a greater mountain

 

I could disguise the agony
beneath soft words and poetry
Speak of sudden dimmed candles
and wisps of smoke; how lives softly
In spirit drifted up, from the cruelty of this day,
and away into bliss.
It would  be wrong to do so,
these are not gentle passings.

They should have each been old and ready
to see the ends of faith, after long days, weary
after lives of love  given. They should have been
laid in soft beds surrounded by tears
At sad leavings even after so many years
Even after the four score and ten we have been promised…

They should have been old
and full of love, delicate  in fragile shells
Remembering the lovely days
in the old Charleston Church

Celebrating the ascension of their families
into greater abundance. Washed clean
in the blood of the lamb, ready
for awakening of the spirit
As the body tires and falls to rest…
They should have been nearly done
with troubles of the  world, and spent  from happiness
Ears echoing the joyful noise of praise.

They should have been
Spirits satisfied at journey’s end, welcome
My dear and faithful servants into the kingdom
They should have been here to read
This page, and hold us –safe and assured
Against a mountain of pain,
with a greater mountain of Faith.

a polite war...

It was quiet and well-mannered
as human destruction goes, non-intrusive;
the world goes on with little notice
of the lives sown like ripe seasons, and seeds
find fertile moments in the barren soil of world concern
where nations pose like vain children
with cameras on a stick.

A community of nations
watch as one bleeds its life
lonely, and suffering quietly
in the limn light, slightly off
the center stage, where the stars
shine inward and the set stays dark.

Such a polite devastation
so many thousands
and war fails to count the important things;
it is not about the heroes, they bring war home
but are not the cause. No,
war does not count the important things
like the rich that get richer, and the poor
that vanish, and the dreams
trapped in fresh mounds of native soil,
and bound in arrested histories.
Such a polite situation, fate of a hopeful nation
evaporates in fictional news copy.

In all the world, all the outrage, pauses
to reflect, the sounds of boots still distant
and neither does the past insist, for
it too was a polite war.

rising...

 

Imagine Miami under the sea
causeways for fish beneath tides
the pastel beachfront luxury
covered in deep blue and surf

In  sun storms and humidity we
Imagine Miami; under the sea
where fresh reefs begin, on bistros
salsa beats gone distant and dim

they studied melting ices rising tides
rebels raised the hue and cry,
"Imagine Miami under..."; the sea,
its signs observed, land dis-served.


By idiocy that no one will remember 
we did not create walled insularity
a home, at home with rising water;
Imagine, Miami...under the sea








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Sea levels rise as oceans warm and polar ice melts. Human activity contributes and Miami is experiencing the beginnings of the seas taking this low lying area. The land there is barely six feet above sea levels and already there are flooding and water system issues with ordinary rainstorms.  The key is that political leaders there deny climate effects and will not do what could be done to promote safety-- take a lesson from Netherlands and learn t live at sea level...hdm

a moment of love

Had the Rose
a reach for greater beauty
or had a dream sought a greater vessel
than the ship of the spirit
in dark and passing night
they  would occasion
a rush of vanity
and sins of excess.

In the eyes of lover,
beyond the fires of passion
and the moon-sparkled web
of yesterdays weaving into tomorrow,
there is only selfish lust
of an invisible man,

as when shadows pretend life
and the sun soaks into artifice.

Time is a test of many things
but it cannot contain
the value of a moment of love
nor its boundless spark of hope.

Mood and Indigo

there in loneliness
like the unfinished Moon
watching the world in celebration
fits and starts of togetherness;
the night plays soft
a slow blues melody
finding notes and words
that blend into endings.

Darkness like a velvet sleeve
lines the nature of emptiness
light in the breach of sameness
as far as the eye can imagine,

and there, in loneliness, comes
the friendship bond of solitude.
When thoughts parade like
impatient ghosts, creating a stage
of undeniable noise--and it is

in the quiet, stark darkness
moonbeams sound on window glass
make a duet in the key of blues
from the dull echoes
of a heartfelt aria

her finest fur

the woman wore fur
green like cedar and
long like soft pine and spruce
it would blend with the season
where summer spawns layers
beneath the canopy

I watched her make
the splendid garment, and she
made sure of every stitch, tied with green
into deeper green, and the drape was exact
on limbs, as  these evergreen covers
move from living limbs to limbs she would
forever keep among the living.

When done, she undrapes and
the fur coat falls at her feet; smiling,
she retrieves it and hands it away

A gift to a man, heading back to the front
for a hero of Donetsk, she wears and then un-bears
her favorite lush fir; it may save him
as he tries to save his country.


______________________________
I watched a woman make a camouflage suit for her husband; a soldier' in the Ukraine army. He will wear this to cover himself, and he will wear this fir coat as he fights for his nation's future.  Amidst the swarm of charges and counter charges- as Russia tries to cover-up its naked military aggression-  the propaganda of its corrupt politics of greed and vengeance fills the news media.  In the invasion, many thousands of innocent people suffer. Many brave young men and women in Ukraine risk all. So meaningful then, the fir coat.

odd bed fellows

As the science of this rich-poor day
finds ways to take infections away
and so much of the world's misery
slow fades to page in recent herstory

we pause to consider gravity and cause

living longer, despite wealth or  poverty
is a current trend, and gross anomaly
hardly odd, the pursuit of human glory
informs that excess is the common story

roots of wealth and want yield poison fruits

for  we grow large in hunger and excess
persistent needy and the wasteful  reckless
and bodies show what words cannot hide
as withers and gluttony stand side by side

our longer spans must have a sharing plan

a flame as the old smolders find new bellows
and  yields feast and famine, odd bed fellows




_______________________________
Globally diabetes increases rapidly as development creates change, people become more affluent . Yet, poverty and malnutrition persist. We have the oddity of greater obesity and starvation. Diseases of malnutrition and food excess side by side, and growing.

Pardonnez moi s’il vous plaît

I am not fond of birds,
Although some indeed have charm.
A friend told a story about hers
“Il est Charlie”, charm that disarms
Even the casual gaze, his displays
Of song deeply amused
And one day a sparrow
Came close to its end, confused
By the language, bird to bird.

Not surprising really, for
It is the limitation of words.
Whether uttered by featherless men
Of hairless feathered friend
There is the difficulty
Where does the intention begin and end

Now as a child my Grandma had some birds
Heckle and Jeckle were their names
Not original but she loved them just the same
I don’t know all that happened but they
Perished in their cage, and since then
I have never wanted a caged bird.

But magnificent in flight
Osprey and Eagle, Hawk and Falcon
And even those I saw at night
Golden angels in the moonlight over the Caribbean Sea
I enjoy their bold freedom; they have no cages
And do not consort with sparrows except to feast.

But the Sparrow has a place in my heart
Was what my Mother used to sing about:
His eyes on the Sparrow, such a pure
Unflinching faith had she, and I can
Recall the feeling more than any part of memory
That her words were plain, were given sincerely
A paean to a God of Sparrows and crows,
Angels, doves and gulls, all reckoning
Of flying things, and to this day
When I see an anomalous feather
Floating nearby, I pause to wonder
Of that moment- Mother and her Sparrows,
And signs that follow Faith.

Ahh, I have digressed, but my friend would not mind
Nor Charlie, neither of my feelings about cages.
I was once in love, and came to know
The welcome side of cages; that sometimes,
it is the captive bird that gilds the cage.

[tanka]

fading dusk and greeting stars

in the last perfumed drops of evening

I bend and softly kiss your eyes

to open to the morning sun, waken

into a lover’s dream of day