Tag: life

Investment Talk

It’s all about investment, really
life, I mean – make a deposit,
withdraw – hope that in the end
the gain is worth more than
the cost – a healthy balance.

Have been running deficits,
too focused on serving others,
practicing the art of giveaways –
incentives to capture attention
(affection too, if I’m honest.)

I’m every marketer’s dream –
impulsive, in the moment,
disbelieve that time is money –
illness having dumped time
on my lap in massive dollops

I’d say energy equates with
income, begets funds – all
redundant now, overdrawn
as I am, no safety deposit
securing balanced health.

Always a Teacher

Set me on the open road,
encourage me to cross borders;
I am hungry for knowledge,
to hear a higher calling.

Cannot tolerate chained-to-
chairs education, imposed
immobility, socratic hierarchy
demanding conformity

spoon-fed compliance –
am too much my father’s
daughter, born rebellious
unable to mold myself
to prescribed slots

would rather initiate
discussion, engage, listen –
let shoes emote, tell their
story, develop compassion

never felt more than a visitor
in institutions, marks adequate
but brain absent, spirit numbed –
more punishment for delinquency
than awakening.

How can we convey the future,
instill optimism in prospects,
when the language of education
is secondary to how students
communicate in real-time?

Minds are energetic, curiosity
a given, youth crave elevation,
opportunity, measure themselves
against a system defined by rows.

How can I cross this barrier
of disability, open the dialogue
to ignite passions, propel learning
to open road scenarios, encourage
minds to cross borders?

(Reposted from December, 2106 in response to The Daily Post prompt:  calling.  Teaching, I’ve always believed to be my calling – loved it passionately, until I had to give it up in 2014 due to ME/CFS)

 

Lost Directions

Partnered once with compassion,
believed in the power of human
touch, dedicated myself to caring,
certain I’d found my body of work

time and circumstance intervened
I drifted, lost in an eddy of confusion
my partner and I separated in the fray
but life moves in circular cycles, and

I revisit that work now, wonder if
parts of it are salvageable, viable –
fragments of that former time now
seem so outdated, irrelevant, what

if I let compassion drive, put ego
in the passenger seat, would she
not steer us down one way streets
against the flow of traffic, rattle

my elusive confidence, jeopardize
this vulnerability; I have no trust
in processes, lack the assurance
of youth’s glory, would not survive

the scramble; time and circumstance
have intervened, circular lines bypass
in spirals; we are not meant to go back,
I need to breathe and stop this grasping.

(Image: scorpyorising.blogspot.com)

 

 

Flawed

Why do I try to please
those whose motivation
is only self-serving, material
gain more important than
intrinsic rewards?

How is that I’ve tied
myself to the downtrodden,
dependent upon the nay-sayers –
those lacking imagination
incapable of celebration

settling for the mundane,
as if choices are limited?
I want to embrace each day,
dignify each moment,
regale the glory

life is miracles
and mystery, passages
and opportunity; and I yearn
to break through the walls
of limitation and rejoice

yet I am subjected
to the whims of others,
passion overridden by
disappointment, convinced
I am never enough.

(Image from pinterest)

 

 

Could It Be?

Walking away is the only solution
I’ve ever excelled at, and yet
absence does not obliterate that
which dwells within – I can pretend
that I have nothing further to offer,
but life and circumstance require
more of me, a challenge to exhume
the remains of my potential – will
I be up to the task?  There is flattery
in being looked up to, the feeling
that someone needs me, but is that
not akin to temptation – an ego play –
could it be that the knowledge I’ve
acquired has merit only when shared;
that we are all here to do our piece;
that by releasing what I’ve learned
I will find flow, feel in sync with life
again, restore my abilities and reignite
a passion for teaching?  Dare I hope.

(Image: http://www.thebalance.com)

 

We Are Voyageurs, All

(Note:  This is an edited version of the poem Self-Delusion, originally written in May of 2014.  The imagery was inspired by a dream of a wagon traversing the prairies carrying the individuals described.)

Obsessed, she presses onward,
feet digging in, body sweat
blackened by relentless dust
swirling in the prairie heat;
she is fatherless, widowed –
charged with the command
of horses, and everything,
and everyone – she is a pioneer
bent on delivering her cargo
to a promised land.

Wounded, a body lies
curled, shamed –
only straw for a mat –
teeth clenched in pain
determination overriding
suffering – feigns sleep,
braces against jolts,
stifles gasps – bravery
a necessity – longs for
a destination, an end
to the bleeding.

Laughter bubbles up
between bouts of fear
and boredom – children
bear the bumps, try
to be good, but the ride
is never-ending –
youthful spirits yearn
for cool waters to splash in,
ache for games of hopscotch –
cannot control the spontaneous
bursts of adventure – bear no
sense of responsiblity, trust
unwittingly in the journey.

A young man has visions,
sees beyond the confines
of wagon walls – senses
purpose, smells gold,
passion raging –
a fighting soul,
willing to strive,
fearless – rails
against the trappings
of obligation, held
captive by elders –
is overlooked.

The faithful seek inspiration,
all-believing, hopeful,
prayerful – caught in a web,
pleading, asking, forgiving,
accepting and wondering –
What can I give of myself?
What does God want?
Am I not good enough?
How have we sinned?
Are we being punished?
Must we bear this cross
to be received in Heaven?
Help me, they pray
to be more worthy,
more deserving,
when Judgment Day comes.

A mother worries,
cares, hopes for the best,
caters to all – in many ways
still a child herself – bears
each experience with borrowed
strength, selflessly focused –
drawing, drawing
from a well seldom replenished –
tired, oh so tired
she carries on.

Frail, the aged are wise
have endured adversity
surrendered to the knocks
know that in time all things pass
guard their wisdom with silence
acknowledge the value
in each journey
in each interpretation
understand that delusion
is commonplace and
destination is temporary –
recognize the power of now;
are patient and accepting
that life is as it is.

Educational Lapse

Confess, I am a proponent
of life as education, and would love
to expand on the lesson at hand,
but haven’t made the morning class yet
as consciousness and I have no early rising
agreement, and higher learning
involves climbing, and
staircases are out
at the moment

so even if the term
is in progress, I lack essential
energy to aspire to enlightenment
and I appreciate that you have prayed
for me, and Mary and her Son
may have inspired motivation,
but without working memory
directions are lost –
I could guess

at a destination,
would likely discover that
my aim has been off base,
could pretend I am gleaning
reams of information from the process,
just to appease higher-ups, but healing
is what I really need, not learning,
and help finding those elements
of self that others

have come to depend on
and now grieve, and if life is
education, then my time is fading
and as day gives over to darkness,
I’ve found my bed beside
the ocean of consciousness
calling me to another cause.

Breaking Free

Seems we are singularly obsessed –
we two, one story – driven to acquire,
invested in finding comfort, facing
tumultuous conditions, as if property
like a fortress will cloak our insecurity.

Look at us, disheveled, gambling on life,
average citizens, likely to fail – choosing
to recreate, question our destiny – the
dilemma: having been disgraced once
can we rise now to release, reset the dial?

What if we cut the ties; free ourselves
from disappointments – no longer feeling
like we’re coming in last – let’s ponder
intuitive moves, fun – we have been beaten
up enough by life, what is there to lose?

Have you noticed our lives have become
prisons: strategies tied to ancient agendas?
We are more twins than lovers, dwelling,
existing, double collateral damage – time
to quit this sham, fragment to find peace.

Let’s leave this house together, dress
our residence with wheels, aged as we are,
(on the other side of the lie), unclothe our
regimens, puzzle over serenity, expand;
urgency calls us to repossess our lives.

This is no lottery: lightheartedness a choice,
we make the openings for understanding,
are destined through our surrender to succumb
to a new definition of love, shed our culture,
our burdens, and formally declare a rebirth

 

Enrolment

If life was an English class
I’d enroll again for high school,
concentrate on the editing,
hope to gain something
the second time through

I’d excel at the assignments –
experience adds so much maturity
to the written word – and teachers
would deliberate and decide
that I don’t belong, and where

would that leave me?
Both the rigidity of self-judgment
and my softer, creative side
lecture me on the futility
of repeating past success or failure,

but; what else is there in life
to desire; what options lie ahead
for this diseased self: imposed
rest feeds my reflective side,
my mind regresses unwittingly.

I could study psychology, finish
a program once started, then
abandoned (a pattern I loathe),
but what merit lies there –
another backwards movement.

And what is this damnable urge
to perfect what has been, rewrite
the past, excel in the literature
of my own story?  I am destined
play a secondary role, foibles

contributing to the charm of
my character – maybe I should
enroll in a course on acceptance
learn to embrace the folly of
my youth, point myself forward.

(Image: www.bbc.co.uk)

 

Appearances

Testing social waters –
that cherished state of interaction –
prone to revealing too much, learning

have been homebound, studying life
without a facilitator, now attempting to
penetrate invisibility – see me now?

gathering the salvageable bits –
minimal fragments of a once whole woman –
reaching out, reconnecting – mixed receptions

admittedly much has passed me by –
no amount of homework can undo the stain
of my cluelessness, I am slow, needing a driver

as achievement focused as ever –
would go back to work – my heart space –
bursting with eloquence, unleashing enlightenment

on adolescent ears:  tales of survival,
recovery from the depths of loss, except it seems
I am still growing, the few tidbits I’ve gleaned unusable

must be selective about my memories –
am met with disregard, my story, like a gunshot,
causes others to duck, not listen, lack of scarring

a disappointment for those expecting grand
acts of heroism; scars command respect – visual
metaphors telling a linear story – my journey, marked

neither by timelines nor terminal projections –
origins of disease unknown – defies medical
knowledge, research lacking – I am estranged

who dares to question beyond the trembling
exterior, behold the opportunity that has blessed me,
witness the gift of joy that comes with re-evaluation

when character overcomes strife,
and simplicity replaces frenetic ambition –
the outcomes of enrolment in this life class.

(Image: www.huffingtonpost.com)