crickets chirping.
a bird’s clear note.
a star-filled sky
slowly giving way
to the sun
spilling pink into the horizon
reaching toward
ever more blue.
trees standing in silhouette
until the light infuses
every growing thing
and the air
whispers everything awake.
these, at least, are truth.
###
Stand for Freedom
We belong in this world.
We are the elk standing silent in the mountains
we are the wolf treading the darkness
the polar bear crossing the tundra
the geese winging the skies
the person walking the trail
the whale plying the oceans
the honeybee tasting the nectar.
We, we are the ones that belong here.
We belong in this world
and the world belongs to us,
not to governments or institutions or corporations,
it belongs to us.
And when those constructs
fail to serve, and worse, destroy,
we need to remember
who we are.
This world is ours.
###
Stand for freedom
i am but a leaf on the tree
a petal on the flower
i am only one feather on the wing
what can i do
i feel the buffeting winds
trace the sun’s inevitable path
abide in the falling rain
it is not enough to simply bear witness
as this strange scythe now makes its brutal swings
i do not wither and fall
but flutter with song
bloom with fierce color
soar in defiance on the winds of spirit
i grow whole and full
abundant in my many dimensions
knowing i am essential
for i am the weathered oak, the burgeoning lupine,
i am the heron poised and ready at the river’s edge
i stand beyond the blindly grasping sweep
laughing
i am truth
###
Stand for Freedom
As if we don’t have enough to be concerned about already, now Apple decides it’s the perfect time to step up surveillance on everyone’s phones.
In the past, Apple made kind of a thing about championing privacy, but they lately announced their plan to start scouring the photos on your iPhone, just checking, you know, to make sure that none of them appear to be matches for child sexual abuse images in the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children database.
While it sounds well-meaning enough on the surface, this, like other things afoot at the moment, is dangerous stuff.
Once they start policing your photos for child abuse imagery, what else might they like to police? Once you have accepted this level of access and intrusion, to what else will you be asked to submit?
And please don’t bother telling me you have nothing to hide. That is, at best, astonishingly naive.
There is a reason for encryption: we are entitled to live our lives without scrutiny. What’s unfolding here, however, is yet another step in corporate and government intrusion, monitoring, and, ultimately, control in your personal life: a dystopic loss of freedoms.
Personal privacy and sovereignty are rapidly being demolished. There has been a veritable constellation of increasingly bold violations of our personal lives and ability to make decisions. To what end? The implications should terrify everyone. It’s past time to put the brakes on.
###
Stand for freedom
How is it that this blank page
is the only refuge
the only safe space for retreat
beckoning with promise of shelter
a place to finally breathe
and find nourishment
to discover the nurturing mother
and know hope
resting even, perhaps, in delight
while the demons scurry about
in their unending, frantic parade
###
Stand for Freedom
man would hold that sparkling orb
in his clasp of iron
to covet and to pillage
emboldened by
the might of his arm and voice
drawing on that glimpse of mind
he espies from the shore
never cognizant
those verdant greens and vibrant blues
are but the edge of all that matters
beautiful and resonant with
joyful purpose
###
Thank you once again to Eugi’s Causerie. This week’s prompt, “Round the World.”
Stand for Freedom!!
thunder rolling
as darkness slowly ebbs
toward a new day
low dark clouds smothering
the slumberous landscape
thunder growls as it advances
reaching into the soul
foretelling the rending winds
nothing safe in their path
the heaving destruction and pelting tears
the random bayonets of lightning
to leave behind an altered world
swept beyond the grasping heart
laying bare what little remains
the broken shards and heaven-soaked terrain
to every possibility
###
all these years later
she can’t help but notice
those moments when
she is still ready to run
ready to flee at a moment’s notice
ready to hide
to shrink into invisibility
ready to cower placate apologize submit
to be silent
ready to protect defend shield
guarded always
as the shadows continue to ricochet through her life
and yet somehow
the one who wrought those sad reflexes
must carry even more damage and suffering
worse
whether consciously or not
must live with the knowledge of what they did
and the legacy that lives from it
on so many levels
why do so many seem to spend
years and years of their lives in healing
and others spend those years
simply refusing to see
their own desperate need to heal?
###
Note: In writing the above, I couldn’t help but recall this one I wrote some years ago here.
let this whole day be my prayer
wrapped in the arms of an imagination
that loves so much it spills over
with endless beauty
unnoticed, pushed aside, destroyed
as the empty totems are so busily tended
day in day out
but let this whole day be my prayer
paused in stillness breathing the mystery
seeing all the startling details
as each dulcet note plays
for me for us
how and why did we ever turn our backs to this
it’s a pretty crazy game
everyone forced to play
can’t we just walk away, somehow
eyes, heart, breath, hand
know the truth and pant for it
right here underneath the detritus of our dementia
but each whole day was and is our prayer
each step a wordless devotion
###
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
###
Thank you to Eugi’s Causerie for this awesome prompt, “petals.”
earth sky air 