Monthly Archives: June 2021

Corridors of Hope

I said, "I just finished reading
a good summation of the 
quagmire we appear to be in."

She said, "This has been a rough 
time with insurgents demanding
peace shouting to be heard."

I asked, "With 'Failure is not an option'
as an option can any of us survive 
the fall of our personal empires?"

She answered, "Not without casualties
to crystallized emotions and creating
powerful memories."

I asked another question, "Can sober
persons holding pre-eminent positions
of power hold the center?"

She replied, "A similar dilemma can be
found in the hearts of those who stand
outside in the corridors of hope."

The Place Between

The drama of commissions
formed in the corridors of power
and intended to make us safer,
or at least feel safer as we go about
our anonymously conspicuous lives,
cannot account for planes flown
into symbolic structures nor for 
the collapse of beachside buildings
nor for falling bridges that span 
the place between what is known 
in the land and that which rests 
peacefully beyond our worst imagined 
horror.

“For it is…here a little, there a little…” – Isaiah 28:10

God of bits and pieces,
God of the whole,
who allows the length
of time to pass unabated;
gather up the remnants
leftover from forgotten meals;
mend the fragments
fallen from our hands;
unite the untidy
workings of our minds;
for we are caught up 
in the little we have here
and in the little we have there.
Amen.

Today’s reading includes life’s most difficult verses.

The Golden Rule presents itself first followed 
by all those things, yes, things, that create human division
between sects and castes and classes and circles.

Discourses on inequality and the tricks played by those 
who attempt to make us believe in the banality of wealth
divert those already ignorant of Divine ways.

Everyone searches for their hidden motives of sacrifice
preparing for a moving day to Easy Street which never
arrives on individual demand.

Legends fall into trouble once again barely able to keep
us awake through the drip of words leaking from books
read in one sitting of possibility madness.

Peaceful creation waits for the hubbub to waste away
into convention and tradition before appearing and  
glowing like the sliver of the month's new moon.

To Thrive

I said, "I spent the day upstairs
practicing the art of pure escapism
from life's leftovers."

She said, "A noble thing to do when
many spend so much time making
their selves the center of the universe."

I asked, "Do you think it is because
stories of wonder never received 
encouragement in each family of origin?"

She answered, "Or, maybe there was no
tree of life living in the middle of abandoned
gardens behind their houses."

I said, "As they say, Life requires mercy 
not sacrifice, in order for the self
and others to thrive."

She added, "Nothing like encouraging
a bit of anthropological thinking to 
de-center us from ourselves."

Together

The question, When will I see you again?
becomes a doxology of sorts when
the lighting of candles is added to each
rise and fall of praise and of mourning.

Assemblies gather before deadlines
delayed again by postponed weather
arrangements conveniently called
out by experts in front of green screens.

Story and science blur into one myth
before the altar of truth in the long
history of human beings once again
having a difficult and dangerous time.

People cheer the completion of first drafts
with no sense for or need of resolution
that might be recorded in the shining annals 
of the impromptu history of humankind.