Monday, April 6, 2026

Boiling Point

 To hear what its 
like to live under constant threat like this,
makes me realize how amazingly fortunate we've been.
It's no wonder humans from countries where
danger, torture and death are constant threats,
used to risk life and limb to come here.
What can one do from our relatively safe abode?
Bear witness, pay attention, do not grow numb to it,
keep the innocent victims close to our heart...
 devise some small ritual to honor their suffering;
carry them with us as we move through our days.
Strengthen the power of joy and kindness
every way we can.
We will not surrender to cruelty.
May we remember the best way to resist
violence, cruelty and hate
is to plant seeds of caring wherever we are...
We are doing this...together. 
More and more every day.
We will continue...we will prevail.






Sunday, April 5, 2026

You Are Made Of


 "Those who did both and never knew the difference."
Most of us can resonate with this, don't you think?
I'd go so far as to say that loving doesn't happen
without unintentional hurting.

"In the end, you are what you choose to be,
the hands opening or the fists clenching."
Love the image and the action of this 
last line.  I confess to fists clenching
more than I like to admit, these days.
I grieve how much this is happening in our world
and what it leads to.
May we concentrate on hands opening
to each other and to goodness.





Wednesday, April 1, 2026

Drip Study

A longer poem but so delicious, its worth every word.

"The body always tells the truth first."
Even when you're highly skilled at ignoring
the messages from your container of skin and bones 
overflowing with breathtaking and breath making things
of immense and astonishing intricacy and wonder...
it continues its telling until you wake up and pay attention.

"The way anger prefers motion to confession."
How many time have I folded clothes or vacuumed,
or scanned the cupboards and the screen
for something, anything to squelch the rage before it hurt someone?

"This wasn't chaos. It was accumulation.
Years of swallowed sentences learning velocity."
Wow. Wow. Wow. 
"Years of swallowed sentences learning velocity"?
This verse makes my ears ring.

"There's no center here.  No horizon.
Just the evidence of staying alive
long enough to empty yourself
without asking permission."
How many of us get the chance...Or should I say TAKE
the chance to empty ourselves of every fragment of yes when we mean no,
every ounce of compliancy, every drop of pleasing, every molecule of agreeable?

"This is what it looks like when
control finally admits defeat
and something more honest takes over."
As someone who believes deeply in mutual respect
and decency, it appears to me we are witnessing 
a counterfeit form of "honesty"...
if you want to call it that...  "Telling it like it is" 
as a form of cruel belittlement of others 
does not equal any kind of integrity in my book. 
Telling it like it is, is not an adequate excuse
for objectifying others,
 and demonizing those one sees as inferior.
It is not honesty, 
it is deceit, 
it is fraud, 
it is wrong.  
To have it prevail in a seat of power
is a crime against our universe.






 

Tuesday, March 31, 2026

Where Do I See Myself?

Much of this touches my heart.
"...growing a garden of hopeful, little seeds
and tending to then daily because courage 
takes work and work is an honor. "
I would say commitment instead of work
although I certainly know that commitment takes work.

"understanding how rare and cherished the ordinary day can be."
This is where sanity and thick, tangible goodness lives, I believe.

"...standing up for the underdog."
Many people empathize with the underdog.
It takes great courage to stand up for them
when cruelty gets aimed their way.

healing more than I complain and 
listening more than I judge.
Oh boy, this is spot on in grand proportion. 

I do not see myself under God's wing and 
respect the author's right to do so, as I recognize
this is one of those, listen more than judge situations.



 

Monday, March 30, 2026

Beneath The Polite Green Lawn

This entire piece took my breath away.

". . .a telegram of want, the others answer
sending sugar like a sacrament
a quiet mercy moving in the dark."


"They kneel, they weave, they practice a grammar of holding."

"The wounded one is steadied by invisible hands"

"...below, in the damp cathedral of earth,
the roots remain devoted, they braid
around stone, around bone, 
around the cold relics of
things once breathing."

"They drink from what has died
and turn it into green testimony."

"The forest is not a collection of trees,
it is a single body. . ."

This is how I want to read scripture.



 

In A Time Of

We all know this, still, being reminded is uplifting.
It reassuring to hear it articulated so succinctly,
and with such confident encouragement.