Endings and Beginnings

Scatter my ashes

where osprey fly,

calling to each other 

above the rippling marsh grass

and the tides

that breathe and murmur 

in the cove.

Lay a stone

in the old graveyard

across the bay,

where wind and sun

and seasons

come and go.

On it a terse inscription:

“Proceed as way opens.”

That will suffice.

        © Peg Latham, 2016

Tidal creek flowing into a salt marsh
Photo by Brian Bill, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
from Wikimedia Commons

Everything Has Legs

Not only animals can lope about!

Everything has legs,

useful, but often concealed;

static, but still capable of rapid movement;

unthinking, yet able to plan and execute.

For instance:

Cellphones

Never turn your back on a cellphone. 

Such a gesture will quickly be detected,

triggering unseen limbs to instant action.

Electronic sensors will seek out places of hiding

known only to the device.

Without being observed,

the malevolent little creature will hide in a nearby collection 

of computer-driven devices,

or seek out the darkest corner of your current location.

If autonomous features are available to this silicone snake-in-the-grass,

it will modify its own settings to make itself totally unresponsive,

and leave you utterly abandoned, 

perhaps in an unknown neighborhood, 

without fuel for your car, 

surrounded by unfamiliar structures

and unknown inhabitants who themselves

have been abandoned by their disloyal communicators. 

Yet another instance of uncooperative technology:

The Coat Hanger.

Surprisingly strong, ubiquitous, a denizen of every household,

an ancient form of “helper” device,

embodying no electronic content at all,

yet capable of causing wholly unexpected and endless frustration.

They normally live in closet spaces, some holding clothing, others bare and apparently available. 

Somehow these circuitless, detectorless, 

brainless creatures from our distant past know when they are needed, 

and respond in most unpleasant ways.

Having been observed in an available state, 

they deploy hitherto unseen appendages and move silently,

quickly to other more distant locations.  

They are also known to burrow into piles of clothing, 

and, if left alone on a large flat surface such as a bed, 

organize themselves into hideous tangles 

which can reach the complexity of the legendary Gordian Knot. 

It is said that Alexander the Great himself, 

upon encountering such a mess of metal and plastic,

refused to attempt its disentanglement.

Reduced to mumbling impotence,

he was heard by bystanders to observe in his frustration “…but they haven’t even been invented yet!”   

Shortly thereafter he died after tripping on a hanger 

left on the floor of his command tent by a careless servant.

There are many more amazing facts unknown 

to even the best-informed scientists.

Next time we bring you unprovable facts about 

computer detection of user identity and 

how machines  determine 

which problem is most disturbing to the person at the keyboard 

and how they then implement these problems….

And for your own safety, remember –

Everything has legs!

© George Phillips, 2016

Decorative lamp shaped from old wire coat hangers
Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Utah Youth

Do you need those glasses? 

Why not clean them off a bit, 

Lift the dust and grime, 

And see clean through crystal. 

Or better still, why not chuck 

Them over the side of that mountain.

From inside a basin, or from up there on the 

Mesa Arch, see this tilting Earth?

Let the One who made it sing you to sleep

And wake you up tomorrow with new vision. 

These layered mountains tell the story 

Of your fourteen years, all your striated hurt and glory. 

I wish everyone could see you 

Clean through their glasses.

Your mind and heart a symphony unheard,

I wish it could echo loud through these mountains. 

Pain eroded you, and the sediments collect deep. 

Maybe if we yell loud enough it will bounce

Off and disappear.

Or do you need a quiet

Wind to brush the pain off your shoulders?

© Emily Brown, 2016

Bryce Canyon, Utah
Photo by Jean-Christophe Benoist
from Wikimedia Commons

Who

My people are the most hated people in history.

Am I the most hated person on this earth?

Benighted by night, I walk thug-haunted streets,

My only fellow the thug who follows me.

It is satisfyingly easy to hate a race everyone hates.

There is no guilt in hate the world validates.

No nation is so evil, could be so evil, or so good!

Can a people be despised because it gave birth to Goodness?

Can a people be despised because it wasn’t good enough

But wasn’t bad enough to either conquer or disappear?

My people gave birth to many religions, who loathe their mother.

Our identity deleted, our nation nullified, our humanity distrusted,

Our home is negated, old or new, proffered and withdrawn.

Every smartphone glares: hate this race and be spared!

Join certainty, fatal justice!

My people mothered high and low thought—deplored by both.

Sometimes our identity is to delete our identity,

Such unselfing the last refuge of affirmation.

Of course we sinned—but were we sincere?

Are you sincere in your sinning?

Some sinning was earthy, fun, inventive, a bit helpful.

But sinning is sometimes not fun.

Is the Unforgivable Sin to, unassisted, refuse nonexistence?

Is our Use to be the canary in the coal mine?

Though I feel the thug following, I still walk.

© Stephen Margulies, 2016

Anti-semitic graffiti in San Pedro Sula, Honduras
from Wikimedia Commons

Sit Quietly and Take It In

When you sit quietly and allow yourself to hear your heart

Then your soul can come forth to comfort you.

When you sit quietly and listen to the wind and feel the flowers

Then your soul takes on the contentment it begs for.

When you sit quietly and view the vastness of the mountains

Then your soul can feel the presence of the Divine Creator

When you sit quietly and view the tiny creatures of the earth

Then your soul can feel deep into the soil of life

When you sit quietly and feel the flow of the wings above

Then your soul can step out and fly with a joy

When you sit quietly and feel the mist of the waves

Then your soul can be washed clean with a pureness

When you sit quietly and watch a deer slide gracefully in your path

Then your soul can feel the gentle love of your Higher Power

When you sit quietly and feel the earth under your feet

Then your soul can plant itself solid in your temple

And you can write and write and write

To seek the contentment of your soul

And you can write and write and write

To find the answers that rumble inside to come out

And you can write and write and write

To know the joy of exploring what surrounds you

And you can write and write and write

To feel yourself on a healing path

That brings you to write and write and write

To know you are right with the world

And So It Is!

             © Hilda Ward, 2016

Deer
Photo by Tony Russell

Surrender

The leaf dances over the snow

being blown this way and that

by the turbulent winds with

no volition of its own

not knowing where its final

resting place will be

except that it will be far

from its Mother Tree.

Life’s like that sometimes -

we feel buffeted around by

circumstances we don’t

have control over.

It would be easier on us

if we could just surrender –

and dance like the leaf!

  © Diane Harner, 2016

Leaf in snow
Photo by zeevveez
from Wikimedia Commons

Cecropia

First she fanned her wings slowly,

a Tai Chi of self-assessment - 

having never flown before,

she meditatively observed 

her own wingspan and range of motion, 

cycled her energy away from her juicy core 

into the papery extremities of flight. 

Next she shivered -

small quick movements, but smooth,

like purring, idling, 

an all over warm-up and 

checking of instruments

before take off.

A few coordinated 

full-power flaps of wings -

her grand, decorated wings - 

and her feet let go, and

she rose into the green canopy.

Now I sit in an armchair to read.

My arms are vibrating with restlessness.

© Laura Seale, 2016

Cecropia moth
Photo by Linda Tanner
Gap Mills, WV
from Wikimedia Commons