The Soft Edge of Dark

Moments are forced upon us though we forge our own paths.

There are possibilities and false leads in every direction.

The outcome is never an absolute and regret or relief might both result.

The soft edge of dark lures us into the void then leaves us waiting, alone.

This is what chokes our airways, stanches our blood.

 

It’s the response we choose that makes us who we are – hero, fool, supplicant.

Knowing that the future is always a mystery grants us courage or makes us cower.

Success is a triumph one day, an accusation the next, a mourner over the open grave.

It slices our souls. It pools our tears. It makes us human.

This is what sears our minds, opens our hearts to prayer.

 

Just a thought 79

 

Landscape painting by Orson Pratt Huish, courtesy Wikipedia

 

 

 

Most of All

Most of all, I

quiet to hear my sons’ laughter but snub the marching band

tongue spicy sweet cinnamon though disdain rare truffles

climb to sight the far sunset  and turn away from the road

yearn to listen to the poet but don’t hear any king

lean to smell the hyacinth though not costly perfume

reach to kiss my lover’s hand but ignore the silken gown

chant the trope of psalms but refute the tyrant’s rant

kneel to drink clear water but am not sated with Champagne

stretch to grasp my toes far longer than to hold a torch

pray for my grandchildren’s health rather than myself a longer life

seek my worth as a seashell more than all the gold in the world

 

Just a thought 55

 

Photo of seashell courtesy Pixabay

 

 

 

 

World

 

 

As long as one person still lives, this moment can’t be all there is to life. As companion to God, one person can repair the world, one person can save the world, one person can create the world, and one person can guarantee the future. Understand – I am the one person on whom God depends. So are You.

 

 

Just a Thought 13

 

 

Image Earth from space courtesy: NASA

 

Post-Eclipse-alypse

What if the two Voyager spacecraft enter interstellar space where the Golden Record might reach other intelligent life forms, but – witnessing the savagery we have wrought here on earth – they want nothing to do with us? What if that life form is of such advanced intelligence that they refuse to acknowledge us? What if they have seen us first but have already passed us by? What if the only thing we leave behind is nothing worth owning or passing on? What if the speed at which the Voyagers travel is exponentially outpaced by the momentum of the continuing destruction here at our planetary home? What if the premise of hope launched by the visionary scientists in 1977 has long been dashed by the reality of the horrors the destroyers effected here on Earth?

What if we deserve nothing more and Earth is really our one chance? Shouldn’t we live here as if that is the final and only truth?

And if we choose not to respectively honor our place in the Cosmos, what then do we tell our children’s children’s children?

 

Just a Thought 6

 

Voyager image courtesy NASA

Earth image courtesy Pixabay.com

Choices

So many things are going wrong in my life at the moment, most of them related to – well, everything, now that I think about it. I’ll begin by stating that I won’t begin at the beginning. Imagine problems one, two, three, ad infinitum. And the final problem – the car, nineteen-years-old, worn and cranky – was at the mechanic shop last night, and the two older grands spent the night at my home so their parents could have an evening out. Hubby was working out of town. That meant I couldn’t drive the grands anywhere but I asked if they’d like to walk to a restaurant. So we did. The nearby shopping center offers many choices, and the kids picked a favorite Italian place, one that good-naturedly welcomes kids. We each ate pasta with a favorite sauce, slurping meatballs and noodles, gorging on hot bread and butter, sharing our selections with each other. After dinner we walked to the grocery store around the corner and bought food for breakfast this morning.

On the sidewalk we passed a man slumped against a wall who asked for nothing but looked away from us, seeming sad, dejected, tired, homeless. Possibly he was ill from a life lived in dark corners or unkempt gullies for who knows how long. I have so many bills, a falling-apart car, a house in disrepair on many fronts. Our financial situation precludes us visiting our younger son, his wife and the two younger grands.  But I bask in so much wealth in many ways.

My grands waited at the corner and watched as I walked back to the homeless man and asked if he was hungry. He nodded but remained silent. I gave him a bill. He looked and when he realized I’d given him not a one but a ten dollar bill, his face lit up. Ten dollars will buy a fraction of a tank of gas or pay a small bit of what the mechanic is going to charge me to fix the car that may run well enough to need that gas. Tears dripped down the cheeks of the old man; he could barely speak but in a hushed voice, he asked my name. I told him and asked his, then told him to please get something to eat. He nodded, still grasping the bill, a lifeline for the evening.

I don’t usually give to people on the street though we donate small amounts to many charities and worthy causes in more traditional ways. When possible I participate in service projects, and the kids do the same as part of their Scout programs. I know the homeless man may have bought a cheap bottle of booze with the bill, but I can’t stop people from destroying themselves if that’s what they choose. I can only choose my own life, and last night I chose to give a stranger, an old man, enough to sustain him for one more night. I hope he ate something hot and good for him. I choose to think he did. The kids witnessed a small act of mercy, and hopefully it impressed them in a way that will impel them to be compassionate as they grow up.

My grands were so sweet the whole evening and this morning, and so grateful that they got to spend the night at my house. I am angry, distressed, and deeply frightened about the deterioration of the environment, the danger of escalating world political danger, the uncertain economic future facing all my grandchildren and all your grandchildren. But my choice is to continue to do as much good as I can in this world, even if they are only small acts of justice or kindness or being responsible for the earth’s limited resources.

So, it has been a very good week for me despite the falling apart car for which the mechanic shop is having a hard time finding the part it needs to fix it, despite the fact we do not have air conditioning to endure this hot and humid summer, and despite that the floors in the kitchen and the bedroom remain ruined after two different broken pipe floods. Life is very good for me and I know how fortunate I am. It is far worse for many others.

Many years ago I was given a tiny piece of paper imprinted with two Hebrew sentences. I carry it with me at all times. Each sentence reminds me I am part of a world that is incomplete. It is not only my choice, but my charge as a citizen of the world community to contribute in a positive way. On one side is written, “The world was created for my sake.” On the other, “I am but dust and ashes.”

I am but dust and ashes. The world was created for my sake, not to squander but to help ensure the future. For the grandchildren of the world.

 

 

The Children painting courtesy Valentin Serov, CommonsWikimedia.org

 

Supermoon

The wonder of space implores us to be placid

 

Gazing at the supermoon one night past

I saw the distance between her and earth

Limpid and far, quiet and empty

As if the only breach were my vision

Fractured by weak eyesight, poor posture

Telescopes might pull her closer

Though we fill the gap doggedly with fear

Argument, hatred, accusation, injury, violence

We shatter our world and the moon’s

Posing as wholly independent, just one

When in fact we are all connected, all one

 

Heavenward eyes peer, souls beseech tranquility

 

One being, one earth, one universe, one cosmos

Roiling, expanding, bursting, churning, emerging

Space between moon and earth

Never still, the ether a shimmer, a quiver,

Launch of one rocket equal to one smile

I was born in 1948, most recent super moon

Before last Sunday’s, will not be here for the next

May the year 2034 be one of calm and peace

May my spirit then united with all breaths

Be a scarce flux, an absent touch

My children and grandchildren to feel justice

 

The scope of all atoms toward the serene

 

Great-grandchildren and strangers everywhere

Know what I left behind, unremembered,

Unremarked, also did no damage, merely an attempt

To repair the rifts, the harm, the anger, the blows

Tried to say thank you, I’m sorry, I forgive, I love

If not always heard because other

Sounds and movements hurt, stole, cut, raped

I turned my back even while proclaiming my

Innocence, activism, contribution, my part

I am also responsible for all that and

So are you – we may not acquit nor turn aside

 

The swell of sanctuary, of prodigal equity

 

The moon was close on Sunday, most super

But we are close to each other every day

No matter my speech or heritage, no matter yours

We are all born of the same dust and glow

The same needs, urges, desires, ash, and blood

May not blame the Holy One nor ask favor

It was granted the moment of our birth

Now is our chance and our charge to build

Repair, invent, improve, protect, share, yield

That when next the moon appears most super

Her gleam will expose a world whole and still

 

One voice of God most heard and most felt by all

 

 

Moon image courtesy Harvest Moon on the #UWS #NYC September 8, 2014 image/editing/sookietex and released into the public domain

Nebula

 

 

Our pledge for our children

To order silence from our nascent viscera

To draw inspiration from our noblest instincts

To stretch empathy from our trembling hearts

To see promise in shadows, future in echoes

To hear power in thoughts rendered with love

To mold honor from acts wrought of despair

To restrain, to rise, to remember the cloud

That bound all in the nursery of universe

This our tribute, this our promise

That one impostor cannot divide

What community deems whole

That the guttural throb of the savage

Is muted by voices chanted in chorus

We hold the heart line of dignity

As profound as the creation of stars

 

Image courtesy public domain: NASA and NSSDC

This site is not endorsed by NASA.

I, Wanderer

The commencement address at your university is supposed to inspire the graduates to go out and conquer the world with great deeds and a vision of peace for mankind. Or at least get a decent job and pay the bills. I panicked when I graduated from college. It was the moment when I realized I had no idea what I wanted to be when I grew up. I didn’t attend my college commencement; the motivating keynote address never reached my ears. If college was a five year delay before starting my adult life, then the day after graduation was an immediate decline into uncertainty and failure. Nearly everyone I knew was ready to start grad school in a few months (or had already begun,) or had a terrific entry level position in a job that would lead to a productive and independent future. So I thought. So they thought.

 

I’d been lazy about my life till then, getting homework and assignments completed but without the incentive of solid accomplishments that would look great on a resume. I’d worked too, at a bunch of dead end jobs that kept me fed on fried rice and thin sandwiches, housed in roach infested apartments in the run down sections of a graceless city. The idea of being a Writer had only been sustained by marginal success in college. I’d earned a degree in creative writing validated by a few essays and short stories noteworthy for nudging by professors toward possible journal submission. But there were no jobs in the classified section of the paper advertising for entry level writers. (Yeah, if you’re 40 or under, you don’t know what that is – no worries.)

Over the next decade I fell into a roll call of aimless jobs. Employment in a few dead end trades paid bills until marriage; then children sidelined me even further from any serious expeditions toward a writing career. Not wanting to risk my sons’ safety at daycare, I stayed home with my young children, dodging regular work until they were in elementary school. For a person full of remorse over many squandered opportunities, that’s not one of them. I’m not attempting to persuade you that my decision was the only one you should also consider, but for me, it was right. I nurtured my children with religion, play, music, trips to beaches and nature parks, sports, Scouts, theater, picnics, friendships, fun, and challenges.

I raised my sons and I loved those years and I harbor no regret.

The next derailments happened because I pursued a different creative path, first doing occasional art work while the kids were small, and then as a full bore career because it became the path I traveled. At-home work as a free lance artist eventually led to paid art teacher positions through a city rec program and as a volunteer artist at my son’s school. [I don’t know which of those words paints a funnier picture: “free” because of how little I got paid by people who thought they were doing me a favor by letting me do something constructive with my time by designing logos and signs for their businesses, or handmade invitations for their weddings; “lance” because I felt pierced by every person who paid me less than promised after demanding more work than we’d agreed upon; or “artist” because I never got to sign my name to a single piece of artwork. Still, inks and paints were used, and I was never lashed to a mast to do the work. And yes, I do know that “freelance” is a legitimate word without the separation.]

Those experiences segued into a stint as a commercial artist in a studio where I learned to paint designs for active wear (bikinis, board shorts, Hawaiian-style shirts) under pressure and with peculiar requirements, like board shorts with no orange hues as the owner of the company simply didn’t like orange – damn that the buying public at the time, teenage and college boys, loved it. I also found that office politics in a commercial studio is the norm, that stealing creative proprietary product is standard, and jealousy of anyone else’s artistic skills the motive for lies (Art director, “She didn’t paint that,” pointing to what was clearly my design – everyone had seen me paint it and it was my identifiable style) and theft (“I did,” as she held aloft a barely altered piece of my work and claimed it as her own.) More than one artist has stated that commercial studios raze your soul, but maybe you have to be there to understand such truth. Too many episodes down that miserable path and I gave it up, with great relief.

At any rate, I took what I’d learned, to paint fast and accurately, and marched off to the first of several positions as an art teacher in private schools. I’ll leave out the administrative/business dealings and report only that I loved working with kids, kindergarten to twelfth grade, and exposing them to the creative energy that every child owns. You just have to help them unlock what’s percolating there, show them how to hold a brush, why paint colors contrast better with some colors more than others, how to move a pencil to craft the line they envision in their head. Children can learn to capture what they dream and record it as painting, drawing, original print, sculpture, collage or ceramic art. It’s a remarkable experience when a child hangs a work of art on the wall and says, “I made that!” Yes, with my guidance, but a few thousand kids did in fact make thousands of pieces of art. Many kids went on to become fine artists, designers, sculptors, art teachers, architects, art historians, commercial artists, and all manner of professionals and lay people whose lives are touched and enriched by exposure to art. I did that!

Art is a primal urge, evident by the 20 – 30,000-year-old treasures deep in European caves on rock walls that could only be reached via precarious scaffolds. Just imagine: wrapped in bearskin, walking on grass sandals, you hide behind boulders or as high in trees as the slender boughs will afford you. When you drop to earth, you tread softly so as not to awaken bad spirits, enemy tribesmen, or stalking predators twice your weight, and trek until you find the tiny hole in the embankment. You push aside the branches that keep its secret, enter the darkness, and plunge through space, uncertain where you will land or if safely. Or at all. Once there, you light a fish oil lamp in a shell, pick up a ragged-edged twig, a dollop of red-brown ochre, and a stub of charcoal. You may be famished and thirsty but nothing, not even desire to calm urges for food, can keep you from the calling of the muse, born before you were conceived. You pay homage to the spirits whom you revere and fear by creating massive images of horses and bison on rock ceilings reached only by standing on a rickety ladder built of broken limbs. You ask for blessings and success. You do what you’d come for: you paint.

I taught children to create art and I loved those years and I harbor no regret.

Eventually a roadblock stopped me. They are meant to. A horrendously unjust situation developed and I couldn’t control or reverse it. A kid cheated on a project and her parents demanded that I take the blame for her poor judgment by insisting I not be rehired. They were rich enough to hang a noose woven of dollar bills. Truth to power is a noble cause but sometimes you just can’t win and I didn’t. I lost the art teacher position in the school where I’d built their upper school art program. Knowing that it was up to me to heal, I sought a creative outlet. Still teaching art, I returned to my first love, the one I’d identified as a child. I began again to write. Finally I knew what I needed to know after college graduation: it was up to me to write my own commencement address, so here it is:

Do whatever you do as well as possible. Make deep and wholesome imprints on earth and in the hearts of others. When you go, it will be all that is left behind. Listen to your adversary and be vulnerable to change, because you may have made the first mistake. Compromise is often the most fair but sometimes justice is not. Work at granting forgiveness and be grateful to those who have afforded you theirs. Stake high standards for yourself, slightly less for acquaintances, and none for those who are unable. Be authentic in voice and action, and do something instead of nothing at all. You were not born when your parents were; stop blaming them for the miseries of their lives. Be angry and then make something wonderful from your anger. Forge friendships as if you are forging new stars. Hold family as if your life and theirs depended upon it. Fix what you broke and then help someone else fix what they broke. Build something new and keep what’s old in good repair. Bless those around you for their presence in your life. Thank God in whatever way you find meaningful. Do this every day. And harbor no regrets.