Buzzards

Just outside, a bald eagle
beautiful, makes a kill, a
large fish, too large to fly with.
This predator appears to me
as regal and beautiful, even
fearless… and yet the buzzards
who will feast on the remains
ensure I don’t have to clean
up the mess the eagle makes.
Does not the eagle then serve
the buzzards?  Do they in turn
serve me, cleaning every scrap?
Irrationally, I see them as ugly
thieves and purveyors of doom.
Conditioned as I have been
to love one and not the other.

There’s a Song in There

With melodies that are whisper thin
and lyrics obscure, as if another language
and rhythms of a distant place and time.
It came from somewhere,
and aimlessly going nowhere.
It soothes my soul, and yet
I wonder why it’s here?
Who sent it, or did I conjure
from a past lost in memory?
If I could find the lyrics, I imagine
a beautiful poem of a loss
that is great, and find that is more.
I know not this story,
I know not this song.
But I hear it in my heart,
I hear it in the wind,
it brings me hope,
it brings me peace.
All I need to do is listen
to the song in there.

The Power of Words

What power there is in words
which move millions of people
toward a purpose, a destination
which can make them obsequious
to that purpose?

How much more ironic if
these words are ostensibly
about demands for personal
liberty… when their purpose,
is the opposite?

And the hideous intent is the
power of unrealizing millions
magnified, resonated and
reflected back onto the
author of those words.

This Old House

Wandering the memory rooms
of this old house, cluttered with
this and that, and nothing I’m
looking for, because I know not
what I’m looking for.
A clock stuck, with nowhere to go.
A book open to a wordless page.
Clothes no longer in style, if they ever were.
Furniture no longer used, gathers dust,
hiding treasures between the cushions.
Briefcase that holds no work, nor future.
A window lets in a thin wind, that remembers
something about cold and ice, but shows
nothing of what’s outside, or what’s to come.
The clutter that will never be clear,
wrestles with, moves and reappears.
And a too small mattress, bows in the middle,
from a time when we didn’t seem to mind.

Highs and Lows

He says, my high is mimi and papa are here,
my low is they are not staying forever.
Never words so eloquently encapsulating
life’s highs and lows, by a boy of four.
Life’s ups and downs, ceiling and floor.
Sunshine more precious after a rain, and
a rainbow more beautiful for sake of each.
Flowers rise in praise of both,
and life is finding its highs only
through knowing it’s lows.
And no one really knows
one day to next what life will bring,
be it songs of joy or sorrow we’ll sing.
But a boy of four already knows
one is not possible without the other.

The following is a poem by Walt Whitman that I read this morning, from his book the Leaves of Grass, 1892… 

—

O ME! O LIFE!
by Walt Whitman

O me! O life! of the questions of these recurring,
Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill’d with the foolish,
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I,
and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the
struggle ever renew’d,
Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see
around me,
Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest of me
intertwined,
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these,
O me, O life?

Answer
That you are here—that life exists and identity,
That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.

—

The beauty of this poem, is that although we may feel we are one of the many, one of the crowd, one of the foolish and maybe faithless that struggle through life, that we may have empty years where we are not as productive as we may want to be, we are important, life exists, and identity —meaning you as an individual, your talents, your contribution of even a “verse” is what is important in the powerful play of life!

Going South

Is a destination, warmer
for most of us…

Is down, because some
Europeen cartographer in the
sixteenth century decided
it is on the bottom of a map…

Is going bad if we are
speaking of my golf game…

Is a migration for winter 
for geese and other waterfowl who
flock along with snow-birds…

Is where the fight for 
rights was won, and lost, and
must be won again. 

$17.50

In a time of an ashen world,
in a time of failure and distrust,
in a time of crashing fortunes.
With a world of depression
and a crush at banks, lives
on a brink of distress and fear.
A wonderful world of reason
to live in this wonderful world.

A widow says seventeen dollars
and fifty cents will tie me over.
A point of courage and grace,
before a war would further
delay and destroy lives,
this indomitable spirit
carries on into the ones
who we need to rely on
and they must not fail.

And they would,
but for the sake of angels,
who show them the worth
and value of who they are.
As we seek our own angels
in those that keep us
grounded in the good we are,
in the part we know we need,
in wings that embrace us,
for the world that awaits us.

And asking for only $17.50.

Nothing Normal

About these strange times
and indescribable crimes
of division and peace omission,
conspiracies and commission
of traitorous acts and lies
as our Lady Liberty sighs
at the acts of destruction
and notorious construction
of division that endangers
many millions, and angers
all who love freedom and peace
all who wish for some release
from the sorrow of those who died
because of belief in those who lied.

We are Resilient

We are strong descendents of ancestors
who survived much worse to get us here
to get us to another trial of global proportions.
We are undefeated, and we have new tools
we have a will to live, a will to be ancestors
to those that will come, and they too will
celebrate Christ’s birth, and His miracle
of God living among us, and loving us.
Because despite the tests that come our way,
we will continue to bring love to each other,
we will continue to be what we can be,
and together when we can be… Always resilient!

Merry Christmas, let’s rejoice always!