning,
not end of what we can be.

It is the fear of failure
which bravery must overcome,
yet small compared to the drive.

Dream and drive, and drive and
dream, and be present and happy,
loving life and your journey.