Struggles on the Ground

No matter the struggles on the ground

The fire or earthquake or flood or revolution

You still awake to the baby’s cries and rush

To quiet her, diaper her, lift her to your breast

 

Rain descends, rivers run to oceans, wind rises

Dust settles on the white linens, grit mars the table

Boys and girls beg for a story and pencils

Babies turn in the womb, mouths reach for a kiss

 

No matter how weary your back bent to task

Your spirit slashed by fever, worry, conflict

The electric bill must be paid, bread bought

The children need breakfast before school

 

Surgeons raise their knives over ill flesh and cut

Farmers plough fields and force seeds into earth

Fishermen drop nets so deep in the sea they vanish

Some get well, some harvest, some eat, some drown

 

No matter the guns in the street, rockets overhead

The body bows to its insistent daily needs

Before you stand, work, march, weep, shout, fall

You must park outhouses along the battlefield

 

An old woman reads documents and diaries

An old man sorts certificates and photographs

They write their letters to their grandchildren

Wishing them fewer struggles on the ground

 

Just a thought 71

 

Homeward, painted 1881, Georges Inness, courtesy Wikimedia Commons

 

 

 

 

Waiting for the Light

A horizon line is an error of our vision. Still, we plod determinedly toward it. We reach it in our imaginations, then move again. It’s the forward movement that transforms it – and us. Closing our eyes makes it real.

But open your eyes today, behind your special protective glasses, about 10:00 a.m. if you’re on the West Coast. Watch the solar eclipse, performed especially for the United States. If one thing can unite this savage country in a peaceful moment, let it be all eyes peering toward the heavens, each of us somewhat in the dark, holding hands, breathless with wonder, waiting for light to reach us again.

Waiting for the light.

 

Just a Thought, 5

Eclipse image courtesy: commons.wikimedia.org

The Garden

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Seeds pushed into soil crumbled by fingers

Late spring heat already cracking the ground

Parcels of dirt too poor to grow anything

Still we plant the germ for tomato and chive

Out of the dry, fissured clods, food to grow

 

Perhaps we look in the wrong places for peace

Expecting it to claw its way above the earth

Perhaps we must soak less the anger of our fears

That fuels the fires of hate, rage, and blindness

If we hope to harvest a season of sustenance

 

No wall can contain my own or leave yours behind

Nor should I expect a kernel of hate to produce

The food to nurture a body, to grow a heart

Only by opening the hard surface of ground

And that of one’s soul can anything grow

 

I will listen, I will look into your eyes

As long as you also listen, do not look away

My feet may dance to different music

But the blood in my body pools red as yours

You may not spill it for your produce of hate

 

Neither of us will bloom in a garden of death

No child will thrive beside stumps left by fire

You may not plant those craven seeds

Cower instead in your ruined clot of earth

Let my garden grow

 

Remembering massacres in Jerusalem and Orlando and Paris and San Bernardino and Charleston and Fort Hood and on and on and on too far

Black mourning ribbon image courtesy: publicdomainvectors.org

Peace and Only Peace Will Be Accepted

We are all Parisians. We are all Parisians. We are all Parisians. We are all Parisians. We are all Parisians. We are all Parisians. We are all Parisians. We are all Parisians. We are all Parisians. We are all Parisians. We are all Parisians. We are all Parisians. We are all Parisians. We are all Parisians. We are all Parisians. We are all Parisians. We are all Parisians. We are all Parisians. We are all Parisians. We are all Parisians. We are all Parisians. We are all Parisians. We are all Parisians. We are all Parisians. We are all Parisians. We are all Parisians. We are all Parisians. We are all Parisians. We are all Parisians. We are all Parisians. We are all Parisians. We are all Parisians.

D is for Dares with Dreams

I’m writing this post on the 50^th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s I Have a Dream speech as it was presented at the March on Washington on August 28, 1963. It’s fitting that this entry be more somber than others in the Alphabet of a New Blog series.

Many of you reading this only know Dr. King and the Civil Rights movement from history books, documentaries, news articles, TV broadcasts, and the like. I knew Dr. King from my place in the generation to whom he addressed his concerns. Too young to march with him, I later spent my college years singing “We Will Overcome” and rallying against continuing inequalities, the heady sense of social justice and righteousness fresh from the earlier Civil Rights marches. I worked on behalf of lowering the voting age to 18, figuring that a man deemed old enough to fight and perhaps die for our country should be considered old enough to vote. I’m still proud of my contribution to that success. It cost me a semester of perfect university grades to help get that job done, and I don’t regret my choice.