Celtic Understanding

I have little words of life, posted below and next. The Celtic circle is from my ethnic heritage. No doubt the circle has meaning, aged and new, from many other people and places. (Places have age; people are always new.) What does the circle mean from you and yours? Treasuring, the next poem-post, is about small glories we might live.

Celtic Understanding
(say it like hard K)

The circle tells us always
That all things are one
That we are one

Cut it into wood
Grind it into stone
Ring it round a fire
The fire is one, too

And part of us
And we with it

Sacred, secular
Reality is this
Circle ever moving
Without end

We do not end

Second Freedom USA Suggestion

Second Freedom USA Suggestion

We don’t have our guns taken
(if I said that before, I was wrong)
Rather
We give them up

To those who duly need them
And are rightly trained to use them
To use against those who
Mis-use guns and seek to
Mis-use us

Loving our freedoms
Among them, consciousness toward peace
We send the message
We don’t need them day by day
The guns are a measure we
Truly can live without

No coercion though
But a plea
And a moderating suggestion

Long Good Bye Tomorrow

Long Good Bye Tomorrow

Did you know that in Malawi,
you go to jail for being gay
or lesbian? It’s not a fine
or manageable penalty, if
severe;

it’s in supermax for life. The
nation of Malawi did not
invent this punishment. It
happens elsewhere. A crime
like this—classed with arson, theft,
or witchcraft—still earns time
away from real life forever.

An indictment for being homosexual
that promises permanent
captivity. You know, I have an
opinion, a feeling, a value about
homosexuality: about heterosexuality,
too. My feeling’s firm enough, rather
set. And, day by
day, it is about

the most useless thing I own. You
see, behind the issues there are
people. And love transcends
issues and viewpoints. Love
overwhelms other human
convictions.

Reading The Guardian

Reading The Guardian

I like to read The Guardian
for an outside-USA perspective. (I
like the name, too.) But
today’s Monday-morning headlines
were, I swear, all grim. Even the global
climate accord received political, not
environmental, comment. The only
good news I read about was a promise
from a person not to litigate, not
to sue against unlawful (long and
tortuous) detention at Guantanamo.

I applaud, truly, this one’s
forgiving purpose. But that’s as good
as it got. A withholding of returning
punishment: the avoidance of bad
news from someone being better
than. And so

nothing more?
Why not?

It’s my fault. It’s yours. We must
do good, then do better than to allow
it to become good news. Then (others,
us) we must report the good
that happens, too. As an alternative,
a celebration, and exemplar for all.

I visited my friend in the hospital
just in time to take him home. My
neighbors have launched a mission
website to help the children with
Down’s Syndrome and those who
want the children to have
a child’s life.

There’s some good, becomes good
news. It’s small. Good news is often
small.

My small part as an example’s done.
So now,

Equinoxing

Equinoxing

It’s so weird
Weirding
To watch the sun pass over
In front of the house
On its way west
So early in the day

But that’s how it is
This side of the planet
With the way we keep
Time and the pereceptions
Realized this way

What if we measured differently
What if we went by lunar time
As many do
Or simply measured seasons
As they felt

Would this day seem so strange
Knowing, as it is, that by three
This afternoon, it will look like
Early evening

Without standard time and
Saving time without the skill
To measure nanoseconds
Would passing moments feel
Differently feel righter
As we might know the
Passing and the tilting
Of our earth

Limerick, because I couldn’t help myself

Limerick

There once only once was a Trump
Who combed his hair over a lump
We don’t mind his hair
But what’s under there
A thought that the world is a chump

 

(he’s supposed to host a fund-raiser
in Pennsylvania today, and so
I couldn’t help myself)

Sunshine Blogger Award, my Nominating Process

Here are the rules for this award:
1. Thank the blogger who nominated you for the award.
2. Display the banner/sticker/logo on your blog.
3. Share 7 facts or things about yourself.
4. Nominate 5 bloggers that you admire and inform nominees by commenting on their blog.

 

Thank you, IshmaImroz! You are the sunshine!

 

(I put the icon-logo on my blog.)

Seven things about me that I haven’t shared before:
1. I have curly hair. I guess the blog photo shows that. But, genetically speaking, the hair came from my father who got it from his mother. My grandmother (my father’s mother) I met once, when I was two. I never saw her again, for she died young. But when I came across a photo of her when she was a young adult and I was a young adult, I thought, My goodness, we could be twins. So my hair—maybe in a strange way—reminds me of family I never got to know.
2. I have scars from surgery. They are big and puffy and painful. And they itch!
3. I drive a small car in a big-car world that is the USA.
4. I have four siblings. I am in the middle of five.
5. My mother made me take a typing course in summer school. She was smart.
6. I love oral interpretation—reading texts aloud in a public setting. It’s not that I love the sound of my voice (I don’t, in fact, though others have told me that they do). It’s that this reading is a way for texts—poetry and short stories, say—to have the chance to live in a way that draws folk in, maybe into reading.
7. I live in a house that’s a hundred and fifty years old. In the USA that’s old. The house is haunted, though not my part. Or maybe the ghosts and I get along.
Nominate five bloggers. Only five? How about
What the Woman Wrote
Invisible World
mandibelle16
Jacki Kellum Juxtapositions
A Reading Writer
Okay, I’ll stop with five.  And I’ll contact you five.  Anyone reading here generally might do an easy search to find their blogs.  After all, who doesn’t enjoy the comforting glow of sunshine, literally or metaphorically speaking?  I guess returning the nomination to the originator is not bad form but more or less unnecessary (or I’d give the award to IshmaImroz). These folk (above) and their blogs are especially optimistic. I value pessimism, as I value skepticism. And cynicism is a smart quality to employ when analyzing things. But those who have optimism that’s unswerving—well, that’s appealing and inspiring.
And more you than me. You (six) bloggers rank me.
Thank you! Thank all!

Why Don’t the Deer Get Guns, Too?

Why Don’t the Deer Get Guns, Too?
(the first week of deer season in Pennsylvania)

I’ve been thinking that, during
hunting season, the deer should get
guns, too; and I’ll concede that they
wear the orange vests
for competition’s sake

I could be wrong, but to me it seems
the necks of deer are long and
marvelously muscled; we could
thus attach a gun (say, a snub-nosed
hunting rifle) that could be complexly
controlled by purposeful twitching
of organically-organized sinews

a sight lens could be connected from the
eye, the (aforementioned) orange vest
be slung, and now we have a proper
duel between hunter and the hunted

hunter and hunter, now
(hunted and the hunted)

do I mean this, no: and I’m grateful for
those (people) who hunt safely

and I understand that deer population
would otherwise be overrun

I simply want to offer a point
Intentionally, if in fancy dress (the
orange vest), that when we shoot
a gun, it’s highly, mortally probable
that someone might shoot back

Hanukkah Unto the Earth

Hanukkah Unto the Earth

(on the first full day of
Hanukkah, my time)

Hanukkah means to dedicate

The miracle was that the Temple
Could be dedicated, repaired of
Damage in the holy place, though
Still a vital need of oil for light

No oil found, then only in a
Small amount—and yet the

Temple space was sanctified
Because the light burned bright
For days, well beyond

The oil’s given time

Who doesn’t need light and
Miracle? We all need
To celebrate these, don’t we