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“Global Harming” . . . and other responses to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt

“This sweet virginal primitive land will metaphorically breathe a sigh of relief — like a whisper of wind–when we are all and finally gone and the place and its creations can return to their ancient procedures unobserved and undisturbed by the busy, anxious, brooding consciousness of man.”
Desert Solitaire, Edward Abby

BEFORE THE ENVIRONMENTAL POEMS, A THANK YOU

Thanks for waiting patiently and courteously for this post to go up. I have returned to the world of the living after health complications and another protracted stay at Stanford Hospital (also know in my family as The Stanford B & B).  I am grateful for your understanding and for the concern, intelligence, and perseverance of my cadre of doctors and other professionals at Stanford. Though there has been a precipitous decline in my lung function and I am completely homebound now, there is some potential for improvement and certainly my quality of life is now much improved over what it has been since last April.  I pray everyone everywhere might have access to such extraordinary care. Universal access to state-of-the-art medicine is compassionate and humane, a must and a right. It’s something for which it is worth fighting.

“The right to health is the economic, social, and cultural right to a universal minimum standard of health to which all individuals are entitled. The concept of a right to health has been enumerated in international agreements which include the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. There is debate on the interpretation and application of the right to health due to considerations such as how health is defined, what minimum entitlements are encompassed in a right to health, and which institutions are responsible for ensuring a right to health.” MORE [Wikipedia]

You’ll be delighted with this passionate outpouring in response to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt, Monster’s Rose, January 16, 2019. This collection is courtesy of: Gary W. Bowers, Paul Brookes, Irma Do,  Irene Emanuel, Debbie Felio (Deb y Felio), Jen Goldie, Frank McMahan, Sonja Benskin Mesher, Gayle Walters Rose, and Anjum Wasim Dar. Be inspired, motivated, angry, filled with awe ….

suss stain

suss: perceive
stain: a blemish
rape: maliciously thieve
muck: a substance phlegmish

a nest befouled
unauked unowled
undodoed just a smidgen
unpassengered of pigeon

we suss the stain but soon make more
and drop the stools of detriment
and sculpt and knob the hellgate door
with manufactured excrement

© 2019, Gary W. Bowers (One With Clay. Image and Text)

A Mobile

is in the shape
of small graves
for children
who mine the precious
metal inside
that make it work
and I look
Into the screen
to stay connected
but do not see
their gritted lives
as they haul
the valuable
out of the hole
and the world
has never been
so connected
by the small grave
I carry in my pocket.

© 2019, Paul Brookes (Wombwell Rainbow / Inspiration. History. Imagination.)

This Brash and Burn

1. To Burn Brash

Sat back barked.
Small insects crawl
down tree stretched above
inhabit hair
worn gloves
bruised brashed branches

Breathe wet peat,
damp soil, leaf decay,
autumn dead leaf dance,
spring bluebell wend
summer sacred stainglass
canopy sunshaft play
winter heavesnow clear paths

Sat back barked
canopy leaf horizon
floats shimmers

Calm

2. Our Wombwell Boxed

Lift small boxes wooden lid smell
broadleaved woodland
before rail/road
Press plastic button hear
Skylarks, Meadow Pipits, Woodpeckers,
before rail/road.

Press plastic button watch
Videowalk ancient Beech, Oak, Birch
before rail/road.

Electronic ringtone.

We would like to advise all visitors
The museum is closing soon.
Please exit through main door.
We hope you have enjoyed your visit.
Please come again.

© 2019, Paul Brookes (Wombwell Rainbow / Inspiration. History. Imagination.)

Plastic

“Do you want a carrier bag, sir?”
“I friggin don’t. Clog up the seas

with plastic all over. Even in fishes,
birds and what not. It’s all our fault.

Even down to microscopic. Seeps
Into food we eat I bet. Plastic folk

poisoning friggin world we live in.
No, I’ve got my own bags thankyou.

I won’t be one that kills the friggin world.
Here can you put them in here, lad?”

From Paul’s new collection”Please Take Change”, Cyberwit.net, 2018

© 2018, Paul Brookes (Wombwell Rainbow / Inspiration. History. Imagination.)

Prolific Yorkshire Poet, Paul Brookes

FYI: Paul Brookes, a stalwart participant in The Poet by Day Wednesday Writing Prompt, is running an ongoing series on poets, Wombwell Rainbow Interviews. Connect with Paul if you’d like to be considered for an interview. Visit him, enjoy the interviews, get introduced to some poets who may be new to you, and learn a few things

The Wombwell Rainbow Interviews: Jamie Dedes

Prelude to Destruction

Bach’s Prelude in C Major is a well-known piano piece that is about two minutes long. Close your eyes while you listen to it and imagine a stream gently flowing over rocks as it meanders through green forest. Now imagine 130,000 barrels of oil being dumped in that stream. What will happen to the forest and the critters living there?

Now picture the wind whispering over a meadow blanketed with flowers still bright with color despite the new moon. And now a bulldozer comes to move 5000 tons of garbage onto the meadow including plastic that will take a millennia to decompose. How do the colors and aroma of landfill compete with that of wildflowers?

Or listen to the music and let your mind wander over the ocean, the warm sun highlighting the majesty of humpback whales breaching the surface. Now heat trapped by greenhouses causes 600,000 tons of ice to melt in Antarctica raising temperatures that could kill 400 plant and animal species in a year. Would seeing the dead carcasses of whales and other see creatures be as majestic?

Two minutes, the length of a prelude whose repetitious melody can remind us of the repeated wastefulness and mindless consumption we daily engage in that will lead to the destruction of this planet we call home.

Two minutes to kill

The only world that we know

Time to change the song

This (very loosely defined) Haibun was written for Jamie’s first Wednesday Writing Prompt of 2019 focused on the theme of the environment. I also included the last Tuesday Writing Prompt from Devereaux and Beth Amanda at the Go Dog Go Cafe. Their request was to include the words new moon, minutes and prelude in a poem. It definitely took me more than 10-15 minutes to write this Haibun!

The facts embedded in this poem come from this article about things that happen around the world in a minute. I doubled the numbers to match the two minutes of the prelude (I hope I did the math correct!). Conservation and protection of our environment is a cause my family and I are passionate about. We recycle and are trying to compost. We limit our plastic use – the kids have even given up straws! Just two minutes of a small change to your daily habits can make a difference! You can save the world with reusable bags as your cape!

©️2019, words and photo, Irma Do (I Do Run, And I do a few other things too …)

Tell the World

Let it be known

that the Rhinoceros is a magnificent beast;

a relic from an age of legends.

Let it be known

that this does not make them magical

but rather makes them precious.

Let it be known

that their horns are not medicinal

but a property that belongs only to the Rhino.

Let it be known

that horn powder is just powder

and does not provide a solution to the ills of man.

Let it be known

that horn contents do not hold the answers

to Mans’ immortality.

Let it be known

that some people are too stupid and vain

to know that their ignorance is wiping out a species.

Let it be known

that the horn is merely an adornment

of one of the most iconic animals in Africa,

PLEASE, LET IT BE.

© 2018, Irene Emanuel

Earth Walk

Earth walk to

hear Earth talk.

Listen to the birds

listen to the trees

listen to the fish

listen to the seas.

Listen to the hills

listen to the stones

listen to the grass

listen to the groans

of dying species

crying lands

hungry people

with bony hands

powered money

buying shame

removing nature

just for gain.

listen to the whispers

listen to the pain

listen to the wise ones

and don’t destroy again.

This Earth is all,

there is no more,

don’t kill its gifts

with blood and gore,

When Earth is dead,

so are we.

© 2019, Irene Emanuel

Global Harming

we’re crossing the desert in sandals
across new Antarctica
camels follow with our packs
it feels like southern Florida

before the ocean rose and drowned
the people near the shore
and then receded sixty miles
creating quite a lore

to be recited by old timers
beginning with remember when
there was water in these here parts
now there’s sand up to our shins

we’d swim and fish—those were the days
they’d tell the children listening
to magical times when people were wet
coming from deep water glistening

It’s just a fairy tale, we know
the children refuse to believe it
like so many of us long ago
hearing the global warning bit

slow but sure the changes came
spring slush replaced the snow
low temps in seventies everywhere
and gale winds would always blow

but we were brave and kept our cars
kept digging for petroleum
concern belonged to the next generation
never mind the panic symposium

so here we are just like they said
dry and hot as old Florida
in our sandals with our camels
crossing the new Antarctica.

© 2019, Deb y Felio (The Journey Begins)

A Lullaby of Fear

Oh, Mother Earth,
The children cried,
Please stay to hear
our lullaby.

Oh, Mother Earth
Think not
that they
decry your hopes,
Your loves
and dreams,
For they are
But a pawn
And die from
Greater things,

“like why the sea
Is boiling hot
And whether pigs
have wings”

The sky
is fraught with
other things,
guns are bought
And red would bring,
The joyless sound
Of endless things
To end our days
Of everything.

Oh My dear
It is quite clear,
Why you should hear
The child’s cry,

“a lullaby of fear”.

© 2018, Jen E. Goldie (Jen Goldie – Poetry and Short Stories)

False Light

The moon scatters the light it has stolen
out of vanity, cycling round us in
its futile effulgence. Earthworms harvest
the autumn’s leaves, enriching the crust, thin
below the dwindling branches where we sit
and watch the axes hew the trunk and slash.

© 2019, Frank McMahan

.this arid land.

water flows down this valley. wind blows

round our houses.i have said it before.yet

seems that those who should know better,

talk of gods, may judge the people .

live in remote places.

between mountain, sea. the land becomes

dry.

this arid land.

© 2019, Sonja Benskin Mesher 

.seeds for the future.

have you collected seeds of many years packed labelled dated

do you have them now in boxes

a gift from those who love

they will bring work joy an independent air

profound gifts

for those who care

have you
leaned by the window cold

thought that if snow falls it may land

if trees grow it may be up

if we all plant seeds they may be food

kindness

deserves praise yet should come as natural

there may be too many additives these day

not enough honesty grown

she said i should have something new in the greenhouse.

i have

i said, and thought of you

who

planted the seeds

© 2019, Sonja Benskin Mesher

.Earth 8211.

he asked me what i missed, i told him.

he suggests we look after the environment.

eat carefully, mind our ways.

i will.

these are the falling days.

© 2019, Sonja Benskin Mesher

Seaward

I hear your voices
calling from your home
in the aquatic depths,
where seas undulate
in constant motion
steered by the moon.

My soul dives and
spins within your
hearts. I merge
in your silence
and rejoice in
the gift
that is the ocean.

O Wise Whale
your tears mix
with countless
others as you
survey the
destruction of
your briny birthplace.

O Great Reef
dwelling place
and protector
for so many,
your quiet
decline has not
gone unnoticed.

Stars gaze with
compassion and
patience hoping
that something
will shift and turn
the tides.

Gales whip along
the waves, pick up
the disquiet and
carry it to shore.

The Trees shudder
and the news
ricochets off the
mountains and
circles the globe.

© 2019, Gayle Walters Rose (Bodhirose)

Come Create Anew

13920214_10154429662230747_6017019006167533630_o  Banni Gala   Islamabad.                         Photo Courtesy CER (Regd 2004)  © 2019

Thin grown ever green
lusciously fully nutritious
dancing away to soundless
sacred sweet symphonies،
swaying sideways in
obedience to invisible
conducting synchronized
companies,
offering soft cool
overtures to burning soles
of injured souls,enriching
meadows to the core,
resistingly  accepting, nibbling
advances of loving mammal
herbivores;

deserted desert dunes,
dream to possess, as
slithering snakes
undulatingly weave
their colors in the sand,
dreading the deadly, Peregrine.

Wave  of green expanses,
sight asking for journeys,as
pearly high peaks call – and
silvery streams flow to touch
the seas, on way caress
to nourish plants and trees.

Oh Gaea’ Listen Look’
Chaos has returned with
dark confusing void
gripping tearing ruining,
rivers  mountains and seas,
forests metamorphosed to
plains, painful is the spirit’

Changes in the Planet are
changing mosquito genes
malaria fills fear, Oh Gaea’
Hear Gaea can you again,

Come to Create anew  ?

یہ  کس   نے   

جھومتا   گیت   گاتا  لہلہاتا   ناچتا  ھوا  سبزا
پکرا   پکار  کر  سسک     کر فریاد  کرتا ھے

یہ سر سبز  لہلہاتے کھیت  روند  ڈالے   کس نے
یہ   چاندی  جیسے جھرنے  میلے کیے کس نے

   ان سنی دھنوں، ان  دیکھے موسیقاروں کے
اشاروں   پہ بجتے سروں کو خاموش کیا کس 

کون   بتاےؑ   گا اب  یہ  تباہی  مچایؑ   کس  نے
 آج      تک     سچی    گواہی   دی کس  نے

تپتی  ریت  مین   سانپ  رنگ   بدلتے چھپتے
چوٹیوں  پہ  شاہیں   کا بسیرا دیکھا  کس نے

یہ زمین  ہی پہاڑ ہی جھومتے کھیت ہی سمندر
ٓاؑواز  دیتے ھیں  چلو  سفر  پے دیکھو  پیاری قدرت

مگر   بدلتے    نظارے    یہ  کٹتے پہاڑ  خشک دریا
جلتے جنگل ، روح  کو  تکلیف    دی  ھے  کس نے  

ملیرےؑ کے مچھر   لوگون کہ ڈراتے پھر رھے ھیں
ملیریا اور مچھر   ملک  سے اب تک بھگاےؑ  کس نے

        اے قدرت نیؑ  زمین بنے  سنورے   گی  کیا پھر سے
تباہ ھو چکی ھے ،پھر سے بنانے کا وعدہ  کیا ، کس نے؟

© 2019, poem in English and Urdu, Anjum Wasim Dar (Poetic Oceans)

“POETRY PEACE and REFORM Go Together -Let Us All Strive for PEACE on EARTH for ALL -Let Us Make a Better World -WRITE To Make PEACE PREVAIL.” Anjum Wasim Dar

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Poet and writer, I was once columnist and associate editor of a regional employment publication. I currently run this site, The Poet by Day, an information hub for poets and writers. I am the managing editor of The BeZine published by The Bardo Group Beguines (originally The Bardo Group), a virtual arts collective I founded.  I am a weekly contributor to Beguine Again, a site showcasing spiritual writers. My work is featured in a variety of publications and on sites, including: Levure littéraure, Ramingo’s Porch, Vita Brevis Literature,Compass Rose, Connotation Press, The Bar None Group, Salamander Cove, Second Light, I Am Not a Silent Poet, Meta / Phor(e) /Play, and California Woman. My poetry was recently read by Northern California actor Richard Lingua for Poetry Woodshed, Belfast Community Radio. I was featured in a lengthy interview on the Creative Nexus Radio Show where I was dubbed “Poetry Champion.”

The BeZine: Waging the Peace, An Interfaith Exploration featuring Fr. Daniel Sormani, Rev. Benjamin Meyers, and the Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi among others

“What if our religion was each other. If our practice was our life. If prayer, our words. What if the temple was the Earth. If forests were our church. If holy water–the rivers, lakes, and ocean. What if meditation was our relationships. If the teacher was life. If wisdom was self-knowledge. If love was the center of our being.” Ganga White, teacher and exponent of Yoga and founder of White Lotus, a Yoga center and retreat house in Santa Barbara, CA

“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.” Lucille Clifton

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“Living on the Glebe”. . . and other responses to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt

The Japanese Tea Garden, San Mateo, CA © Jamie Dedes

“What is this life so full of care,
We don’t have time to stand and stare.”
William Henry Davies, The Collected Poems of William H. Davies; With a Portrait

The last Poet by Day, Wednesday Writing Prompt, to write about farms and farming (Conjuring Farmhouses), December 12, is covered quite broadly here with responses from Gary W. Bowers, Paul Brookes, Irma Do, Jen E. Goldie, Shiela Jacob, Frank McMahan, Mike Stone, and Anjum Wasim Dar. These will provoke some thought and much pleasure, spiked as they are with memoir, questions, humor, and insight.  Enjoy!

Wednesday Writing Prompt will return on January 16, 2019.  

three cow salute

walking to my high school meant walking past three cows
just as 61st avenue came to its
senses and straightened up
south of bethany home road
and what was then
a bobwire fence held back these bored cows
who stood and chewed or didn’t
and slowly turned
their
heads
in
unison
as
you
passed

they were the stolid
they were the stupefied
the stunned
the milkbaggy trio
the watchers of boys and girls

they needed a date with a frisky bull
or maybe they needed nothing
but daily relief from udder strain
grass
and me tweaking their monotony
into near monotony

couldn’t tell you
don’t know why those bored
and boring cows still lease space
in a pasture in my head
just know
the smell of horseshit does nothing for me
but
the smell of cowshit
has more than once filled
my stupid stolid eyes
with nostalgic tears

© 2018, Gary W. Bowers (One With Clay, Image and Text)

 

Purifying shepherds

Smoke from burning

droplets of blood from the tail
of last October’s sacrificed horse,
ashes of the stillborn calves,
the shells of beans.

We are sprinkled with water,
wash our hands
in spring-water,
drink milk mixed with must.

Towards evening after shepherds
fed their flocks,
laurel-branches
are used as brooms
to clean their stables,
water sprinkled through them,
then stables adorned
with laurel-boughs.

Shepherds burn sulphur,
rosemary, fir-wood, and incense,
usher the smoke through the stables
and the flocks to purify them.

cakes, millet, milk,
and other food
is offered.

Hay and straw bonfires lit
cymbals and flutes play
as sheep and shepherds
are run three times
through the fire.

At an open air feast
we sit or lay
on turf benches
and sup a lot.

© Paul Brookes (Wombwell Rainbow / Inspiration. History . Imagination.)

A Burning Fox

A twelve year old lad in a valley
at the end of a willow copse
catches a vixen fox, snacker
on many a farmyard fowl.

He wraps it in straw and hay,
sets her alight, she escapes him
and in her fleeing sets fire to crops
in the fields, a breeze goads the flames.

Vital winter’s snap to feed
family destroyed.

So every festival of Grow,
a fox is burned.

© Paul Brookes (Wombwell Rainbow / Inspiration. History . Imagination.)

White Lady

Crowned white lady with flowing hair,
and fiery shoes, carries a spindle
and a three-cornered mirror
that foretells the future.

For nine nights before May Day,
chased by Wild Hunt Winter,
hounded from place to place,
she seeks refuge among villagers.

Folk leave their windows open
so she can find safety
behind cross-shaped panes.

Implores a farmer she meets to hide her
in a shock of grain. He does.
next morning his rye crop
is sprinkled with grains of gold

© Paul Brookes (Wombwell Rainbow / Inspiration. History . Imagination.)

Blessed Are These Sacred Folk

who plough
who prepare the earth
who plough with a wide furrow to bring water from the river
who plant seeds
who trace the first ploughing, reploughing as first did not work
who harrow
who dg
who weed
who reap
who carry the grain
who store the grain
who share the grain
who share their good fortune with us, the dead

© Paul Brookes (Wombwell Rainbow / Inspiration. History . Imagination.)

Paul’s Amazon Page U.S. HERE

Paul’s Amazon Page U.K. HERE

More poems by Paul at Michael Dickel’s Meta/ Phore(e) /Play

Prolific Yorkshire Poet, Paul Brookes

FYI: Paul Brookes, a stalwart participant in The Poet by Day Wednesday Writing Prompt, is running an ongoing series on poets, Wombwell Rainbow Interviews. Connect with Paul if you’d like to be considered for an interview. Visit him, enjoy the interviews, get introduced to some poets who may be new to you, and learn a few things.

The Wombwell Rainbow Interviews: Jamie Dedes

Bed and Breakfast – A Haibun

The blue sky smelled of manure. Even the allure of coffee and raw milk, homemade bread with rhubarb jam and omelets plucked from their mother just that morning couldn’t overcome the scent that distinctly said, “You’re on a working farm.”

The distinct sound of a tractor pulled up to the farmhouse door. The farmer offered us a hay ride around the farm and explained the difference between hay and straw, silo versus barn. The farmer named each machine and it’s purpose, but not the animals.

That night, I briefly wondered if the chicken that gave her life for our pot pie dinner also sacrificed her progeny for our breakfast. And if the rooster that would wake us in the morning, knew what happened to his family.

Plastic and foam trays

Deception and protection

Farmers eat the truth

Yes, that’s me on a tractor – picture courtesy of one of my sorority sisters who posted some “throwback pictures” of a reunion we had a bed and breakfast in the Pennsylvania countryside a few years after we graduated college. I don’t think the tractor was actually moving for the picture, but it was a first for this city girl!

Coincidentally, Jamie Dedes’ Wednesday Writing prompt requested: This week share poem/s out of your own nostalgia, experience, impressions, gratitude, concerns, or convictions about farms, farming, or farm policy. Despite now living in “farm country”, I still don’t know about farming although I do appreciate the numerous farmers markets in our area.

One thing I do know: I am very appreciative of the men and women who work on farms because I know I don’t have the constitution or inclination to grow things or kill things to eat. Maybe because living in cities, I was never exposed to that reality and thus my aversion to being close to the true source of what I/we eat. Food came in a package and didn’t have faces. Maybe if more people were aware of the reality of farming, there would be less food waste and a better understanding of the need to conserve and protect the environment/nature and animals as finite resources. But what do I know…I’m just a city girl…

© 2018, Irma Do (I Do Run, And I do a few other things too ….)

A Secret Place

When Dad barked
You hopped to it,
Let’s go! In the car!
He loved the country.
One day, he said,
I’m moving to some
Small town,
Somewhere,
Someday.
Got my love of trees,
Wide expanses
And the smell of grass
From him
I guess.
Let’s go pick strawberries.
Get some fresh picked apples,
Some corn, if it’s ready,
Right from the field.
He always took the
Side roads
On our way to
Where he wanted
To be.
I marvel,
Now,
Where he was
Coming from,
Some secret desire,
Some past life,
Taking him home….

© 2018, Jen E. Goldie

Living On The Glebe

A tithed farm had flourished
since Queen Victoria’s reign.
Then the council needed acres
of land, built a housing estate
in the 1930’s for families like
us who couldn’t afford to buy.

Small, airy houses with an inside
toilet and coal shed, no running
hot water but spacious gardens
front and back.We made our home
here in the ’50’s and I walked past
apple trees to my first school.

Elderly neighbours recalled
the redbrick farmhouse, told
how they were sent there
as children and exchanged
a few pence for pats of golden
butter and hay-warmed eggs.

They felt the land’s closeness
despite shops and post office
and bus routes to the city centre.
Road names were echoes.
Farmcote Swancote
Old Farm Glebe Farm

And during the War,they dug
over their long back gardens.
Potatoes and turnips grew again.
Carrots were shaken free of soil,
peeled, grated and added to cake
mix instead of rationed sugar.

© 2018, Shiela Jacob

Allotment

Hefting water out of the river to
feed the newly-planted.Long years since I
had to do the same on Uncle’s farm:enamel
white bucket hung from a windlass,sweet
water drawn from deep. I could lift but half
a pailful then. Brothers, neighbour’s girls,
rudimentary washes after endless
play; earth closet in the yard, potatoes,
their skins slowly curling in the cauldron
on the hearth.Somewhere a clock. Bored one day,
I stood beside the well and bawled for help.
Dad came running and rough chastisement
was love’s affirmation.

Brief check before I
swooshed down the hay bales in the barn, guiltless
until the straws in my hair betrayed me.
The years have added muscle, as I bend
and dip and lift from the grateful water,
remembering my boyhood’s guilty smile.

© 2018, Frank McMahan

.trail.

the sight is disgusting

to the last degree

blind horse

liver sauce on fish

they turn the hay

eighteen

times

© 2018, Sonja Benskin Mesher

. monday evening.

rain came, seeds will grow.

watered places i cannot reach,

butt half full.

noisy day, farmer making hay,

lambs moved from mothers.

they say the sun will come

later to dry .

© 2018, Sonja Benskin Mesher

.growing potatoes.

the robin came down as he cleared the ground,
all red chest, pretty eyes.

we discussed the earth, rich now, without
the stones. we could grow potatoes as they
did here in the war. i have the photograph.

these are fortunate times, while have disliked
the tuber since the flu struck.

there has been a lot of it this year here.

we plan a pretty little greenhouse, all white
with embellishments, red geraniums.

the robin watched, i am told he will like mealworms.

© 2018, Sonja Benskin Mesher

.limousines and chevrolets.

it was quite a while

then while travelling she noticed

an interest in cattle.knowing little

noted their shapes and patterns.

mentioned the farmers yesterday

most in rugged vehicles

dogs barking

one in a saloon car, the passenger

kind

full of food stuff

for cattle.

she wondered at the white ones

on her way home.

© 2018, Sonja Benskin Mesher

The Grand Scheme of Things

Raanana, April 11, 2016

The dark cloud squats heavily on the horizon
Undecided whether to drift slowly
Over our dusty fields with its fat bladder
Full of drought quenching rains
Or to drift up the coast a ways
To quench the thirst of our enemy’s fields.
O Lord, I know it makes no difference
In the grand scheme of things,
But I can’t help the fact
It would make all the difference in the world
To me.

(c) 2016, Mike Stone (Uncollected Works)

The Dead Don’t Envy the Living

Inspired by Wendell Berry’s “Testament

Raanana, August 17, 2018

The dead don’t envy the living
Any more than the living envy the dead.
Who’s to say what’s the best state
For matter to be in
In the long run?
I would think the best,
For one above ground,
Is to make the most of what you are
And, for those below,
To make the least.

(c) 2018, Mike Stone (Uncollected Works, Call of the Whipporwill)

Mike Stone’s Amazon Page is HERE.

Wheat Fields in Punjab, Pakastan courtesy of Ammarkh under CC BY-SA 3.0,

Farm and village
soul and spirit
a nation’s harvest  giver,
agri-armor of defense ,

lived in one,never,
but  loved  one where
Grand Dad lived
near the Jhelum River

A place, Sarai Alamgir
with tilled fields
lush green yields,
lands fulfilling needs

wells run by cattle
in circles, bound
pulling out water
round and round

and we so freely….
running in the fields
touching the trees
shouting and singing
with the breeze

But

When land is threatened
by famine ,when food is scarce
by waywardness and sins,
when fuel is short
and dry are the streams
the farmer with his horse
and plough
is back in the fields-

the backbone of the people
he is following his dreams
or so it seems-
going back in time

working coping hoping
amidst blasts and screams’
Farmer Farmer get some coal
if you want your crop
and reach your goal

Farmer farmer get your horse
for salvation of the loss
Farmer Farmer get your plough
Let us work and fulfill our vow’

© 2018, poems (English and Urdu/below), Anjum Wasim Dar

کسان اور گاوؑں

 کسان اور  گاوؑں
روح   رواں  زندگی
زرہ بکتر  زراع و دفاع

رہنا فارم پہ کبھی نا ھوا
دادا کے گھر سے پیار ھوا
سراےؑ  عالم گیر جھلم دریا

گاوؑں تھا  پیارا سا
لھلھاتے کھیت و باغ
ھر سو سبزا سبزا ھوا

کوؑیں سے جوتے بیل
کھیت میں پانی ڈالے
ڈبے پے ڈبا  ٓاتا  جاؑے

اور ھم  کھلے میدان میں
بھاگتے دوڑتے ھنستے
درختوں کہ چھوتے رہتے

مگر جب

 زمین خطرے میں پڑھنے لگے
قحت و قلت ھو جاےؑ زیادہ
ایندھن کم اور ندیاں خشک

پھر کساں اپنا سامان لیکر
کھیت میں  واپس  جاتا ھے
گھوڑا جوت کہ ہل چلاتا ھے

اپنی قوم کی فکر ھے لاحک
اپنے خواب  ادھورے پا کر
محنت کرنے لگتا ھے

بم دھماکے اور چیخوں میں
بھایو ٓاو آوؑ  کوؑلہ  نیکالو
اپنا اپنا کھیت  اپنا  ہل بچاوؑ

صلیب کو دیکھو مسجد  جاوؑ
اپنا وعدہ پورا،  خوب نبھاوؑ

شاید  نجات مل  جاےؑ شاید بخشے جاوؑ

“Let us all strive for peace on Earth for all. Let us make a better world. Write to make peace prevail.”  Anjum Wasim Dar, Pakistani poet, writer, artist, educator, and parent.

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“up, up and awry”a poem . . . and other responses to the last Wednesday Writing Prom

 

“This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.” Dalai Lama XIV, The Dalai Lama: A Policy of Kindness: An Anthology of Writings By and About the Dalai Lama [recommended]

These are responses to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt, Swallowed Whole, December 5, in which I asked folks to write about values gone awry.  Kudos and thanks for coming out to play with such extraodinary grace: Gary W. Bowers, Irma Do, Deb y Felio (Debbie Felio), Jen E. Golden, Sonja Benskin Mesher, and Anjum Wasim Dar.

In addition to their words and illustrations, I’ve included links to blogs or websites where available. I hope you’ll visit these poets and get to know their work better. It is likely you can catch up with others via Facebook.

Enjoy! … and do come out to play tomorrow for the next Wednesday Writing Prompt. All are encouraged to participate: beginning, emerging and pro. You are also invited to submit poems in languages other than English if they include a translation into English. See you tomorrow! 🙂

up up and awry

when a man is hacked to pieces
while still alive and
the murder was suborned
by a royal
killer
and small fry are arrested
and the big shot walks
and another big shot says
in effect
attaboy
and the world takes five minutes’
notice
and shrugs–

decency has taken a powder
ethics is in A locked chest in the attic
and kindly is an uncomfortable party guest
who gets hints to leave
from the big boy host

© 2018, Gary W. Bowers (One with Clay, Image and Text)

A Peaceful Goodbye

My eyes were parched, yet I kept them open, watching you as I did when you walked to the school bus. It seemed like such a long way for you to walk with your little legs. I told you not to look back, that looking back would make it harder, and I wanted us to have a “peaceful goodbye”. Peace was the September “virtue of the month” and it helped those first days when being apart wasn’t normal.

My throat closed up, as if I could cry, choking the words I wanted to call out – I love you! I’m proud of you! But you didn’t need to hear that – your humility and compassion allowed you to understand more than your 4 year old self should.

My heart slowed, a molasses drip, wondering what you were thinking as your tiny feet plodded on. Perseverance and courage might as well be etched on your retreating back. But the little wrinkles on your forehead would spell curiosity – we had that common. I wanted to help you, but you respectfully said you would go alone and that I should stay. I would have held you back, you honestly said. You knew I wouldn’t want that. Oh, how wise you had become!

My breath hitched and I was afraid – afraid you wouldn’t find the joy that I knew you deserved. But you didn’t look back and when you started to run – that’s when I knew:

You were going to where you truly belonged.

This short story is in response to Hélène Viallant’s “What do you see?” Picture prompt. There were so many ways to respond to this picture that Hélène posted – it could be scary or exciting or sad. It could have elements of science fiction or fantasy. Or a metaphor. My story is a little bit of all that. The back story could be that the world is coming to an end, the mother left behind to perish watching the sole survivor, her child, walking towards the unknown. Is it hopeful? Or ominous?

I also incorporated several virtues (or values) from Montessori education to fulfill Jamie Dedes’ Wednesday Writing Prompt request to “tell us about values gone awry”. My children attend a Montessori school and these virtues are lessons that are incorporated in the classroom and that I also try to utilize and exemplify at home. This whole child viewpoint of teaching is one of the reasons I love Montessori education.

While I’m not sure my story is one of values gone wrong, it does remind me of the saying “good guys finish last”. But do they really? If they believe their behavior, their sacrifice is for a noble cause, are they finishing last or being the first hero?

© 2018, Irma Do (I Do Run, And I do a few other things too …)

Dis=Gusto

What are the lessons mothers taught
when what they said was not for nought

“Family is important, Charlie” was Mrs Manson’s word

“You are what you eat,” is what Jeffrey Dahmer heard

“Find a nice girl,” Ted Bundy’s mom said,
“You’ve got the looks to knock ‘em dead.”

“Don’t play alone”, said Virginia to Billy
Play the her – monica, and watch your willy.”

“Work you body and open up more,”
Mrs.Weinstein said to Harvey as he went out the door

Mrs Crosby said,“Share your Jello, Bill,”
“And accept some help from oblivious Camille.”

“Don’t listen to others’ opinions,” Mary Anne told Donnie
“Your voice trumps them all even when you sound funny.”

So much wisdom distorted, misused
History is only very old news.

So mothers be careful, what comes from your mouth
You never know when it could all go south.

© 2018, deb y felio (writer’s journey)

Spelling Bee…..

Please spell AWRY.
definition?
: not straight or neat
: not working correctly
: not happening in the expected way
: off the correct or expected course
: in a turned or twisted position or direction

AWRY:a sentence?
“If one or another part of this progression goes awry,
there are sufficient compensating processes
in the average social environment”.
“Because each assumption requires extra tests,
fewer assumptions mean a smaller probability
that the assumptions go awry.”
AWRY: A- W- R- I
WRONG! be seated.
Askew,
aslant,
atilt,
cockeyed,
oblique,
Off-kilter,
uneven.
Disordered,
distorted,
Contorted.
WRONG!

© 2018, Jen E. Goldie (Jen E. Goldie)

Change comes quickly

Sweet melodies,
Obsessive love,
Aspirations.
momentary
questions.

all around awry

warnings not taken
deaths, tragedies,
horrors, starvation
clouding our vision,

Peggy Lee singing,
“Is that all there is.”

thoughts
of love and war
cancelling each other
out,
regrets to late
to regret
no time to run.
Its done.

© 2018, Jen E. Goldie (Jen E. Goldie)

.moving on.

moving on from the last verse of girly looking

after girly, we stopped at the jeweller’s window.

the assistant, neat looked bore & very clean. the

rings were three thousands and more.

enough to take her home and more.

“yes sir you may buy the ring, for a
thousand pounds, or choose to save
her life”

© 2018, Sonja Benskin Mesher

.clogau.

so we panned the work, stitches.
while before they panned
for gold.

all much the same.

peoples’ values.

© 2018, Sonja Benskin Mesher

.the prize.

the prize came as unexpected

a big building enough to house

the poor, the homeless the dis

possessed. it was tea and

i felt sick

i will rather give the money away

the added value of the food. ritz.

crackers. that bread can cost so much

spread with regular stuff cut thin

the waiter smiled ; i noted his shoes

an honest worker like me

alongside they enjoyed the moment

without the anxiety of my chest where

reparation fails. this is the promise

the outcome of a difficult day

© 2018, Sonja Benskin Mesher

Manufactured Mankind or …

He asked, ‘What kind of man?
why of Mankind ‘ he said,

‘of patience bereft, of agitation disposed,
not so eloquent nor with knowledge
or apprehensive  of   consequences
No, he fears none but mosquitoes

No, he fears none, no one

what language, or words of wisdom ?
‘none,sire  but a stare baleful, of rage
a chaos in cape carries he, chosen
but outcast, a clever archimage,

No, he fears none, no one

manufactured, of  lustful desire,
embroidered with adventure
en-robed with possession
of dark deceit, half concealed

No he fears none, no one

mankind today, lost astray,
oblivious of truth, a symbol
of hate, a killer without motive,
a killer for cash and pay-

No he fears no one-

mankind today, siding with evil,
a terrorist, beguiler kidnapper
Oh, where is the mystagogue?
fettered in a dungeon, I may

I may write an apologue !

O mankind your spirit is good, turn,
a repentant forgiver grateful person,be
turn, turn, towards the right travelogue’
so that the Light of Truth ye may see

before it is too late, for you and me-

© 2018, poem in English and Urdu (below) and artwork below) Anjum Wasim Dar (Poetic Oceans)

manufactured mankind

ٰٓاج  کا  انسان ٓ

ٓاج  کا  انسان  کچھ  بھی در گزر  کرتا نہین  ھے
ٓاج کا  انسان  اللاہ سے نہین  مچھروں سے ڈرتا ھے

استاد  کی  زباں  پے وہ اقوال زرین نہین ھین
ٓاج کا  استاد کیا  لکھتا   ھے  کیا  پرکھتا  ھے

ٓاج    کا   انسان    پیار  کا    بھوکا    ھے
ھر نظر پر نظر  ھر  ھاتھ  پر ھاتھ  رکھتا ھے

ھر غریب بے کار  ھر امیر دوست  لگتا ھے
اج کا  انسان  کیا  اپناتا ھے  کیا  پرکھتا ھے

دوستی   نرمی    صبر    و   برداشت  کہاں
سب کو گرم غصے  کا  بخار  چڑھتا  ھے

ٓاج     کا     انسان     طیش     کا     سامان
ٓٓاج  کا  انساں   شیطان  کی ھمدردی کرتا ھے

ٓاج     کا     انسان     دھشت       گرد
ٓاج  کا  انسان   پیسے  کے  لیے   مرتا   ھے

اے    لوگو    دل  و روح  کے  اچھے  ھو   زرا
سوچو  سیدھی  راہ   تلاش  کرو  سیدھی راہ چلو

“Let us all strive for peace on Earth for all. Let us make a better world. Write to make peace prevail.”  Anjum Wasim Dar, Pakistani poet, writer, artist, educator, and parent.

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Poet and writer, I was once columnist and associate editor of a regional employment publication. I currently run this site, The Poet by Day, an information hub for poets and writers. I am the managing editor of The BeZine published by The Bardo Group Beguines (originally The Bardo Group), a virtual arts collective I founded.  I am a weekly contributor to Beguine Again, a site showcasing spiritual writers. My work is featured in a variety of publications and on sites, including: Levure littéraure, Ramingo’s Porch, Vita Brevis Literature,Compass Rose, Connotation Press, The Bar None Group, Salamander Cove, Second Light, I Am Not a Silent Poet, Meta / Phor(e) /Play, and California Woman. My poetry was recently read by Northern California actor Richard Lingua for Poetry Woodshed, Belfast Community Radio. I was featured in a lengthy interview on the Creative Nexus Radio Show where I was dubbed “Poetry Champion.”

 The BeZine: Waging the Peace, An Interfaith Exploration featuring Fr. Daniel Sormani, Rev. Benjamin Meyers, and the Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi among others

“What if our religion was each other. If our practice was our life. If prayer, our words. What if the temple was the Earth. If forests were our church. If holy water–the rivers, lakes, and ocean. What if meditation was our relationships. If the teacher was life. If wisdom was self-knowledge. If love was the center of our being.” Ganga White, teacher and exponent of Yoga and founder of White Lotus, a Yoga center and retreat house in Santa Barbara, CA

“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.” Lucille Clifton

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“Phantom Limbs” . . . and other poems in responses to your last Wednesday Writing Prompt

“Do not ask your children
to strive for extraordinary lives.
Such striving may seem admirable,
but it is the way of foolishness.
Help them instead to find the wonder
and the marvel of an ordinary life.
Show them the joy of tasting
tomatoes, apples and pears.
Show them how to cry
when pets and people die.
Show them the infinite pleasure
in the touch of a hand.
And make the ordinary come alive for them.
The extraordinary will take care of itself.”

William Martin, The Parent’s Tao Te Ching: Ancient Advice for Modern Parents [recommended – read it too late and wish I’d read it sooner. Would be a great holiday gift for young and/or about to be parents]

These are responses to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt, Zero At Bone and Marrow, November 28, in which I asked folks to write about their children. These poems bare in common the light of love and joy and underpinnings of wisdom, but some are marked by extraordinary pain and courage. It brings to mind one of my preferred reminder quotations from Lucille Clifton “Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.”

Kudos and thanks to Billy Antonio, Paul Brookes, Irma Do, Deb y Felio (Debbie Felio), Sheila Jacob, Mike Stone, Sonja Benskin Mesher, and Anjum Wasim Dar.

In addition to their words, I’ve included links to blogs or websites where available. I hope you’ll visit these poets and get to know their work better. It is likely you can catch up with others via Facebook.

Enjoy! … and do come out to play tomorrow for the next Wednesday Writing Prompt.

3 Haiku and a Tanka

ordinary day
the slow unfolding
of butterfly wings
—
the nest
louder than usual
youngest child
—
11th birthday
the tenderness
of a sapling
—
unwrapping
the day
with laughter
my child
turns two

Billy Antonio
Laoac, Philippines

Why So So Hard

Mam?

– I were brung up with pillows
– Pillows are soft Mam.
– Not held over your mouth, love.

– I were given cake.
– Cake’s sweet, Mam.
– Not made of seasalt and road grit, love.

– I were cuddled.
– That’s what I like, Mam
– Till I couldn’t breathe, love.

– I were bring up reight.
– You’re bleeding me, Mam.
– How it should be, love.

© 2018, Paul Brookes (The Wombwell Rainbow / Inspiration. History. Imagination)

Bairns Are Old Codgers

Before I get taken to play at my soft playcentre,
my one year granddaughter toddles with her zimmer frame.
Later we will take her to the memory cafe
where she’ll remember her past lives.
“Hard”, of before dawn and midnight hours:
A welder in the Clyde shipyard, 1942.
“Stinks that,” she says of the steel shavings, and Swarfega.
“Heavy”, of the hammer…
A kitchen servant in a big house.
“Hurts”, of calloused pestle and mortared deferment…
I’m all giddy at tumble down
slides, scramble nets and ballpools.

From my “A World Where” (Nixes Mate, 2017

© 2018, Paul Brookes (The Wombwell Rainbow / Inspiration. History. Imagination)

Paul’s Amazon Page U.S. HERE

Paul’s Amazon Page U.K. HERE

More poems by Paul at Michael Dickel’s Meta/ Phore(e) /Play

Prolific Yorkshire Poet, Paul Brookes

FYI: Paul Brookes, a stalwart participant in The Poet by Day Wednesday Writing Prompt, is running an ongoing series on poets, Wombwell Rainbow Interviews. Connect with Paul if you’d like to be considered for an interview. Visit him, enjoy the interviews, get introduced to some poets who may be new to you, and learn a few things.

The Wombwell Rainbow Interviews: Jamie Dedes

Twilight Sonata

In the brief twilight of your life

The melody of anger and disbelief

Left my fingers

Caressed your small form

Saturated the ground

Flowed like sorrow

Off the expectant page

This Quadrille is in response to Hélène gorgeous “What do you see?” picture prompt. There are so many lovely details here! Gina’s response to this same prompt, The Music Tree (an absolutely heart wrenching poem), drew my attention to the little figure by the tree. Coupled with Jamie’s Wednesday Writing Prompt, to “write about a child in my life”, and this poem and the next one were born!

I have mentioned in the past about losing my twins, Larissa and Lucas, who were born too early at twenty-three weeks. This Quadrille and the next poem are dedicated to them. They are still and will always be children in my life – their song lives in my heart forever.

Moonlight Sonata: Quasi Una Fantasia

Sitting at the instrument

Of lament and longing

Listening to the moonlight

Touch my eyelids

Willing for this to be fantasy

For you to hear the harmony

Of safety and love

Bookmarking this time and place

So our stardust can, one night, embrace again

This poem is a companion to the Quadrille written for Hélène Vaillant’s and Jamie Dedes’prompts for this past week. It’s a beautiful gift when inspiration strikes twice.

This secondary title of this poem, Quasi Una Fantasia, means “almost a fantasy” and comes from this essay on Beethoven’s famous Moonlight Sonata. I do not listen to a lot of classical music, however this piece I am familiar with since I shed many tears listening to the First Movement after my twins died. That phrase, “almost a fantasy” describes the surreal feelings and thoughts I experienced after I got home from the hospital without my babies in my arms. It also describes the “what if’s”, “if only’s”, and “I should have’s” of the grief experience, as well as the hope that eventually leads to healing.

© 2018, Irma Do (I Do Run, And I do a few other things)

Time Frames

I carried him for nine months and strangers said
‘It will be over before you know it’-
the bulge that kept me slightly off
balance for the last trudging month

until labor started with the pangs and contractions –
but nothing short in that process even
as nurses assured
‘it will be over before you know it’.

Wrapped him in blankets of blue and pink stripes
and then the going home outfit of white and blue,
to begin real motherhood
of crying afternoons
and sleepless nights,
well meaning friends who assured
‘this will be over before you know it’.

Wet diapers, wet beds and my wet shirts,
and those who had been here ahead whispering
‘It will be over before you know it’.

Then rocking and hugging and sweet times
and grandmas saying ‘hold on to this,
it will be over before you know it’.

Crawling, climbing, chewing everything
walking, talking, playing,
toddler to young boy
preschool to kindergarten
‘Help me’ turns to ‘I can do it’
‘Pick me up’ to ‘Let me down’
‘Come with me’ to ‘You stay here’
‘Look at me’ to ‘Leave me alone’.
And he walks away with his backpack loaded
so self assured
and boards the bus
Turning to wave and happy to go
to first grade, then middle school, then
high school

Then driving himself off to college and a future.
I watch and wonder why someone
didn’t tell me

it would be over before I knew it?

© 2018, deb y felio (Writer’s Journey)

Clare And The Summer Of ’76

It was a speedy birth that early
August night after the Midwife
checked your heartbeat
and a Doctor rushed to my side.

He delivered you with forceps
and unlooped the cord
coiled tightly around your neck.
You cried in less than a minute,

stopped only when I cwtched you
in the crook of my arm,
kissed your blood-freckled face.
Then I cried too; in a family

of brunettes, you wore a cap
of woven gold as though
the sun-spun summer of ’76
had filtered through my skin

day by day and beamed
at you in your warm-water cradle,
reflected the light you still offer,
Clare, living the name you own.

© 2018, Sheila Jacob

..africa ..

a slight safari,
the front living room.

we sit there when my
daughter stays
over.

we watch the elephants
and bgt.

i have two living rooms.

the other is in india.

© 2018, Sonja Benskin Mesher

:: gay pyjamas ::

my daughter says

that pyjamas are cool

on every one,

and she wishes

she could wear them

all the days.

as i plod around

this morning,

mine a gay tartan,

i tend to agree.

perhaps that why

they wore them in china

a long time.

awoke arms high,

a little happier,

since the doc

said i was not broken too bad,

and since the taps stopped running.

© 2018, Sonja Benskin Mesher

A Moonlight Sonata

Raanana, April 24, 2016

The moon slid down through my open window
On a slippery ramp of pale light
Strangely silent for a child
Falling toward his father’s arms
But then the moon was not a child,
The child had grown older,
And I am just an old man
Rocking in the moonlight.
Words when they have no ears waiting for them
When they are not the words that wanted to be heard
Are swallowed by the vast silence
Like drowned sailors
But your words would have had my ears
And the world I’d have given to hear them.
My suitcase is in the trunk of the cab
You hug me hard
I kiss your forehead and tell you to write
But you’re too young to know the value of words,
You only know the value of grace and loveliness.

© 2016, Mike Stone (Uncollected Works)

A Riddle

Raanana, January 17, 2014

Don’t have much history,
I’m only four days old.
To most of you my name’s a mystery.

I’m the promise of the Promised Land,
I’m the crown on top the tree
Whose roots embrace the sea and sand.

I’m the fullness which you’ll never faze,
There’s nothing you can add or yearn,
These are all the things my name conveys
In a tongue I’ve yet to learn.

My face will launch a thousand rhymes
And maybe I’ll write some of them myself.
My future’s bright-eyed, ‘tween the lines.

If my riddle makes you kneel
Don’t lose heart,
My name is Klil.

© 2014, Mike Stone (Uncollected Works)

Phantom Limbs

Raanana, March 28, 2014

He felt ambiguated
Yes, he thought, that might be the word.
His unbounded happiness had saddened him.
After all, it was bounded
By the foreshortening of his life
From his perspective.
His wide unwieldy wings ached
To enfold his young granddaughter
Whose hair smelt of fresh wheat on a summer hillock.
He wanted to take her in his arms,
His heavy wings thrumping the air
Until slowly rising above the treetops
One with the cobalt sky
They’d soar and swoop
Over quilted fields and shadowed valleys,
Then back for tea and hoops
And lessons.
Back at home
Sometime during the night,
Or was it when he woke?
His wings were gone
But the ache remained
Like phantom limbs.

© 2014, Mike Stone (Uncollected Works)

Ori

Raanana, June 22, 2018

You sit on my shoulders
And I hold your chubby legs
In my calloused hands.
“Look, Saba, a flag!”
“Take care, Oriki, the branches are low,”
I say. He ducks his head
And I duck my knees.
“Look, Saba, the moon!”
And I think my light is weightless
On my shoulders
Like walking on the moon.

Notes:
1. “Saba” means “Grampa” in Hebrew.
2. “Ori” is a name meaning “my light” in Hebrew and “Oriki” is a diminutive of “Ori”.

© 2018, Mike Stone (Uncollected Works)

Little Flame

Raanana, March 25, 2018

I cupped my hands around your little flame
Protecting it from susurrating air
So finite against the infinity of night
Until you rise above the eastern mountains
And light the skies with your burnished rays.

© 2018, Mike Stone (Uncollected Works)

Ellah and the Terebinth

Isaiah 6:13
Raanana, March 18, 2018

Just five days old such big hopes
Rest on such tiny shoulders,
Little Ellah, are you a goddess
Or a terebinth tree?
Your name means both these things.
Maybe you’re the goddess of the terebinth,
The holy seed foretold in Isaiah’s prophecy:
No matter what befalls us,
Like a terebinth that has been felled
Above its grounded roots
We shall grow back,
Stronger
Taller
Sweeter.

© 2018, Mike Stone (Uncollected Works)

Mike Stone’s Amazon Page is HERE.

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I never felt the distance before
Nor sensed the silence in the room,
I never missed the familiar footstep
Nor the clutching click of the door;
Now often I think I hear
The soft burr of your bike
Rolling, whirring in the lane
The lifting flick of the gate way latch
And the ‘tick tick’ on the window pane;
At times I see you on the prayer mat
Or in your writing chair;
Where you would sit for hours on end
To read and write and note and plan,
And from time to time
Would turn around, to exchange
A friendly chat;
And now I know why God made sons
Why faith and peace is strong,
When love is true and distances long,
No absence can ever break the bond;
And now I know
How one so close, can be so far away,
No one can show, no one can wait
To stop and pat and wipe your tears away;
My son my dear, in distant land
You are with me, each day
As when I first held your hand
You first opened your eyes,
And tried to say….”Aye”
Time moved on and time moves on
Time is just fair
My son My dear, in another land,
You are not here ….
You left the footsteps in the sand;
I know… I wake up with a start,
You are forever in my heart;
Your helmet heavy in your hand,
I see you, standing there.

© 2018, English and Urdu translation and photograph,  Anjum Wasim Dar (Poetic Oceans, Poetry for Peace and Reform)

Translation in Urdu

203

اس سے قبل فاصلوں کا مجھے ،احساس نا ہوا تھا کبھی
نہ ھی ستاروں میں بستی خامشی روح میں سماعی تھی

جو تمھارے کمرے میں، چاندنی بن کر ٹہری ھوی تھی
وہ قدموں کی چاپ ، اور دستک دروازے پر ھلکی سی

مگر اب اکثر

موٹر بایک ، ھلکے سے گلی میں ٓاتی سنای دیتی ھے
گیٹ کھلنے کی اھٹ،کھڑکی کے شیشے پر ٹک ٹک
سنای دیتی ھے

مگر اب اکثر

کبھی  کبھی جاے نماز پے یا  پڑھنے والی کرسی پے
جہاں گھنتوں بیتھے سوچتے لکھتے پڑھتے رہتے تھے تم

اور گاھے بگاھے رک رک کے مڑ ٘٘مڑ کے کوی نہ کوی
اچھی باات کرنے کو تیار ، اور اب  یہ بات سمجھ   میں ٓای

اللاہ نے بیٹے  کیوں بنایے اور یہ بھی سمجھ میں ٓای کہ
امن اور ایمان  کی  طاقت کیا   ھے

جب  پیار ھو سچا، فاصلے زیادہ کوی عدم موجود گی
رشتے توڑ نھیں سکتی ،جو دیل کے قریب ھو ، دور نھیں

انتطار کون کرے ،  تسلی دے، انکھون سے موتی چنے
میرے بیٹے پردیس میں  مجھ  سے  دور نھیں ،قریب ھو تم

،جیسے زندگی کی پہلی سانس  ،پہلی بار  ھاتھ  پکڑا، وقت
رکتا نھین چلتا رہتا ھے چلتا رہا ، میرے بیٹے دور دیس میں

پاس نہیں ھو ، پر ریت پے قدموں کے نشاں چھوڑ گعے
مگر مجھے خبر ھے دل میں ھو میرے ھر دم ، ھر لمہا

اپنی  بھاری ھلمٹ  اٹھاے ھر دم دیکھوں تمہیں سامنے

دور نھیں ھو تم

© 2018,Anjum Wasim Dar (Poetic Oceans, Poetry for Peace & Reform)

“Let us all strive for peace on Earth for all. Let us make a better world. Write to make peace prevail.”  Anjum Wasim Dar, Pakistani poet, writer, artist, educator, and parent.

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Poet and writer, I was once columnist and associate editor of a regional employment publication. I currently run this site, The Poet by Day, an information hub for poets and writers. I am the managing editor of The BeZine published by The Bardo Group Beguines (originally The Bardo Group), a virtual arts collective I founded.  I am a weekly contributor to Beguine Again, a site showcasing spiritual writers. My work is featured in a variety of publications and on sites, including: Levure littéraure, Ramingo’s Porch, Vita Brevis Literature,Compass Rose, Connotation Press, The Bar None Group, Salamander Cove, Second Light, I Am Not a Silent Poet, Meta / Phor(e) /Play, and California Woman. My poetry was recently read by Northern California actor Richard Lingua for Poetry Woodshed, Belfast Community Radio. I was featured in a lengthy interview on the Creative Nexus Radio Show where I was dubbed “Poetry Champion.”

 The BeZine: Waging the Peace, An Interfaith Exploration featuring Fr. Daniel Sormani, Rev. Benjamin Meyers, and the Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi among others

“What if our religion was each other. If our practice was our life. If prayer, our words. What if the temple was the Earth. If forests were our church. If holy water–the rivers, lakes, and ocean. What if meditation was our relationships. If the teacher was life. If wisdom was self-knowledge. If love was the center of our being.” Ganga White, teacher and exponent of Yoga and founder of White Lotus, a Yoga center and retreat house in Santa Barbara, CA

“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.” Lucille Clifton