petals

the explosion of color
invites me
the scent 
pulls me closer
leaning in 
rapt in perfume
soft petals gently brush my cheek
the rush of first love
captures me again

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Thank you to Eugi’s Causerie for this awesome prompt, “petals.”

human rights

We are first each a sovereign human being on this planet with dominion over our own bodies. Article 3 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights acknowledges, “Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.” 

In recent weeks and days, however, more and more folks are being coerced and ultimately required to take a medical treatment. This, despite the fact that voluntary informed consent has been a foundational element of medical practice heretofore. And forcing a person to choose between a medical treatment and their livelihood is not a choice, it is force.

Regardless of where anyone stands on the vaccine itself, it should not be difficult to see that mandatory medical treatments constitute a fundamental and immoral violation of human rights. Medical mandates are antithetical to freedom.

If the public permits mandatory medical treatments in this moment, we open the door to a very dangerous future. One would be truly naive to think this tool would not be used mistakenly or in unforeseen ways, good intentions or bad.

We cannot allow fear to drive us down this very treacherous path of submitting our bodies, and our children’s bodies, to government or corporate control.

We must speak before it is too late. It is a moment that requires courage in the face of overwhelming messaging from the state and corporations, coupled with unprecedented censorship to prevent discourse.

We must stand together for the good, and the health, of all.  Regardless of our personal decisions, loud and clear, we must say no to mandated medical treatments.

Stand for freedom. Stand for love.

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end the war

Daniel Hale, yesterday, was sentenced to almost four years in prison. This, for the crime of leaking government secrets about drone warfare and the killing of innocent civilians. Charged under the Espionage Act, Hale was not even allowed to offer a defense that would have placed the act in its context – an act of conscience and morals on behalf of the people (things lacking in other relevant quarters).

Read Hale’s letter to the judge, here, and perhaps you will be able to see that context and weep for it.

This is yet another whistleblower being dealt the harshest hand when what we ought to be doing is learning from them and seeking to change our ways. As Assange still languishes in Belmarsh, and  Snowden in Russia, the cruelty, the duplicity, and the corruption are on full, shameless display.

It is time to end the war on whistleblowers.

I call on President Biden to pardon and free Daniel Hale, and to end the relentless, sadistic hunting of our other whistleblowers — people who bravely stood up on behalf of the people. Alas, I have little expectation of such a change in course.

If we could, however, somehow manage to end this war on whistleblowers, who knows, perhaps we could move on then to ending the addiction to war entirely. 

Stand for peace. Stand for freedom. Stand for love.

#FreeDanielHale

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soaring

i tread the soft path at river’s edge
where trees reach up
birds flitting between them, 
the quiet and the joy
of this wild place brings me back 
to wholeness, 
it fills me.
my spirit sings and
spirit answers
lifting me up
carrying me on wings
soaring ever higher
past the leafy canopy of trees
above the ever-changing clouds
we sail through the infinite blue
and become the explosion
of stars and shimmering dust 
and mystic tunnels of space,
so far beyond, 
all there,
at the river’s edge.

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Many thanks to Eugi’s Causerie for the delightful prompt, “soaring.”

“sabotage” on MasticadoresUSA

My poem, “sabotage,” has been published on MasticadoresUSA. I am grateful to have some of my work included with other wonderful poets and authors there, including editor, Gabriela Marie Milton. 

And, of course, I am truly grateful, as ever, to be read by you. Check out “sabotage” here:

https://masticadoresusa.wordpress.com/2021/07/25/sabotage-by-nancy-elliott/

heavens

I want to lie outside with you
in the deep of the night
lazily searching the stars
as they gaze down at us
the silence and the sounds of the dark earth
wrapping around we two like a cocoon
breathing the scents of summer on us
and in the drifting breeze
the air cool on our warm skin
our voices mere whispers under the dome of the galaxies
the stars dancing their mysteries
surely giving blessing as we gently stumble
awakened into the prayer
we finally offer

###

liberté

A segregated society is neither free nor healthy. 

This is a lesson taught too many times already, and yet, here we go again down this destructive and terrible path. Fear makes it all too easy to lure one down this ugly road. 

There is still time to stop it, to say no to the devastation of further segregation and all that goes with it. We must have the courage to stand against it.

In an environment drenched daily with fear, we must say no to the fear and reach instead toward our own inner intelligence and compassion. It is a matter of  survival: our own, our children’s, and for healthy and free societies around the world.

Do not be one that stands aside and watches as your brothers and sisters are shunned and segregated.  If you would be healthy and whole, stand now for love, stand for freedom.

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like a fearless tiger

there used to be dreams
unbidden, effortless
the heart and the mind
roamed all the wilds like a fearless tiger
hungry and alive in every stripe of the tail
eyes wide open at the top of a cascade
of falling water or the parapet of a castle
pennants snapping over snowy mountains

there used to be dreams
irresistible, compelling
every muscle aching,
dripping with sweat and laughter
rounding each new bend
whether frigid with cold or
loose with fatigue
sandpaper skin soft as a cool mist

there used to be dreams
they came from nowhere and everywhere
driven by instinct, unbounded
nature’s children first and always
inside the man-built confines
stop to feel the frantic beating heart between us
insistent, full
we could dream again

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heartstrings

these strings are tied to the pearly moon
taut and limp with the pull of the sea
humming out a thread of jazz bass in the winter deep
or funky folk on a cigar box guitar 
maybe singing the long, sweet notes of summer

these strings they reach to the wind
flying along with the birds and the clouds
sweeping around this globe of colors
wet with rain or frozen with dizzy heights
or sailing amidst the whispered prayers persistently rising

these strings are still attached
though seemingly broken again and again 
deliberately snipped or frayed to bare spindles with tension
somehow and always tied securely underneath
the heavy load of lonely emptiness

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independence

Can’t help but be thoughtful today about freedom and government. Today marks US Independence Day, commemorating the moment when the colonies shook off King George III and declared their independence. 

“Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness,” the declaration tells us, are “unalienable Rights,” and that “to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

And here we are, 245 years later, now with firsthand experience of a noun that shouldn’t really be in a democratic lexicon, “lockdown.” Now, in a time when we have somehow adjusted to government/corporate censorship of individual voices and information, and, especially of late, the labelling of dissenting views as “extremist.” Now, when our personal information, communication, medical choices, and whereabouts are tracked on an epic scale. Now, when the sudden bombing of a distant nation, also holding people with unalienable rights, barely registers, and when information is suppressed, withheld, or manipulated by what was once known as a free press. Now, when taxes are siphoned from the masses and put to pockets and purposes perhaps not quite in keeping with the notion that “all men are created equal,” as the declaration noted.

But such things happen dependent on the consent of the governed and on the tax dollars of said governed. It is with the forbearance of the people that malfeasance blossoms. 

Just like other animals, each one affirming Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness, we need to be present, alert, and protective of those unalienable rights. It is on us to actively pursue and empower leadership that supports and implements our rights and the vision we hold for our free country and world. And, in that respect, each one of us must be a leader, awake to and informed by our innately compassionate hearts.

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