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Archive for September, 2020

Can I Really Say I Hear You?

Posted in positive thinking, tagged , , , , , , , , on September 22, 2020| 1 Comment »

acrylic painting I made recently based upon a photo of a birch in Acadia Park in Maine

There’s a lot of difference between listening and hearing. (G. K. Chesterton)

The scene is a circle of young women. In the distant past. I am among the women as I admit I am close to despair.

“Look at the beauty of the trees in the yard,” one member advises. She spreads her arms as if she were Mother Nature enjoying her handiwork.

The scene she describes doesn’t lift me. I feel censured for embracing a less-than-perfect place. And the blue rug where I sit opens. Or at least it seems to open. I fall through. Hidden inside.

Later. Much later. I realize I couldn’t accept the glory because it wasn’t mine. It belonged to someone else. I’d been given a simple answer to a complex situation. An accepting nod would have been better.

Strange. I understand this after my ears needed amplification to catch the most uncomplicated conversation.

It is also strange that I am grateful for the depths because now I can recognize a natural gem and celebrate its worth.

The news advertises fear. With or without facts depending upon the source. A friend calls about her confusion. I don’t have answers. I listen…

 

 

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Fog, Sun, and Hope: A Poem

Posted in inspiration, positive thinking, tagged , , , , , , , on September 15, 2020| 1 Comment »

You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. I hope someday you’ll join us. And the world will live as one. ( John Lennon)

Fog, Sun, and Hope

 

Bare, black trees stand out inside a low cloud. Fog.

Headlights hide the vehicles they guide

 

until the cars arrive close enough to be

seen by other drivers.

 

In political fogs fact and factoid blur. Alternative facts,

lies that wear well-constructed masks. Fear wins.

 

Each lie repeats often enough to be used as beams for

followers. The mask asks people to scoff non-believers.

 

And the non-believers respond with taunts, point out stupidity,

lack of logic, inconsistency. A no-win war begins.

 

In the natural world, sun, blue, and clouds reappear.

Dead trees remain leafless. Headlights become optional,

 

a choice. Drivers can now see without them. Can eyes open

and human roots join for change? Must fog live in all seasons?

 

Or can sun live despite fog? As headlights point out need,

can drivers carry hope and respond with an ear instead of censure?

 

Yes, I hear where you stand, those who would

destroy the poor and give to the rich, but I disagree.

 

Peace for the world.

 Eventually. Please.

 

originally published in For A Better World

 

 

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A Red Car and Metaphors for Us and Them

Posted in inspiration, positive thinking, tagged , , , , , , , , on September 8, 2020| 1 Comment »

There is no us and them; it’s an illusion. We are all human beings, and we all have a responsibility to support one another and to discover ways of wresting the power from the very, very few people who control all the cash and all the property. (Roger Waters.)

Amazing how lost I can feel even though I know exactly where I’m turning left and right. Three errands. Each simple and specific. And yet my thoughts travel as if my brain synapses have no connections. I want to save the world. It isn’t going to happen.

A red car turns ahead of me into the parking lot as a small boy sticks his head out the window. He is a handsome child. Mocha skin. Hair shaved to reveal a perfectly shaped skull. He returns inside immediately. I imagine the voice of the driver, probably a parent. “Get your seatbelt on right now, young man.”

Then I see the identical shaved hairstyle of a smaller boy. He is seated in the middle of the back seat. The red car is no longer a vehicle in a line of traffic. It is its own world. A mini-community that turns toward another part of the shopping center.

I don’t know the family. And yet a scene hits me. The earth from a distance. Made from easily delineated parts. Water. Land. And everything is blurred as if it had no mountain, valley, creatures, or specks of dust.

When one group of people has never interacted with another, notions develop without dimension, fact, or touch.

“I’m not prejudiced,” an unnamed white woman announces. “I just think all lives matter.” The rebuttal comes, “But is your life being threatened? Has it ever been threatened because your pale-peaches skin has too many freckles?” And the response is a cold stare.

Us and them. May these words become pronouns again and stay out of the judgmental realm. They are too easily used as weapons.

A wider worldview. It may be the only solution. Yet not an easy one.

 

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Facing the Darkness Under the Bed: a Poem

Posted in inspiration, positive thinking, tagged , , , , , , , , on September 1, 2020| 3 Comments »

True forgiveness is when you can say, “Thank you for that experience.” (Oprah Winfrey)

What can’t be accomplished in reality, sometimes can be faced through poetry.

 

Facing the Darkness Under the Bed

 

As I sweep under my bed and touch

the darkness below the frame

I imagine going back into time

 

and watch my mom as her mother lies

on another bed. Twelve-year-old Mary Ann

cooks then washes dishes.

 

Her history textbook is opened

on the kitchen table. Ancient war dates fade,

battles with human losses,

 

each its own variation

of an untold Pyrrhic victory.

She hears a different kind of battle.

 

My mother as a young girl

longs to soothe the endless

cries of her mother

 

in labor for forty-eight hours.

Mama survives but delivers a

second dead baby. Mary Ann learns

 

to bury hurts as well, cover them

inside forgotten dreams. She leaves

the darkness under her bed

 

with the dust. Imagination,

it may be physically impossible.

Yet, I reach for the hand

 

of the twelve-year-old girl who will one day

give birth to me, and allow her

the gift of forbidden tears.

 

Perhaps then I can give

me full permission for

releasing mine.

 

 

 

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