Happy people are defined
By what they have,
Unhappy people
By what they lack,
And the rest of us
Resist defining.
And just are
Tag: NanoPoblano2019
3 Beliefs – 2
Joy comes interlaced with pain
Everywhere we are, or go;
Golden childhood tales contain
Match girls dying in the snow —
All we think to say, or feel,
Frozen days by sunlight graced —
Bricks and mortar of what’s real:
Joy and pain are
Interlaced
To share is human:
3 Beliefs – 1
“The fields are full of flowers,
The sun is burning gold,
Come run with me, come be my love
Before the night comes cold —“
”My love, I have a different plan:
For days and nights of toil
Can lead us to a better life,
And you to better soil.”
But days and nights gave way to weeks.
Now months and years have passed,
With each new job another score
He swears will be his last —
He loved her, just as she loved him.
But now he just can’t quit:
For I believe that summer knows
What winter won’t
Admit
To share is human:
Erewhon
The artist stops to paint a scene
With colors that she purchased from
A shop that closed six years before,
A place that smelled of spirit gum
And costumes hanging in the back
By landscapes painted for the stage.
And in the now, she thinks about
What happened to that place.
Her painting packed up in her car,
She takes the long way ‘round to where
That shop was open, years ago,
But there’s no newer business there,
Just broken windows, abject signs
Of long neglect and passing age,
And how the dreams we bring to life
Soon leave so little trace.
Her painting hangs now on my wall,
The glories of the woodland fall;
As she to senescence has passed,
I think about the spell she cast
About a shop I never saw,
A time and place I never knew,
And how it feels in moments true
To see another’s
Point of view
“… the noblest arts hold in perfection but a little moment.” — Samuel Butler, “Erewhon”
To share is human:
The Difference
When she gave up on love,
She went, instead, for me;
With older kinds of men,
There’s more security.
And so, she does the things,
And most guys wouldn’t mind it —
But I can tell the difference
When there’s no love
Behind it
To share is human:
A Little More
Every day a little more abstract,
and then the carelessness
of contempt that’s sanctioned
as a fact
(perhaps just heedlessness)
And while the world lines up
as though arrayed,
the costumes show to all
what little value we
put on what’s paid
in blood, and cell,
and stall —
A little more inhuman
paradise,
as we dehumanize
our brothers, sisters:
in the state we trust,
and will not recognize —
that’s us
To share is human:
{ the feel }
when he still had the feel, the earth
was cinnamon, and waterslides,
and autumn like a kiss, a lingering,
discovery, no guides,
each whole experience — a birth.
when he still had the feel
when sorrow had another place to grow,
he held the air and ground
inside a heart that stretched into the sky,
each field a temple mound
he came to love, to really know.
when sorrow had another place
see, now — the dirt is open, bare,
and all is silence but the air;
the wind on his uplifted face
blows in from some less sorrowed place,
and he knows buried, underneath,
the feel is there —
somewhere
To share is human:
Incantation
We ran and played until the night;
Our shouts rang out across the beach,
And though exhausted, wanted more,
As headed to our houses, each
Would say aloud, “I wish we’d stayed.”
To parents smiling in the front,
Before we fell asleep ere long,
And dreamed of trick, and tale, and stunt
And words repeated, endlessly:
Our play, a joy, a revelation —
Running, jumping, singing songs,
With breath-filled childhood
An incantation
