Ours Is Not The Task

And here it is: "Any small, calm thing that one soul

can to do help another soul. to assist some portion

of this poor suffering world, will help immensely."

I keep reminding myself of this when things become

so horrifying and unbelievably ghastly.

I repeat any small, calm thing...

any small, calm thing over and over.

It keeps me on the lookout for opportunities.

You never know if your act of kindness becomes 

 the twig that brings down the empire.

It's the accumulation of heartfelt actions

that turn the tide. 

On a slightly different note,

Here is HCR's last statement in her post today

about the end of the civil war.  It's well worth a read.

"The Civil War was won not by the dashing sons of wealthy planters,

 but by men like Grant, who dragged himself out of his blankets and 

pulled a dirty soldier’s uniform over his pounding head

 on an April morning because he knew 

he had to get up and get to work."  HCR

We will not lose our democracy to billionaires.

And every kind gesture to relieve suffering matters.

 

Things Nature Taught Me

Things Nature Is Teaching me...

You can't always trust the weather report...

best to check the sky with your own eyes.

Pay attention to the small things...tiny vignettes

of exquisite art lie in the most unexpected places.

There is beauty in decay.

Soak in the magnificence of the moment.

It can vanish in a heartbeat.

There is always more to learn.

Invisible happenings matter.

There is nothing more astonishing

than a visitation from the wild.

The humblest creature 

is doing mighty work.

There is way, way more going on

than you can see on the surface.

You don't have to remember the name

of something in order to fall in love.

Weeds are in the eyes of the beholder.

There is wonder in the way

things appear and disappear

and appear again, time after time.

 

The Stirring

"I can't help but string words, one at a time,

until there is a web woven from my heart to yours."

What a delicious way to describe what most of us do

with these marks on the page or the screen.

", , ,want to know that you feel it too,

this stirring, this pulse of life coaxing us closer. . ."

Never doubt the invisible web that words can weave

from one heart to another.  It's what makes 

the river of goodness flow strong among us.

It matters.

"Let us scatter our gold everywhere."

As valuable as coins, dollars, investments; arguably more so,

it deposits immeasurable riches into our bloodstream.

 

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.

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.

I Don't Love You With

Eternal comfort in two sentences.

 

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.