Painter and Poet
A painter has his paint
to obscure or reveal,
a bird maybe flying by
chased by a larger bird
and no one may notice
there once was a butterfly
A poet has his words
to obscure or reveal,
a bird maybe in his thoughts
and yet a butterfly may appear
and no one may notice
this was not about a butterfly
And Yet No Name
Just a storm with deadly as a handle.
Remember when you light a candle
this Christmas, those many in pain,
those burying loved ones in the rain.
Hurricanes fires, shootings, all
tragedies named, except we call
thirty tornados, a Deadly Storm
which in Arkansas did spawn and form
to deliver death and destruction
obliterating all human construction
in its path, testing our conscious caring
capacity, generosity and heart sharing
capacity, for a storm deadly aimed
at rural small-town-America, damned
to suffer the climate-changed nameless
price of sins for which all seem blameless.
Foggy Morning
The fog rolls on through the morning
as December comes around each year.
Something I may have never noticed,
something that would have slipped
consciousness as days and seasons
meld into one monochromatic year
after year…
Except being inspired by love’s
joy for the world and time we have.
Living in the world and the emergence
of color in a soft sunrise, and appreciation
of the lack thereof in the fog of a predawn
morning, not unlike a predawn of living.
Grateful
Grateful for lessons learned,
of failures owned.
And then the achievements
and successes shared.
For no-one passes unscathed
and without healing
of loved-ones, we could
not be here.
To be grateful for the joy
of those many.
For we are of these many,
and thus blessed.
Always thankful
and grateful of all!
This morning, as I was reading some poems to my 7-year-old grandson, he asked… “are poems supposed to answer a question?”. I said yes, they should reveal a truth about us, about nature and thus answer a question that we may not even have thought to ask. Well my answer to him was not quite that complete… but in the moment, he was answering a question that I have about the purpose of poetry that is born when I sit in front of a keyboard and a blank page.
Poetry is as simple as answering questions.
Questions are inspiring
Answers are discovery
Understanding is growing
Growing is change
Change is constant
Adventure is energy
Energy is passion
Passion is life
Life is love
answering questions
As a climate conference ends in Scotland, and 200 countries agree to a plan to return with a “strengthened” plan to curb greenhouse emissions. We have the success of the commitment to plan for a plan to cheer. We have developed nations committing to help poor nations with their plans. We have the historic achievement of admitting that burning coal is a principal cause of our planet’s warming. Duh. We have words in the agreement to “phase-down” coal… political commitments, and words with plenty of wiggle-room. Valuable or not? Only actions will tell us over the next decade. The results will be self-evident to the next generation.
The good news is the countries of the world are acting together (or play acting) to address a global threat. The COVID-19 Pandemic was a warm-up act to the world cataclysm which climate change could be, and being slow to work together and act to keep global temperature rise below 1.5 degrees C will make a pandemic that killed over 5 million people over the last 22 months look like a minor annoyance.
IT IS FOR REAL AND SO VERY NEAR
Just as the virus cared little about its name
World warming, relentless is much the same.
It is coming to your and my neighborhood
To extract a cost as we were told it would.
Politicians and leaders plan to make a plan
about how we should all be making a stand.
But we don’t give it much more of a thought
beyond, maybe we won’t need the coat we bought.
Everything is local and personal, until it’s not.
Everyone for their own liberties, until it’s too hot.
Everyone for themselves until we see the children
suffering the flood and droughts of a climate cauldron.
We will care more when it’s too late for our kind
and we’ll beat our breasts and seek miracles we find
in science that will shrug and say, but didn’t you hear
when we said that this is for real, and oh so very near.
Fruit of the Tree
I saw myself, friends
co-workers many,
Products of nature,
and ivy-walled study.
Influenced too by what
entertains us and
captures attention.
Brief and imperfect
though it may be.
We think freedom
while slaves to needs,
which we are told we
have, or should have.
In business attire,
in our station in a tree.
Stuck like fruit in our places,
the snake weaves around us.
Our view lost to leaves,
unless we venture out
on dangerous limbs.
We are fruit of
this nature,
fond of our comfort,
but not so sweet this
varietal thus confined.
Connections
I had a dream that wouldn’t end,
of a lost connection, cables, and
signals we could never send.
Through the ruin and rumble
of war or disaster, of hard-won
creation which finally did stumble
Searching for the words, the line
which allows us to connect
to each other, heart and mind
Could I have presaged this holy mess
and would I’ve been able to prevent it
if I had only said, maybe more or less?
But now awake, I can clearly report
it isn’t about cables, power and signal,
but something of vastly more import.
A Plan
What is the plan?
For security, for happiness?
I ask on behalf of those who love you,
who seek the future there is with you.
What happens, happens is not a plan.
It is the antithesis of a plan.
We’ll fix what happens when it does
then, ‘it’ is something that cannot be helped.
Good plans are happy and safe
Bad plans are neither, and nothing,
and once something precious is lost
it may never be regained.
When we are turned away
then it will happen when it happens
and no one will say this wasn’t the plan
and we’ll clean up as best as we can.
Dreams Untethered
Words untethered come at times
without intent or intended rhymes.
They are wisps of subconscious streams
not unlike unruly and interrupted dreams.
Naked to the world, with something to say
at four am, my mind initiates this word play.
Playing catch, I threw you the ball
the leaves underfoot spoke of fall.
It only works if you throw back to me,
for it to be something mutual we see.
Then we have this ball, and dream to share.
Or have I thrown a ball with no one there?
Like a hug it must have two sides
before delusion, of one decides,
dreams are untethered sometimes
without intent or intended rhymes.