Tag Archives: suffering

Relief After Suffering

Too many history lessons put the people to sleep.
Better to look as if we have been awakened by dreams.

Fears will be officially gone when we lose our sense
of self that wakes us up in the morning to believe.

Standing in the Rio Grande valley mesmerized
by the blue sky coming down to meet the water,

I hope and pray to faithfully follow the call rolling
up the river to practice the great virtues with tolerance.

Sometimes relief at not having offended the other
is the best we can feel after our mutual suffering.

A Banquet

How many more horrors must humanity create
before some sort of deity deigns to arrive on the scene?
I have created my own share of trouble causing hurts
I never meant to inflict upon those whose love surrounds me.
Paradox happens, says a cute bumper sticker with a picture
of the sun shining through some storm clouds.  Some (many?)
helped others escape through fences and borders carrying
babies against their breast while many (most?) watched
the events on the evening news exclaiming with outrage
from comfortable chairs.  I have trouble with being simple
when a learned mystic calls for simplicity in the attentive
heart.  In my mind complexity has no home in places
where fires rage and to pause and practice any form 
of mindful breathing as bombs fall all around is a form 
of madness.  The world as infinite manifestations 
of multiplicity gets up and gets dressed every morning 
and may pay a visit, if the quiet is just right,
to a place where food has been laid out for a banquet
in the midst of fallen down buildings where ashen-faced
people arrive as if delivered by angels.

Before the Sun Rises

How is it that people being ordinarily moral cause
universal suffering?  I have been the recipient of 
those looks implying I hold all real virtue in the room
and, frightened, I excused myself by running in 
terror through any open door I could find.  Indifference
to the fate of self is one way to seek the welfare of others.
Another is to challenge the pride that tends to grow
when in the midst of a group.  What is rare, not at all
normal or to be expected, if found, should make things
easier.  At least that is what I have been told.  How can
the words of a poem be sinful, as in missing the mark, 
while alleviating the suffering of another?  So many
point their fingers at the greatest immorality of society
without any sense of ought or thou shalt.  Their versions
of harmony come before me bland and without reason.
Give me instead a note from a daughter thanking me
for taking her out to lunch or to live again the morning
when I lay on the floor with a baby resting and drowsing
on my chest as I rubbed her back, both of us tired from
waking before the sun came up to lighten the day.

Madness of Suffering

I believe in the madness of suffering shared.
All flowers cry as their petals drop to the ground.

     As flower petals drop to the crying ground
     the crazy day in the desert misses the point.

The point of the desert is to be crazy.
Even ruins dominate the horizon.

     The dominant horizon ruins even
     the simplest of holy gestures made by hands.

Holy, holding hands is a simple gesture.
There is no room for the adversary there.

     The adversary is there in the room
     forcing a look at the way the world is.

The way the world is forces a look at
my belief in the shared madness of suffering.

Desire for Ourselves

“We desire according to the desire of the other.” - Rene Girard

Anti-septic joy-killers
look for those who have
honest relationships
with their own hearts,
while willfully seeking 
to back persons who wallow
in well-financed ignorance
and thoughtful thoughtlessness.
Mourners remember, others ignore,
the name of the last one
lowered into the ground.
Call on the people of the margins,
those who suffer suffering,
until the wizard behind
the green curtain is revealed.
Only then may we return
to the place where we
can desire for ourselves.

I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. – Romans 8:18

You,
Who suffered on the cross
- some say for our sakes, for my sake -
and died.
Tell me how the point of a nail
through the wrist
compares
to my demon's daily grind and grinding
of this present time
which followed the grind in the present time of a moment ago
and, if all Hell doesn't break loose,
will be followed by the grind in the next moment in time?
A comparison with future glory is necessary
to keep considering
the sufferings of this present time.
Amen.