Ahhh... how's the weather?
Ah to recall those days
When the most benign
Conversation began with
How’s the weather?
We whirl hands over
Our heads or eyes or
ears – now in a maelstrom
We modern day manifested
naked dinosaurs walking
through forests of fire
and melting icebergs
humming, screaming,
sciencing, silencing,
or simply writing a poem
to pass the time in these
days of destruction…
Hi all at What's Going On?
First of all .. a public hurrah.. congratulations, welcome and delighted to participate in the launch of this much-needed site... For the last few years I have been wandering around in my mind ... wondering in polite language WTF is going on... and so to find fabulous familiar voices raised and opening doors to connect is a breath of fresh air. Time marches on and I'm part of the parade - have continued writing and have my small as I like it private practice to keep me connected outside my own tumultuous head. Enough of the prologue.
I hope that I am not beginning by breaking any rules - but as said I have had this question whirling for years now... I wanted to share my poem Gobsmacked with you all... (which is how I was feeling a few years ago and I've just continued to be smacked in the years up to the present!)
Hugs and looking forward to reading and commenting ! .. and now here is my launch poem...
GOBSMACKED *
When day might turn to night and night might turn to day
And people stop talking to you and why they won’t say
When the icecaps are melting and some say nothing is wrong
And the bees they are leaving and the frogs stop their song
When politics turn misanthropic, a mass mad mobby joke
And those who should speak forget how they once spoke
When you wake in the morning with a shudder and chill
And the future seems dark and dim and filled with ill will
When shots ring in classrooms and children fall dead
And elders are quiet while youngsters spill wisdom instead
When day might turn to night and night might turn to day
And you speak, think and write and don’t know what to say
When your heart pounds bloody and fingers turn icy and cold
And you try to be fierce, strong, stand up and be ever so bold
When the world starts to shrink and toddlers die at the shore
When war weapons murder innocents not less but still more
When eyes look for footing and guidance in hurricane gales
And find instead tossed bombastic operatic paper-towel tales
When it seems like you’re standing in a snow globe of frizz
And the very air that you breathe is thrumming with fizz
When sense flies out of touch and nothing seems real
And divisions are toxic and conversations surreal
When all that you knew seems now up for debate
And too much around you spews spilled out with hate
When you want to get going but can’t get to the gate
When day might turn to night and night might turn to day
As global shards of pain sidewise whirl destruction’s disarray
When oceans rise and mountains fall
And injustice and wrongs far too many to articulate them all
When you see time running out, hopefulness each day attacked
Then my friend, then you know, you are being ....
-Gobsmacked-
*title poem for a chapbook published out of frustration in 2019 -
I thought it was particularly appropriate for this wonderful kick off of
What's Going On?
Motherhood Map
Enter Fingers Caress Slime– inhale at Wonder Of Birth
Take Fingers Interlace until roundabout- Suckling/Basic Skills to
World Socio-Natural Interaction merge Education
Exit Central Route to Service Road Sports/Interests – rejoin Central
Full-stop at Embrace/ Pause and Reflect continue to
Bon Voyage Blvd.
Let Go
Keeping On The Wheels
They sit in a circle tiny children held in big laps
The Wheels On The Bus Go Round and Round
sing the mothers and perhaps once in a while
a father ..clutching tiny hands to clap, bouncing
knees – Grinning at one another - some even
happy …
Others just trying with pounding hearts
and trembling fingertips just trying to
keep the flippin wheels from flying off
Crashing, cracking the wall standing
Between song and sanity
 |
| watercolor by dear artist friend Jacklyn Ritz Hennard |
Plucked from the possibility, day after day of all that could and does not happen to crush body soul and spirit - A post war child who read and heard of ravaged survivor faces with blank eyes lived long enough to see buildings fall and terror on ash whitened faces running through rubbled streets. As I, by the grace of some unseen entity positioned to wake each morning in my grandparents’ bed to watch the tree outside my window grow skyward stronger each year surviving each storm, to warm myself at a fireplace in winter as snow falls gently on mullioned windows, to walk so far free from doctors’ visits, to phone a shopping list and receive food of choice in paper cartons, all this and so much more- an ongoing largesse, a bounty of such kindness positions me to be able to be, as meant to be, a mitzvah manifester - to perform anonymously small acts of kindnesses when opportunity presents -dropping a crumbled five dollar bill on the ground for a tearful boy who’d lost his money for a present for his father returning from service, paying for a family’s dinner bill celebrating the birthday of a new baby with their ninety three year old mother, holding a door open in the rain or sunshine, smiling at someone for no reason, thanking another for any service given, leaving a large tip on a table in a restaurant in an unfamiliar town, buying new pillows for out placed children in the same orphanage where my husband spent some time as a toddler long long ago, opening the door to a tiny kitten in the storm, sending donations, slipping poems into pockets of the grieving, the joy of rushing away from these deeds under the cloak of anonymity. In fact, I shudder to speak of such mitzvahs meant always to be unheralded lest they become braggadocio these acts of kindness that have always and shall always remain unclaimed - seeking to repair this broken world -these are small gifts to myself - sprinkling the sense that the world is kind - a microscopic unseen hand within the vast kindness of the Source that has so smiled upon me – offering some kindness so others might feel love of from an unseen softness smiling upon them too – Oh, I watch from spectacular safety another spring and my garden flowers blossom as children, as so many living fall murdered dead, as starvation, deprivation, hatred, chilling indifference clump as golems, among us, as oceans crest, ice floes melt on and on the tsunami of unkindness roils - I continue for now, miraculously held in some universal toss of monumental kindness to be able to return a speck of kindness whenever and however the possibility presents - I have no memory of any individual kindnesses received - the vastness of my good fortune shimmers inexpressible - my flecks join unseen legions doing the same-riding the tips of waves of wonder in spite or perhaps somehow because of the horror of all that surrounds the flowers that bloom . This is ongoing kindness I have received. This the kindness I seek to repay.
True North
star dust shimmers in soul
song, sparkling, sacred -
spell, binding all to its order
in the journey whirling true
north thawing any incipient
freeze – beneath serenity,
rising, this voice of thunder
moving from translucent to
transparent – pure power
bending the arc always to
righteousness
