In the middle of
Everything: no-thingness.
In the middle of
Everyone: alone-ness.
In the middle of no-where:
Every where.
Lacking morality,
Right action,
Kindness,
Consideration–
Redemption.
(Republished from my old blog, which was killed but resurrected as this blog here)
“You say why can’t we
Get along? Compromise? Yet
Uncompromisingly ask all to
Get along with you.”
My coffee tastes better
Sipped far from others.
Does not the day
Dawn everywhere?
Do not birds sing,
Breezes blow, waters
Lap shores, babies cry?
Why is it so easy to
Get along with others
When they do not
Grace us with their presence?
Yep.
Of course any English major knows that writers, perhaps because of their beleaguered early years, have nothing up on car salesmen, realtors, or grain dealers in terms of ethical behavior.
Harrison, Jim. The English Major (p. 156).
(on the 50th anniversary of my parents)
They built this marriage as one
They sensed a need, they searched,
They found each other. Said,
“We’ll build on solid rock,
Full in the teeth of storms
That Life will hurl at us.
Where winds of public pressure
Howl–demanding that we bend–
We shall stand unbending.”
They placed love-stone on love-stone
With care-full hearts. They built
For strength by leaning in,
Encircling their love with walls
That have no end. They topped
This edifice of love with
One Central Light.
Transparently they prismed out
This Light: two directions,
One purpose, guiding,
Enlightening by being.
They tend this monument
That it may never crumble.
We can’t conceive its non-
Existence; surely it
Has always been there. We
Thank them, though we know
They did not build for us:
Their love’s completeness
Stands before us.
(My parents celebrated their 50th on 26 July, 2002. Ten years later they celebrated the 60th. My father passed away the next year, but well after 61st. I’m not totally satisfied with it, but I don’t think it becomes better after almost 20 years…unless it’s rewritten entirely. I’m having a bit of frustration trying to get WordPress to do what I want. I want the poem to be in the center of the page, but to be left-justified for instance. And one of the lines is supposed to be broken across two physical lines, a la Shakespeare, but WP takes out the spaces I put in to make it so.)
all the voices in my head 