Tuesday, August 12, 2014

dreams and aspirations


my daily moments are filled with aspirations
Nature’s stimuli and thoughts of tomorrows
titillated by music, by the waft of flowers,
the morning’s feather choir and exhilarating sunsets
in my life
 
yet i reflect upon the children whose tomorrows
are not theirs as they sit atop Sinjar mountain air,
hunger no longer an exigent need even though
days have passed without food or water

cold has been their breath of night and stars
the only light. cries of pain are muffled by mothers
hand to silence the echoes in caverns that
now even mountain goats decry
 
all, fear the guns of predators who care little
about life and hunt them as game so they sit
cold, mute and afraid wondering if the souls of their
love ones left behind in a stench of aridity,
will they ascend in dignity, to their god
 
i turn and toss in between fresh bed sheets
soft pillows with my love ones next to me
dreaming of the days journey and my tomorrows
whilst the unsuspected cravings but for a crumb
or warmth of shelter is the moaning call of a family
just around the corner from where we lay our heads
 



a mother waling over the body of her son as he lay
on a street in Ferguson where the blood of intolerance, bigotry
racism flows rampant. and a pungent smell of diesel fuel
and black smoke cloud the light of night lanterns
on buses crammed with discomfit children corralled and
being returned to their abusers they sacrificed to escape,
now unwanted by a nation that sings to them its praises
of ‘... give us your hungry and your down trodden’
 
i lay awake and pray to a god I now don’t believe in
yet I ask that the hungry get food and the frightened
find shelter,  that the mothers tears get comforted
and find ameliorative tolerance for her other children
so they may find a place to lay down in warmth
and  their wishes and hopes at least in dreams
will be filled with aspirations in their tomorrows  





 


13 comments:

  1. A beautiful and heartfelt poem, my friend. I just saw the dverse's prompt is Homecoming...your poem is about those in search of home.....so beautiful and sad. Especially the children sitting atop mountain air and hunger.

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  2. Every day it gets harder to bear the news and faith and trust ever diminishing, even longdistance. So hope that in a while we will have reason to write a more hopeful poem.

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  3. I feel all one can do is live in hope...keeping it as alive as we can...lovely heartfelt poem, very nice.

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  4. I think that we were on similar wavelength when I wrote my poem the other day for the saturday challenge.. the contrast on how we live and the reality of what the news chose to show us is so stark so we only have to choices.. to care and lie sleepless or be comfortably numb.

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    Replies
    1. i think we have a third my friend. we can be active by using our voice, our platform to express our concerns, our demands.

      gracias for stopping by

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  5. Maybe we should start praying to each other... "Sister, may your grace choose to remember that war is not the answer to everything." And "brother, may you find the strength and will to help your neighbor without asking for anything back." I wonder if we could find the will to be gods for each other and fix the things that need fixing...

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  6. I offer this quote... I'm afraid I'm too cynical to believe things will get better.
    “If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

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    1. i too am cynical but by the slightest of notions that smiles and good deeds continue to evince then i will promulgate the notion of hope.

      gracias for stopping by

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  7. Such heartbreak and heartache. Each of us must do our best to shed more light, to lighten more loads, to create some universal balance in our own ways.

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    1. yes i agree, mi amiga. this is what i just responded to george

      gracias

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  8. This is a fine and true set of verses naming so much of what is hard to speak about. At first I read the name of this blog as "Life Whisperer". Though I had it wrong, in that moment I thought of how the poet's power to affect life in this piece lies in the way he names the challenge "out there" by articulating the difference in dreams and aspirations through a series of words the rest of us can feel. He is evoking an emotional response from me. My sense is it isn’t so much that I must go heal what he has named that resides “out there” – I need to heal what he has named that resides in me. I say this because in myself is the place I have true capacity to affect whatever change I desire.

    To that end I asked myself, "What am I wrestling with when I read this piece? What has pushed the button that leaves me feeling heavy, bloated, powerless to move, and joyless? The phrase that came was "potential denied".

    I’m grateful this poet named something that gave me such a recognizable, articulate-able emotional reaction. He led me to the words that spark emotional energy I would like to redirect so I can be creating something different with MY energy. The opportunity I going to take because of my visit here is to search out the places in myself where I encounter the ways I deny my own potential to dream and aspire" and give those spaces and places a voice, empower it with the light of my awareness, and use my words to name, then heal the wound in me.

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  9. We must pray and we must do what we can...war never has a winner unless you count the grave as a victor...

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