Christmas Is For...

 

Christmas is for lighting

And

Christmas is for loving

And

Each year we pass through it

We

Feel its unspeakable truth.

Kinnell in a Garage Time

I went into the garage to clear

Some trash into their bins and caught my eyes

Looking at the stack of books we have stored there,

Some classics, some not so, and then all but buried

There, the one, the master for me, 

A book of Kinnell’s gallant strokes.

So plentiful in your pages, in simplicity, in regular

To explain the heart of being, the felt moment,

As Fergus sinks deeper in his preponderance

Of innocence 

Of love and loving, 

Whatever, as you said,

What it is we mean and want to mean, is all

We want and need.

I was quiet and still there in the garage, all of it

Ready to be done and doing, sledges, axes and mixes,

Yet stilled in that moment and your words, just to be

Mattered sometime for some, who want to feel

It, who care less about knowing it. In that silent

Stack of feelings I could be together with them.

(Sometimes it’s personally important to remember that there is such a thing as poetry and poets as mindful as Galway Kinnell. Pick up any of his creations and feel the click of the human spirit.) 

what if Starshine

what if Starshine

had not closed her eyes

and willed the filament

of possibility

had not chosen

Marianne and yes

but, instead, chose no

and the stillness

of uncertainty,

full of alone,

herself, spinning

back into the prison

of her memories

before Ralph braved

the blizzard

of his soul and sought

her out to bring her

into his solitary searching,

which she dedicated

followed as part of him

and in that stead she found

a space, a could be

possibility

what then? what kind of

possibility?

conjure...or con...

the same

she fought the world

and swallowed hard.

 

Knowing

I think I know what 

I know, but 

how do I know

that I know?

or can I?

And this is important

Well, we think we

have things in or

on our minds…?

Do we know all this

stuff or does it come

in the ways

Lots of stuff comes

into us—

but is it all a knowing?

What if all the stuff we think 

we know

are just specious conjurings,

just the stuff of

learning and keeping?

What if there’s other stuff…

eternal mysteries?

Like the smell of lilacs, or

The touch of an infant’s cheek, or

The scent of a lover’s shoulder, or

The bristle of a lover’s beard, or

The scent of a coming storm…

Is this knowing?

If it is then we

ought to be able to tell it,

But can we?

After all,

what is it?

Columbus Day Or Indigenous Peoples Day?

 Today we Americans celebrate the European invasion, murder, rape, pillaging, infestation, and exploitation of an indigenous civilization. No amount of apology, reparation, sympathy, and memorializing could ever suffice. The pain and moral stain are eternal.

Willful Ignorance

 

If the United States of America is going to slide into the historical dust bin containing previous empires, it will happen because of the willful ignorance of so many of its citizens and the cowardice of so many of its timorous leaders.

“There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn't true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.”

― Soren Kierkegaard

“Five percent of the people think;

ten percent of the people think they think;

and the other eighty-five percent would rather die than think.”

― Thomas A. Edison

“Any formal attack on ignorance is bound to fail because the masses are always ready to defend their most precious possession - their ignorance.”

― Hendrick Willem Van Loon

“If it's a choice between a difficult truth and a simple lie, people will take the lie every time. Even if it kills them.”

― Paul Murray

“Willful ignorance is blissful only in the mind of a remarkable fool.”

― Tracey Bond

“So many it seems, have made it their life's goal to bask in the ignorance of their certainty.”

― John Chaplin

“There is simple ignorance, not knowing, and willful ignorance that refuses to know, that covers the light of knowledge with the dark blanket of bias.”                 Elizabeth Moon

Summer's Eve

 (a children's song)

It’s summer’s eve and froggies call

And Mom and Dad are quiet now

You slip away and chase the sun

Waiting and looking for fireflies

Summer’s eve and all is well

The darkness wraps you up all cozy

Just the sounds of crickets and frogs

The hush feels soft and rosey

This is your time to think and dream

To look at stars and wonder 

All the things you want just seem

To drift out there in summer’s moon