A Place Called Home

Setting your pace within your very own place
Known to you as home, where seeds are sown
In assurety of the security of your safe haven,
A place you do not have to hide in craven fear,
Where you can freely visit those near and dear,
Somewhere dry and warm where you fly high
And no longer have to try to smile a mile wide
Or hide how you feel, and kneel down in peace
With a new lease on life; after all you’re home
. . .
Setting your pace within your very own place
Somewhere dry and warm where you fly high

Advertisement

Through the Open Portal

Through an unexpected portal into another world
In the same world yet strangely different somehow,
Not quite like Alice in Wonderland but wonderful
And cheerful and beautiful, serene yet sensational,
You find yourself on an altogether unfamiliar path,
But you can’t turn back no matter how frightening
May be the unknown ahead — the portal is closed
Yet part of you deep in your heart wants to go on,
To surge on forward toward some unknown goal,
Some as-of-yet unseen destination in expectation
That what you find there will be better than where
You were as you are now greeted by Lady Mystique,
And she is quite the sight to see, very real and regal,
Towering above you, inviting you to come forward
Somewhere and you do not know where but here
Is not where to stay, for staying seems impossible,
So you cast a backward glance at the shut-up portal
Then stand ‘n boldly stride forth to new beginnings
You have just come through another open portal . . .

Happy Holiday Thinking

Do you think of the person who looks for a place to lay his head,
Wondering where he’ll get his next piece of bread?
Who finds a place to curl up against the cold winter’s night
Only to be told to move when he has nowhere to go,
Except maybe six feet below?
Or the little girl who whirls around from alleyway to alleyway
Trying to find someone who cares but only ends up
With some pervert that binds her behind locked door?
Do you consider the old woman with shopping cart
Who makes dumpsters her grocery mart?
Or the wandering band from a foreign land
They used to call home?
Or the shell-shocked children of Gaza
Who search for toys among rock and rubble plazas?
Do you think oils spills that poison drinking water
Or the mountain of bills the poor cannot afford to pay?
Or the bullets that kill amidst the shrill screams of war?
Or the ill who have no medical care
Because they cannot bear the cost?
Or the man lost in his own world without hope of escape?
Or blackened drapes, sour grapes, formless shapes,
And untold rapes?
Say, what do you think when you blink your eyes at the world?
Before you say ‘happy holidays,’ think and sink into reality . . .
* * * * * * * *
Do you consider the person who looks for a place to lay his head,
Wondering where he’ll get his next piece of bread?

Hard Battle Won: Song of Victory

Rain washes away,
Cleanses the soul on this day,
Brings peace in its way

The battle was hard,
Making sad songs for the bard,
Our wounds we regard

Now is time for rest,
Finally peace in our nest,
Now for us the best

Another day, another battle in play,
But for now long songs of victory!

---

---

Note: Though this poem is personal and familial, it is also dedicated to the recent victory in the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) controversy. As Tanya Cliff just reported, “The Army Corps of Engineers has denied a permit for the current routing of the DAPL to cross Lake Oahe.  This is a major victory for Native American tribes…” Praise almighty God for this long-awaited good news!

On Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL)

No smiles but miles of tears with fear,
Our home stolen and made to roam,
When will insidious desecration end
And re-creation begin in redemption
Of our native land in bands of liberty?
Railroads, byways, rigs and pipelines
All fine to corporate heads dead
To the living world in which they live!
They destroy our worth
With our mother Earth,
But do they consider the bitter truth?
They are destroying themselves, too;
Is this truth that they never knew?
Stand with us against this grand plan
To further mar land and poison water;
Withstand this planned defilement
Without giving in to any beguilement!
To stand with us is to stand with you ~
This earth is also place of your birth ~
For we are all one under shining sun,
And our work of restoration just begun!

---

---

Important Note to Readers:  I have drawn my inspiration for this poem from Tanya’s “with reservation,” and would strongly urge/encourage you to read her poem and the information she provides. ALSO, please very seriously consider signing the “Stop the Dakota Access Pipeline” petition, and please know that it does not matter if you reside in another country! Well over 300,000 people have already signed and some of those signers are from outside the U. S. Just bear in mind that this issue concerns largely helpless Indigenous Peoples who need your voice as much as any other. Thank you and God bless!

Erase, Retrace, Erase

Lay down.
Lay down your weapon on this block from once a building.
Lay down your weary head upon this rock from the rubble.

Lie down.
Lie down in this hell-hole of what once was somebody’s town.
Lie down under church-bell ‘ere in your own blood you drown.

Aye.
Aye, this is where civilization once bloomed and blossomed.
Aye, this is where revolution spirit groomed you for death.

Ashes.
Ashes all around and the vultures cry.
Ashes call quiet, and the vultures die.

Oh, lay you down, now lay you down, now lay you down. . .
Why cry or laugh or frown; make this dirt your night gown
And crown yourself king of this stinking, devastated town.

Sleep.
Sleep this night of looming gloom away.
Sleep this night of fright in your way.

Let go.
Let go of war-torn haunts ever taunting your mind.
Let go of war-born guilt  that  your  soul  does bind.

Oh, not your fault, your fault, not your fault!
You were sold and bought and so you fought;
How else could it have been? You were caught.

And now sleep, sleep, sleep . . . where civilization once lay.

Father Dyēus Weeps

Dyēus stood and broke the silence, looking at the brood and spoke,
“You cannot remember primordial days and the ways I formed mortals
Of sea and land, dirt and sand; cannot remember my hand digging
In watery earth to birth you into life, no cord to cut with knife;
You cannot remember how I led you across the coastline and fed you.
You had no sense of my presence, and made no pretense to be more
Than you were, slipping in and out of brackish water, moving about
Upon the earth so timidly, no home or hearth; but then you learned
And burned with passion, moved across the land, led by my own hand,
And made your bed in valleys and mountains and plains; it was then
You learned pain ~ your dawn of awareness ~ and the yawning grave;
You became more than knaves; you saw me then for the first time
As the bells of heaven chimed. We walked and talked with one another,
Yet I was everywhere; you sensed this, praising me with incense
Even when you could not see me in one form, you knew I could be
In another one, from grass and trees to sun and moon, in biting
Of frost and in the monsoon, in the sky overhead and in the bed
Of flowers fair, in the air and water and wind that bends trees
And scatters their leaves, as the ocean heaves. Everywhere could
You see me and feel me, so when I appeared you would kneel to me.
Now look what has happened; look in polluted brook, ravished hills,
In melting ice caps and thrice cracked earth to extract its worth;
Here now you are plundering and killing my magnificent creation,
Willing me, Dyēus, to die rather than try to save your very own home!
Ah! What an horrible tome to write, no longer knowing wrong from right;
My children, my progeny in the cosmic homogeny, who no longer know. . .

I AM

Giving Way to Old Man Winter

‡

Caelus is now hauntingly dark,
Stark clouds roil with rain
As Sol boils with jealous pain;
Trees strain against the wind,
And bend and bow their heads;
Flower beds ready themselves
For the coming blow, the show
Of storm crow of Tempestas;
Birds nestle down and squirrels
Scurry and chipmunks hurry
To their holes, sole homes
Of hopeful safety; there is
Nothing dainty here happening
. . . It’s Old Man Winter!

‡

The Rape of Gaia & Wrath of God

Anahita came to me to mourn the rape of Mother Gaia, torn
Apart by her children under seeing Eye of God, whose wrath
Is kindled to bath of blood in vengeance of her innocence,
In defense of purity sublime; so she spoke of horrid crime.

Anahita of seas and waterways now polluted, spoke of disease
And days of drought to come, and not on some but all upon
This terrestrial ball… ‘You shall fall,’ said she in tears
Unleashed in trembling fear for our fate too late to change.

‘You have had your chance,’ sweet voice went on, ‘to dance
With Gaia while nature sings and brings you gifs so freely
And dearly, but…’ loud wailing then escaped open mouth
Now distorted, ‘you craved ill-gained gold and pained us all
… both great and small.’

‘Look up! Look up! Do you see your canopy ripping, dripping
With poison? Look round! Look round! Do you see waters brown
With profusion of pollution? Look down! Look down! In oceans
Far below, creatures frown while crown of life is shattered
… vivacity scattered.’

‘Listen! Listen! Heed the call anew of the holy Bartholomew!
Did he not say tis challenge for humanity, yet only sanity
To join together in care and preservation, for this is plain:
Humanity has plundered earth and torn asunder heavenly gift.’

Anahita bowed her beautiful head and said, ‘Instead of caring
For creation, you have infested and molested your kindred
And now God shall wipe from divine sight the blight of children
To heal plight of nature with laver of renewal; celestial favor.’

‘And what of you, child, so weak and mild?’ Anahita smiled sadly
And asked as she basked in stream of sunlight radiant; but madly
Pathetic man I am, I feel to the floor both to adore and to plead,
‘Have mercy! Have mercy! Have we no chance to change and enhance
In better ways our days of toil, to care for sky and sea and soil?’

Anahita nodded, then shook her head, took my hand and lead me forth
From lazy bed to cities of nations, and corporations, to associations
Of men dressed in best, with holes in their chest, where heart’s
Were missing with greed hissing; money-makers pissing away our future,
With not so much as a suture for inflicted cuts and ripped out guts.

‘Do you have an opportunity?’ Anahita asked and answered, ‘Yes, you do,
So soon as you rid yourselves of those who bid Gaia on auction block
And lock her away like whore for sale; no more! No more to ignore
Or give free reign to the wealthy insane in craving unhealthy gain
… impair these miscreants; repair creation!’

‘Clean the water, clean the air; share in food, be fair! Soothe the seas
And the bumble bees, and freeze exploitation of the earth that gives birth
To all that sustains what remains of life now so rife with suffering
And shame to the blame of those whose god is money and silvery honey…
Reparation will be your only salvation.’

So says Anahita of oceans fair, as she laid bare her soul to me so free;
But I wonder will the plunder continue because no one listens as the last
Fading flower glistens beneath tired sun, weeping stars and mournful moon,
Our fate so soon to meet without peep of concern, even as in lust we burn
For self-ease, ne’er on our knees to please Creatrix who would still lift
To care for gift freely given, to bless us to sweep clean our morbid mess?

Do we hear? Do we care? And can we bear the truth to begin this repair?
.