current affairs – One Woman's Quest

Monday Mood: relief

After a few days of negotiations, we have sold the house! Such a relief.

Now to find our next home, but that’s for another day. Just grateful we are doing all this while the garden is still in bloom.

Choose Love

Talks of takeovers
and takedowns –
deliberate misdirection

My mind is a tangle
my heart stripped raw
Us vs them a mantra

Choking on my own bile
darkness closing in –
I turn to so called heaven

Accusations on iced tongue
desperation pointing fingers
the sullen clouds an echo

Even in this stormy state
light, like fire challenges
Wake up! Wake up!

There in the twilight
beneath lambent skies
my resolve melts

How, from this perspective
can I contemplate hatred?
Love a more noble alternative

Impatience

Petulance is actually the word that comes to mind at the moment. I feel as if my inner child, not getting what she wants fast enough, is throwing a temper tantrum.

I just need to convince her to give the grass time to grow.

Thanks Richard Adams.

Not Taking It

We climbed so high
this mountain of man
made obstacles –

I remember the rage,
no more than 9 –
how helpless it felt

a girl in a man’s world
but I climbed anyway,
we climbed anyway

and, instead of a hand up
we get this? Patriarchy
be damned! Your days are
numbered. Mark my words.

(Image my own)

Rebel (senryu)

New Dawn

I think we are all feeling the need for a new dawn.

Uprising (haiku)

End the Fray

This breach –
this ever-widening gap
fear induced
pits us
against them
as if humanity
can be divided
salvation
a selective process.

We need a balm
to soothe societal
wounds, a tonic
to calm the angst
until clarity
quells the uproar
and kindness
replaces this sin.

(Poem originally appeared June 2019. Image my own)

Relevance of Story

Stories have power. Parents, teachers, public speakers, and therapists understand that the secret to engaging an audience or connecting with others is through illustration: storytelling.

I see it in the eyes of the my grandchildren, who love to hear tales of family history.

I’ve seen in the eyes of students, when recognition and understanding light up.

I’ve seen in in the eyes of audiences, who tear up or laugh at the telling of a relevant anecdote.

I’ve seen it in the eyes of the wounded trying to make sense of their past: the craving for a story that offers validation.

Imagine a world where we are absent from stories. This is a reality for many, whose race, ethnicity, or beliefs excludes them from discourse.

Chimamanda Adichie says it best in her Ted Talk: The Danger of a Single Story.

Is This War?

“War is hell. You can’t photograph a flying bullet, but you can capture genuine fear.”
– unknown

The bomb has dropped
control slips from our grasp

We pray for a parachute
for someone to pull the cord

numbers escalate,
lives plummet

We offer encouragement
isolated voices faltering

moment of impact imminent
the implosion inevitable

impact reverberates
responsibility moot.

( Image my own.)