JOY – Excerpt

GIGONDAS

Poppies bloom
beneath an olive tree,
blood red below
silvery green leaves
along a gray stone wall,

flowers born
this spring,
the tree old
a thousand years,
the stone a hundred million,
though cut a mere
two thousand years ago
by human hand
to build a Roman fort,
reused a thousand years later
to build a castle,
and five hundred years
ago a wall.

So time betrays
and informs us,
we who rarely live
a hundred.

THE DIVINE

We seek God elsewhere,
in churches and stock markets,
shopping malls, car dealers,
wars and wisdom,
while the divine is always
with us
in the face
of a loved one,
the laugh
of a child,
the joy of a dog
running wild
in the woods,
a bird singing
from a treetop,
a far view
over mountains
to the sea,
a glass of wine
or field of flowers.

The ancients were right:
God is always with us,
we just have
to notice.

LET US ALL

Kindness spreads –
do one good thing,
and another
is given you.

Unkindness spreads also –
cause pain,
and more pain
is given you.

Kindness
heals pain,
and pain
kills kindness.

So let us all
be kind.

FORESTS AND FIELDS

Eyes bathed in the beauty
of forests and fields,
of tender blue sky
beyond the fir peaks,

beavers, mink, moose, eagle
and so many more
living their lives
but fearing us too,

so many we kill,
and many more doom
over time,
the way galaxies die.

Each life, so
many lives,
raised with love,
vermin and human.

We must understand
the greatest power
is to care for life,
to nurture and give.

For every forest and field
bathed in sunset and mist,
fir crests and blue sky,
is given to us.

NUCLEAR

We came down
from the trees
across the savanna
to new lands
and lives,
always with a stone
or club
or rifle
in our hands
to kill
each other,
and now
with a steel fire
to destroy the world
or travel
to new worlds
unknown?

Final war
or the universe,
which
shall it be?

FREE SPEECH

There was once
free speech;
we said
what we thought.

We still have
free speech;
we can say anything
we’re told to think.

THE GREAT DIVIDE

Hand in hand
we face
the great divide

of woman
and man,
of life
and death,
joy
and sorrow.

One woman
one man
united
by flesh
and love
and memory
and children
across the years
till death
divides us
forever
or makes us
one.