Reflecting the morning light
the surface like a mirror of
all that surrounds.
The stillness is a mirage
of calmness, the surface
belies what is beneath.
Watch for a while and
see, the ripples and
waves of turmoil below.
There is something more
to life within this calmness
and it is just underneath.
Held there by surface
tension which appears
to us as serenity.
There is nothing calm
about this, and it’s right there
if you have eyes to see.
Sit still for a moment, and do
nothing. It is difficult
but feel. Feel your life’s
energy wanting to run!
Change, movement, energy, life
experience, growth, transitions,
learn, lessons become wisdom,
constant change, more action,
life vibrant in youth, and young
you is alive in you, as is love!
Change and movement is life.
God is life revealing herself
in love, growth and wisdom,
and ever-lasting life energy!
Is like Haiku
few words with grand sky
just me and you.
Is like a sonnet with rhythm and rhyme
and beautiful sunsets revealed in time
In couplets of perfect harmony
letting each other know who we’ll be
Is like a free verse with no sense
no rhyme, just flowing feelings
of fear, of pride, of hidden
reason, and silly distractions
and experiences all not alike.
I see not as words on a page
not as a novel to be read
Nor as poetry to be felt
But something more ethereal
something with tentacles touching
the universe, touching all of us
If we only had the words.
On this day we celebrate our
Declaration of Independence nearly
a quarter of a millennial ago
from the tyranny of a King
the indifference of legislators
and the oppression of an
oligarchy.
And yet we are, today,
suffering an embrace of
tyranny from a new King,
the measured indifference of legislators
and the oppression of an tech
oligarchy.
But we have something this
time around, we lacked in 1776
we have the history and wisdom
of Washington, Jefferson, Madison
and Adams, as guideposts and
inspiration.
We have but to declare our
Independence in the example
of Patriot Forefathers!
If you had to predict
the future,
what would you say?
Would it be all about you?
Or about all of us?
If you had data and trends,
would you ignore them
and go with your
gut, or worse faith
in false prophets?
Would you believe,
what your friends say,
or would you research
and think deeply
for yourself?
Can you really
understand what
the world is doing
to itself, and would you
believe if you did?
If God came to you
and told you the truth
would you believe?
Or would you say
it can’t be true?
For if you don’t
see Him in each other,
if you don’t see Her in
mother nature, then
in what do you believe?
And what is the future
but the sum of the past
the present and the
faith of those with
love and hope?
Two poems I found extraordinary, one called “Risk” Elizabeth Appell in 1979 which exhorts us to risk change, to grow into our beautiful self, another called “The Rose That Grew From Concrete” by Tupac Shukar in the 1990’s tells of resiliency and determination, such that hope and beauty overcoming adversity… I’ve incorporated these two poems in this musing with some of my own poetry…
Blossom as Beautiful as You Can
For we are planted by
circumstance and the love
of those who bring
us life, and placed us in these
gardens of our minds.
Where the winds may
bend, the rain may bow us,
and the sun may hold us
in warm soil
of our circumstances.
Risk
And then the day came,
when the risk
to remain tight
in a bud
was more painful
than the risk
it took
to blossom.
Then blossom as beautifully as you can!
The Rose That Grew From Concrete
Did you hear about the rose that grew
from a crack in the concrete?
Proving nature’s law is wrong it
learned to walk with out having feet.
Funny it seems, but by keeping its dreams,
it learned to breathe fresh air.
Long live the rose that grew from concrete
when no one else ever cared.
And it is this determination, risk and resilience
that all who open eyes to beauty, must care!
When it’s quiet in the morning like this
I hear only the birds singing to each other
as I listen for a holy-peace inside my head
I hear none of the voices of the oppressed
I hear none of the chants to would-be kings
I hear none of the violence within and among us
I hear none of the world’s fight for ideology and power.
I hear the healing hearts of fathers and mothers
who care for the happiness of their children
who worry if they are eating well and enough
who worry if they will find freedom and peace
in an uncertain future, where the world fights
for ideology and power.
But the birds start telling a story that says
we will be here long after you are gone,
long after you have destroyed what you will
long after you cease to voice your worries, and
long after your ideology and power fades.
For we’ve always been here… waiting for you
to come and go… and we do not care about
your ideology and power.
Where is the moral
leadership of Washington?
The intellect and
curiosity of Jefferson?
Where is the brilliant
wisdom of Lincoln?
The righteous
fight of Franklin?
Where is the humility
and charisma of Kennedy?
The hard fought civil
rights of Johnson?
These things we need
at times of change, at times
of crises of our own choosing.
At times of crumbling
Madisonian Democracy.
At times of faithlessness.
and rampant corruption.
At times of social unrest.
and deep world conflict.
Where is the morality, the
intellect, the wisdom, the
fight, the humility, the equality?
Only we can rise up and
demand the end to the
crises of our own choosing.
The world we leave
our children will be
built on the shoulders
of leaders of quality,
honor and faith.
or
built on the ashes of
a corrupt history, of
power, inequality,
and injustice.
We choose our leaders
We choose our future.
Dinner yesterday on Main Street,
it was good, a place called The Tides,
strategically, just two doors down
from the small ice cream shop
with the wonderful goodness of rum raisin ice cream.
You know the stuff, I wrote of its praises
before, so great on a nice evening on Main.
The rain had cleared, and it felt like
a summer evening of old, not too hot,
a light breeze, out on a date, so maybe
two scoops and we could share?
It was going to be something special
to taste, again that creamy goodness,
a mix of old-world and new.
Going back to a past which may only
exists in a Hallmark-movie-mind
I wait in line after three tie-dyed hippies
all older than me, reliving a time long ago,
as they sample before deciding.
Then a young family with four kids,
another homage to the past,
and a young mom and a girl of ten
with a big pink ribbon on the back of her dress
jumps ahead of me in line.
It felt like another time and place.
I thought of the twilight zone… but wait
I’m on a mission, I must not be distracted.
But I worry about mission failure.
I don’t see it in the case, its not at the back,
furthest from the door
where it is always hidden.
I ask the young woman holding the scooper
for Rum Raisin… the greatest of all ice creams.
She goes to dig in, but realizes it’s not in the
last bucket… she asks her co-worker,
where is the Rum Raisin?
and he looks surprised anyone is asking for it
and says we are out of it…
Noooo… this can’t be,
now the line has grown and formed behind me,
she with an impatient look, like I’m a kook,
asks if I’d like something else?
My mind says no… I don’t. But I
don’t want to be a kook, and
I feel stupid being so prescriptive…
I scan the card board signs boasting
this or that ice cream.
Nothing catches my eye like RR would…
in a panic I point to the cardboard sign and say
I’ll try the carrot cake ice cream.
She says, you want a sample?
I say, no, just a single scoop, for if I tasted it,
I wouldn’t buy it, and who walks out of
an ice cream shop after 15 mins of waiting
without an ice cream?
Well to avoid further suspense…
it was very sweet, vaguely like carrot cake
with tiny pieces of carrot,
like coconut that your tongue finds
giving the impression of something substantial
It was creamy sweetness, but
none of the adventure of rum,
nor the substance of raisins…
it was not the Hallmark-movie
happiness I so anticipated.
Sadly, it was not Rum Raisin.
Speak not to us about freedom
and sacrifice, patriotism and the like.
Speak not to us about the final
devotion while you wave the flag.
Not if you care little for the institutions
and the constitution we swore allegiance to.
We are not an abstraction of loss
or a representation of power.
We had dreams and aspirations,
we laughed, we cried, we loved
our families and our friends.
We fought for each other and
cried for each other.
The unfortunate who did not
know instant darkness, cried
out for mom, cried out in pain,
cried out for salvation, not for
glory, or abstract ideas.
Winning and losing didn’t
matter any longer.
Please remember us for who
we were and who our spirits
remain, as well as our hopes
and dreams left in the dust
of history, and live for us,
grow old for us, for this
we could not do. We are
the forever young.