be kind to each other

 

i breathe in deep thinking of you and the pain in your heart,

the angst in your mind, the dwindling spirit within

 

we are all riding the rising waves and the ebbs of life, 

as we witness the hate of war and the blood on the hands

of those in our own back yard

 

mine eyes don’t close at night thinking of what you and i

are being witness to, at this present time

 

shedding my tears has become a diurnal event for those who

have lost their children, their mothers, fathers, sisters and

brothers from the barrel of a gun

 

whether it be from war or in our children’s schools, shopping

centers, it is all because of hate

 

let’s meet today on the streets, at the stores, at the front

steps of our children schools and look into each other’s eyes,

recognizing our shared anguish and pain

 

life’s natural travails are heavy and arduous enough without

the pangs of a disdain for one another

 

be kind to each other, we’re in this together~

 

is your heart like mine

 

is your heart dishearten with sorrow, like mine, when you

hear that children’s lives were stolen by the hand of one

with a gun, one who has also lost himself in this World that

has given way to no longer valuing ‘life’?

 

is your mind, like mine, disenchanted where the concept of

hope and wishes, that ‘man’ has not progressed beyond

thinking that killing and war, guns, are the means to

resolving one’s conflicts and eliminating the woes?

 

and if this be so, that you also are befuddled, then we are

in the same state of mind and heart, our spirits are mingled

in a common entanglement, sharing the similar angst and

anguish

 

being aware of this, we must hold each other’s hand and

walk slowly together to mitigate this burden alone, this

anguishing pain, and gather our resolve to make our lives

better, but more importantly, for our children and theirs…

 

'thank you'

 

i awaken, ‘thank you’, and my heart is not amiss of ache

my spirit wishes to dance but sometimes cannot and there

are tears that flow down my face, both from sadness and

from joy

 

mine eyes welcome the vision of the day and the

night, your eyes, the touch of your soft skin, the sounds of

songbirds and chirps of little terrestrials give pleasure to

my ears, the waft of the lilac and petrichor

 

and when mine eyes feel like resting when the noir of night

begins to flirt with the day, i once again, say ‘thank you’…

when i am gone

mine eyes rarely close in peaceful sleep, for i ponder

moment to moment~ as my years are fewer ahead

of me than those behind, i grapple with the notion in

losing my consciousness, in being me

i do not fear that i will die, but will be aggrieved when

i will no longer be able to smell the waft of Nature, its

petrichor, touching, feeling, loving those whom i

love and the earthly things of which i care

wherefore, to my absence here, where will i be, and

will the memories that someone has of me or me of

them, will they still be in the consciousness, that is me?

in that i sincerely believe that love is the essence of all

that exists, and having witnessed love, in its many forms,

will i remain in existence in love’s universal spiritual realm,

when i am gone?

there will be those within reach of these words, these

ponderings, who will be critical and say, ‘it’s a waste of

time to concern oneself with the mortality issue, as it

interrupts the time from ‘living’

i say to those that are critical of my mindset, that

throughout the history of time, many great minds have

pondered this, withstanding the criticism of it being a

waste of time when in fact it is not but fills the void

that is present to 'no thought'

for it is said in the in the unfulfilled prophecy that ' if one

does not ponder the questions that are about life and

death, it is the unexamined life that goes unfulfilled’

Happy Mother's Day/2022

today i celebrate one of the only designated days of the

Gregorian calendar that i appreciate its true worthiness,

‘Mother’s Day’

the human who is a conduit in this natural world of giving

birth, providing the cradle for life in lieu of the destructive

proclivities of ‘Man’

if given the choice, a ‘Mother’ allows her incarnate shell

to be the shelter for conceiving a life through an action

of selfless Love

this must be her choice and not made by those that wish to

‘rape’ them of this choice, yes, i stated ‘rape’ them of the

ownership of their body in lieu of self-serving agendas

on this day, let us celebrate the human whose role in this

world, not solely of course, but critical to the perpetuation

of life, thus Love, on Mother’s Day!

as life kisses me

 

sadness is a moment in time and

joy is also, they come when they do

and they disappear when they must,

yet they are present when they should

 

like the sun light grasping the waves as

the dolphin jumps o’re them and the moon

beams kiss the sea, while the osprey plays

on the face ot the moon in the noir of night

 

let all this be, as life kisses me…

 

absence grows fonder

 

when the sleeping sunflower arises in the wake of morn

to greet the rising sun and it looks to its side and notices

that its friend and partner, long by its side, does not

raise its head its petals to also greet the sun, it realizes

that its buddy has wilted into the state of lifelessness.

does it lament for the loss of its partner or does it think

that it is better for this because it does not have to share

the sun’s rays, the dew and drizzle of rain, the breeze, the

bees and the hummingbirds?

 

as the day goes on the sunflower witnesses that the sun’s

light is dimmed, the rain no longer titillates its cilia on its

stem, not so many bees and hummingbirds visit and the

breeze has become a bending wind. it then realizes that

all the pleasures of before are no longer present in the

absence of its partner that now lies down beside it, no

longer upright and sturdy, it now is ready to become feed

for tiny terrestrials and fodder for mother earth   

'seventy-first' day on this earth

 life is a treasure chest, within is a treasure-trove

called Love

some of us will find the chest, not by searching but

by opening one’s eyes and realizing the treasure

that is inside

i have been one of whom is very fortunate to

have found this treasure and have been witness

to Love

 

these past few years, we have all been witness to

suffering and pain, to loss of loved ones through the

vicissitudes of life

 

the pain does not subside, but we must bare witness

that if we loved and were loved but one moment in

time, this grace bestowed upon us is more than many

i am grateful for this, and if i can, would like to sprinkle

the spirit of my fortune to all who wish to embrace

and sparkle from this

mostly, i would like to kiss the heart of the love of my

life, my partner, my wife for she has loved me through

all the ups and downs, my family also, although distant

sometimes both in body and mind

sharing words with each other

 

my apprehension is not for or because of

the words i choose to place in writ before

you, but for the reaction or lack of action

and attention they will have for many who

read them

 

trying to paint artistic symbols upon the

canvas of script on scroll of that which

is in the fiber of my heart and the spirit

of my being, to impress upon yours the

feeling of kindness, the want for love

 

surely, life has garnered within you the

experience of pain and sorrow, the tears

that flow because of this but also the

moments of joys, the desire for the verve

of life

 

when first in the innocence of your born

vision of the morning sun, the sight and

sound of birds in flight and the songs they

sing, or capturing the running brook and

the feel of its cool stream upon your fingers

dipped

the love when first your mother held you

upon her breast and whispered…’i love

you my little one’ or when your eyes first

capture hers and maybe your daddy’s

as they smiled at each other then you

take pleasure in these words, my words,

for i share them with you so that we both

can recollect the memory of similar and

common human moments, knowing that

we’re in this collective experience called

life, and to care for each other…

 

 

 

our human option

 

What we are witnessing is the primeval

regression of ‘man’ without the checks of

those who believed us to have progressed

into a more ethical and moral human race,

in that hate and evil usurps all the historic

progress that supposed mankind had been

traversing on the path toward correcting the

most unfortunate historical forays we had

committed, the destructive nature of our

being. Sure, we have continued to placate

our supposed conscientious attempt at

being more caring about our human race, our

planet and all the other co-existing beings

but our setbacks come because we have not

addressed the cause of all our continued

destruction, that being, our complacency, our

insensitivity in accepting that we are not

alone, that we are all in ‘this’ together, that

we must stop being so selfish. We must

acknowledge that the alternative to evilness

and hate is kindness and love. If we begin

to recognize this option then maybe, just

maybe we can return on the pathway of

calm and peace, of caring for all that exists,

for each other in this realm of the mundane, 

caring for our planet, Earth…

how curious is love

 

Love is a curious ‘thing’,

what i think i know about it is,

having experienced it in various forms;

i know i Love Mamasita, i know i love my wife,

i know i love my canine children, know i love children’s

smiles, their innocence.

 

i know i love all feathered friends, terrestrials, trees and

flowers, rivers and the seas, mountains, clouds and sky,

know i love peace and calm for mankind and the

the absence of war.

 

This tells me that ‘Love’ is omnipresent, that it is the fiber

of all, thus the intrinsic makeup of all that is ‘being’, in

this mundane existence, therefore, love is life and

here for us to embrace if we open our eyes,

 our hearts, our minds, our spirits

unnecessary loss of souls

 

the lovely sun was shining bright today and i

felt its joyful rays fill the day with the verve of life,

but as my spirit was dancing, without suspicion,

tears began to well in mine eyes and abruptly

started flowing down the cheeks of my face

 

i knew not, in that moment why, but in reflection

i had realized that, although my spirit was dancing

with the vibrations of the sun’s rays, my heart and

mind had been accumulating feelings and thoughts

of those who weren’t so blessed

 

an acute moment of sadness came o’er me and,

so then, my body gave way to the angst and pains

that others may have been feeling while my fortune

of dance and joy of my spirit came face to my heart

for the souls and spirits of those that cannot

 

the imaginings within became overwhelmed by

the sadness and pain of those not only in this far

away land but also for those here at home in the

U.S. who had lost loved ones from the insidious

Pandemic these last two years

 

how blessed i and my family is that my last name

is not Taylor, Floyd, Brown, Tamir, Arbery or Locke

and their families left behind wondering, ‘why,

just for being black in America’?

 

all these images and thoughts floundered about

in my mind along with the images of bombed cities

of Kyiv, Kharkiv, etc., in Ukraine, and the millions of

civilians displaced. the images of fathers, mothers,

brothers, sisters, little children’s tears, all their

faces of trauma and fear.

 

Why? For what?

we're all in this together

 

the flower waits not for season’s change, it just

breaks through the dirt, the soil of earth to give

praise to the sun, feel the wind on its petals and

bathes in the rain while dressing the canvas of

the day with vanity to an aesthetic terrain

 

the water of the river runs into the lake, waiting not

for the tide of the sea to rise and ebb as it has a

journey to take, for the freshwater fish depend on it

to be itself as they swim to greet their ocean friends,

share their stories t’if a refrain

 

the eagle, the hawk, the blue jay and cardinal wait not

for the wind to blow for they have wings to fly from

clif to clif, tree to tree as the wolf stares up at them

from whilst he sits and howls at them letting them

know he’s content roaming and being earth-bound

 

and like the flowers, the rivers and oceans, the wolf

and our feathered friends, we bi-pedal beings, should

be what we were meant to be, content in sharing with

each other the fruits of Nature, being moral and kind,

creative, conservative yet progressive, caring for

Mother Earth

 

the day from reveries to dreams

when the flower looks up at the sun and

says, please give me your energy, your

light and let me become who i should be

for i am the light of those who see my

beauty and smell the wonder of my waft

 

so too, when the seas look up at the moon

in excitement asking, please do not cease

of being the strength of my tides and how

they allow the verve of life into those aqua

beings who reside within my spirit

 

and when the wind awakens the trees to

dance and the birds to fly carrying their

chorus of song for the day’s beginnings,

whilst the deer prances amidst the forest

wildflowers, the jonquil, and the lily

 

then the azure sky is covered in a crimson

attire as the sun lies down for it is tired from

the day’s sojourn, giving way to the nocturn

noir of night and so too are mine eyes, as the

moon takes to the sky, letting me transcend

from reveries to dreams  

  

Life is a choice of Love

 

My heart hurts, my tears flow, my spirit that wishes

to dance but cannot because it recognizes all the

souls that have lost their dancing spirit in the land

of Ukraine, in the presence of ugly ‘war’

 

For those of you who still embrace the likes of ‘trump’

when he’s praising the ‘Putins’ of the world, those

autocratic leaders who use a dictatorship strong arm to

control and subjugate people, I disavow your presence

 

I am painfully disheartened by those that believe that

human existence, all life in this world that we should

hold precious, choose to be destructive of its nature in

lieu of propagating its existence in perpetuity

we are the ominous wind

 

the wind is blowing silent but gradually with gusts that

are a precursor to stronger portentous winds, those that

may disrupt the calm of flora and fauna not to mention

the comfort of the human spirit

 

it is not of Nature’s affects that i speak, but the ominous

conditions created that are coming at the hands of ‘man’,

where his choices have and continue to impact the natural

peaceful co-existence of what we call life

 

so as the winds come blowing in and we awaken to the

day and first we hear its howling, then see its potential

destructiveness approaching by the bending of trees

and the flight of the fauna, we, humans, should take

accountability for the sake of our children and theirs

the wind whispers to me

 

today, i was sitting home alone and listened to

the wind blow, heard voices that i hadn’t heard

for so many years but they spoke to me t’if they

were from yesterday, making my heart flutter as

my spirit recognized their essence, for they were of

mi ‘Mama’, mi ‘hermano’, mi Tía, mi Tío’, mi perrito,

‘Jules’

 

they projected that they were all well and that soon

i would join them in a world of joy, a realm of wonder,

where music never ceases, and the heart is sated, the

soul is always dancing

 

and i know that the wind blows because the moon

glows as it also makes the waves of the sea rise and ebb

in the noir of night and so i walked outside to greet the stars

as they flicker hello, and i said to them that I’m looking

forward to this sojourn of what i had spoken to the wind

about, asking if i could bring my loved ones with me, and

the moon smiled and whispered back, and in its own way

said, ‘it is, what is intended’

 

startled by this i stepped back, just then the wind began

to blow again and i heard the voices once more, and this

time they asked me if i was ready to come aboard, but i

had to decline, for i had not fulfilled my legacy, i had not

written my epitaph, i had not finished expressing my words

of which i wish to leave behind…

 

Jasmine

 

sitting here, observing my 19yr. old little black haired mini poodle,

as she sleeps most of the time now, which is probably what i will

be doing in my aged latter years.

 

i wonder what she dreams, whether it’s of running, scampering,

Jumping about in playful exuberance, like she used to when she

was filled with the verve of youth

 

hoping this is what she is doing as i watch her rising and ebbing tummy

and chest in breathing and i cherish these moments in the presence

of her still with us in this domain

 

she has filled our, my wife and me, lives with a love that so many

don’t have the privilege of experiencing, let alone the touch of

human love

 

these last, hopefully, months or weeks or days are so very precious

to us and when i carry her up the stairs because she can’t climb

them any longer, and outside, i watching her smell the earth as she

feebly walks about and though she’s without hearing and seeing

she still senses my presence, and she still kisses me with that small

tiny tongue letting me know she loves me

 

i know many have experienced this type of love, giving us the pleasure

of the present, contributing to the value of life in this, otherwise mundane

existence.

 

you rescued us

Gracias, Jasmine!

choosing to be me

 

when i say, i’m looking for or i’m searching, it is inside

of me where i hope i can find the answer to all of this

 

the day begins after the night leaves, i try to be more than

witness to the dreams and reveries, making life worthwhile

 

and as i stroll on the path that i will choose, i will sing and,

so too, will dance to the tune inside my heart, of my spirit

 

play on, i say to myself about how i wish my life to be,

how i wish to love, how i wish to live, let not the woes

identify me

in the passing of time

 

in the passing of time, the flower changes its hue

the clouds soar by and the wind whistles through

telling all where it’s been as it makes the tree sway

whilst in it, birds play, the squirrels scurry about

as the night gives way to the delight of the day

 

in the passing of time, rivers run east and west

north to south and the seas welcome them as the

catfish and salmon continue their journey as they

greet the dolphin and orca comparing the running

of the river’s water to riding the ocean waves

 

in the passing of time, the human hath traversed

the valleys and the forests sharing with each other

from where they came and where they’re going,

while in their journey they greet the deer and run

from the bear and as an act of survival they hunt the

buffalo to use their skin for coats to wear

 

in the passing of time, the young boy grows to be a

man, and the young girl becomes a woman as she

propagates and perpetuates life with children and

the wolf howls with joy and the Eagle soars in the

celebration of this gift the female is bestowed by

Mothers’ Nature

 

in the passing of time, as a portentous storm comes in

laying havoc upon ‘man’s’ construction, interrupting his

self-made destruction by descending into vitriol, from

anger into hate, embracing apathy then making wars thus

in the telling of this storm, t’is that ‘man’ is not in charge

as he believes to be but is the universe’s spirit, its balance,

for this is how it will be, this is how it is…