Memory Clouds

 

Memory clouds give shape to a vast sky

Those fluffy thoughts in our mind’s eye

Darkening storm clouds please abate

Just blow away with memories we hate

Rather great memories, bring joy of past to sunset’s glow

Harboring thoughts of all the love we know

Giving way to starry sky’s clarity at night

As memories of life collect in a billion points of light

Our world spins faster with now more time behind

Then which lies ahead, clouding memory and mind

Blessed to look at clouds from both sides in our time

Still they fascinate and memories illusions come to rhyme

And tomorrows clouds of anticipation do reappear

Each morning as sunrise of present is near

A new day of opportunity for friends to know

A new set of colorful memories to bestow

 

 

Avoid the Raging Storm

 

First, he sells conspiracies untrue

Blame them for what is ailing you

More loudly he entrains

Hate, mistrust all the same

We will be great again

It is us versus them

Fear and fervor, call them names

Create enemies, make false claims

Wave of discontent, a rise to power

All the others will be made to cower

Fight the truth with louder lies

Discredit the press and their allies

Take over courts, they must serve us

The nation, the people in him will trust

His will is the nation’s, and their ruin

Soon this ego, this bluster is all our undoing

And the war will end, millions and he too will die

And yet his hate lives on, and still his flag will fly

So, we let another, and another, and more will try

And they come to us with their own special lie

But the story is always audacious and the same

It’s untrue, but they give the enemy an ugly name

Our belief of innate superiority fans flames of the fire

The system failed us, and a faux hero is our heart’s desire

We must learn from history of fascism’s form

And avoid the next coming raging storm

 

Creative Worshiping

 

Did not ancient creators value enterprise

As they invent and apply the wheel and realize

That they had reduced work as had the lever

Did humanity recognize those that were clever

Did we thank them for extraordinary contribution

As the wheel of work turned another revolution

Was Whitney valued later for the cotton gin

Did we multiple work output over and over again

Bosch and Haber found nitrogen from air they could mine

And Borlaug in praise gave us wheat hybrids to stop famine

 

Do we appreciate the value of light in hours of night

Was Edison worshiping when his experiment showed us light

Do we know that Tesla ensured transmission to the home

Electricity, so with a flip that wondrous light is shone

Was it Marconi’s worship or his electromagnetic thought

Of wondrous voices of our love ones he brought

For Bell, whose invention allowed us to hear

Our loved ones as if they were ever so near

Did Schottky and chorus of others make transistor small

So that we can carry in our pocket friends and family all

Are theories of Shannon a form of worship applied

Such information we can decipher, for which we relied

 

Wondrous creations with no thought of wealth

Scientist with discoveries to enhance our health

Salk and others exceeded the result of an iron lung

Nobel prizes are a way their praises can be sung

And evil dragons of heart disease can be slayed

By Ersek patented stent, properly played

Or how about the ancients that found pain relieved

Surely, they felt it important and they must’ve believed

That chemistry was worship of sort indeed

Born of alchemy and experiment, creativity’s seed

And what of today’s medical research investment

Is it wealth, or is creative worship the enticement

We should never accept that medicine is good enough

Encourage our youth to be creative and be of the right stuff

 

Did math and physics always exist awaiting discover

Was it creative to find great mysteries under cover

Did Newton worship the beautiful necessity of gravity

Did Einstein praise time and unbound it through relativity

Would we know of a universe and our place

Without Galileo describing Earth correctly in space

What of atoms as the nature of matter, small units, individual and distinct

Ancient philosophers describing the nature with thought and instinct

Dalton would use to define why elements react in ratios of numbers whole

Would Thompson have discovered electrons and their wonderous role

Would Bohr and so many that helped find order in the universe of small

Corollaries fascinate between the grand universality of space, atoms and all

 

So too creativity of words, imagery, thought should be defined

As worship of the human soul, granted by God, but continually refined

Artistry brings out understanding, and thereby wisdom and emotion

DaVinci worked relentlessly on a smile, that was nothing short of devotion

Did Shakespeare merely entertain or was he saying we should examine our souls

Was Hemingway also challenging our understanding in For Whom the Bell Tolls

Did Dali bring us images that look deeper into our conscience collective

As music, rhythms and lyrics and melodies explore our world objective

Doesn’t Dylan and Taylor create music and lyrics to inspire

Is not music part of God’s expectation for a joyous choir

Did He not plan for us to laugh with mirth

So creative comedy must too have great worth

 

Creativity is like finding your way through a thick and dense mist

Dedication, insight, perseverance and yet the fog continues to resist

Appreciating the work of so many that came before

They found a way through the mist and to discovery’s door

They build on each other’s success, creations and insight

Creatively worshiping is humankind’s God-given right

 

We have the right and honor to be creative in our own way

And we can give honor to creativity through inventive ways everyday

Decorating a room to give all who see it some beauty and delight

Find a way to curiosity, or simply showing a child wrong from right

In ways that are creative and induces life-long learning

That creative spark that sets others toward discovery yearning

Whether we paint, write, discover, or creatively repair

Using our talents to create is as human as breathing air

We appreciate the grand creations of communication, transportation, light at night

We appreciate medical understanding and practice, math, and physics brought to light

And we appreciate the opportunity to enjoy music, and the beauty of art and rhyme

As the wheel of creative work, production and progress affords us that worshiping time

 

Today we think little about how electricity gets into our homes, how food on such massive scale is grown and processed to feed billions of us, or how much discretionary time we enjoy as we are entertained.   We live in a time of scientific and technical marvels.  We live as we do because of the passion and dedication of creators.  Science, technology and the business environment and structures, especially the laws and regulations that govern capitalism, to incentivize the industrialization of creations that make our lives so much better.  My friend Parker, caused me to think quite a bit about this, he said that creation is a form of worship.  That is an interesting thought.

As an example he mentioned Norman Borlaug, and his invention of hybrid wheat that helps ensures that the human population has no reason to experience famine as we had witnessed in the 1960’s.  A very good article I was reading this morning addresses the history of wheat, https://www.economist.com/special-report/2005/12/20/ears-of-plenty.

I have more to say on this, but today’s post is being interrupted by a very exciting British Open.

Enjoy!

 

 

The Sun Forgot to Go Down

 

It’s summer for little boy’s

The sun forgot to go down

So, let us play with our toys

 

The fireflies not glowing yet

The birds are still singing

There’s another boy we just met

 

Down the grassy hill we run

Kicking a ball swinging a stick

It doesn’t matter we’re having fun

 

Can we play while the sun still sees!

Summer sun forgot to go down

We’re having fun, so, mommy please!

When the Ground Gives Way

 

Pops hit his ball badly

…into the cabbage patch and sighed

I saw it all happen

… so I went in, confident I had it eyed

But it’s not so easy

… the vegetation hiding all

So, a bit of searching

… then I find that errant ball

Next, I find no ground

… after just a step on my way out

In a flash I’m on my side

… certain I’ll be broken, I give a shout

Then I realize, I’m OK

… just embarrassed I had shouted “aye”

But, geez it’s scary to fall

… when the ground gives way!

Seeing with Eyes Closed

I close my eyes just to see what I’ll see

Random or real, or ghosts around me

Does light find a way through lids so thin

Does blood, veins impart patterns within

I breathe easier, soothing, at rest

Eyes closed is when I see the best

Maybe its practice that makes it right

But I see with eyes closed each day and night

And I come to know comfort herein

Eyes closed to see and remember again

Today we should really spend just a moment remembering how incredibly brave the patriot founders of our country were when they signed the Declaration of Independence.  It was an act of treason against the greatest superpower of the world at that time.  This superpower, put treasonous acts down with the heavy boot of its large Navy and Army. Oh and the penalty for the signers and instigators of rebellion if caught was death by hanging.  Everyone knew it, so to rebel was extremely risky and highly likely to fail.  Many of he signers hoped for a negotiated settlement with their mother country, but knew this to be unlikely.  Within 20 days or so, the speed of ships at that time, the King would know of this treason, and a response was surely to come within another month or so.  In the meantime, the colonists, had no standing Army, just local militia, as well as no Navy, just a commercial maritime fleet.  Much to do in a short time to find a way to defend their declared independence, and to do so without a central government, as each of the colonies were used to managing their own affairs.  The Continental Congress also was without a clear president or leader.  We think of George Washington as the president at that time, he was being elected leader of the Continental Army, but he wouldn’t be President until 1789, another 13 years.

An analogy today would be if Puerto Rico, declared and decided to defend by force independence from the USA.   It would be laughable, no matter how justifiable their grievances were and their leaders determined.

The patriot founders, had extensive debts held by banks in England.  I’m sure they felt that might be the only saving grace for negotiation instead of being crushed by the British military and being hanged for treason… but that was a long shot.  They were incredibly brave, and they built a basis for a new country based on democracy and personal freedoms that the world had not previously known.  We should remember and value the risks these patriots took at this time, as well as all that came later to defend the right for this wonderful United States of America to exist and be a beacon for freedom, justice and peace!

 

I was once asked, how I could manage myself so effectively during a stressful meeting.  How did I come up with a way to move an idea, or a process forward?  Two things always came to mind as an answer, one was preparation (I had an outline of key points that I wrote, usually the day before), and a quiet, calm confidence, and focus, relying on the preparation.  I actually would say a little pray before a meeting, to ask that I be at my best, and I almost never looked at the notes during the meeting.  For me being at my best was not a focus on all that was going to happen, but a focus on relaxing and letting my mind flow easy.  Anxiety not allowed!

I have found in sports too, there is a place, a zone, that I’ve too rarely found where you perform so well for short periods of time, then it goes away.   For me it always went away before I could get in 18 holes of golf, that’s for sure.  But what intrigued me is that the feeling was very much the same as a successful business meeting.  A strange calmness with an exhilaration of positive feedback that the preparations and the control (or calm thinking) was working.

When I read this article, it occurred to me, that there is scientific evidence that calming the mind enables critical “in-the-zone” performance.

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20180627-is-quiet-eye-the-secret-to-success-for-athletes

Hope you can take this idea and thought to the golf course, tennis, or your next business meeting!