Category: Humanity

Winter’s Will

image courtesy of ALEX VASILYEV on wired.com

No understanding in

how winter comes.

For it arrives uninvited

at too many times,

often when it shouldn’t,

snatching away all the covers,

driving out the flames,

or

slowly, softly,

tenderly

like a gentle, timid lover

will winter drift into days

as autumn delicately falls,

little dip by little dip, into winter’s icy arms

then a frozen world is made.

At times, making a last stand

against the coming thaw,

winter rides

with sword drawn

to wreak havoc on all things

green and growing

into spring,

stilling all hearts

feeling the flow of life begin.

At those times, winter rides

until sweated out

in the course of time.

Yet winter may freeze us solid

in the midsts of summer’s heatwaves

as we stand over the gaping mouths of graves.

As some breathe in the hope of spring,

others, being eaten by winter’s black ice

of hunger and need, stand as witnesses

to winter’s winter growing larger still:

beyond artic, beyond talk of tundra,

or whispers of permafrost—

but something too many know.

We will not end in fire

nor will we end in ice,

as Frost once wondered.

In the end,

it will be the lukewarm breeze

of indifference,

the one to do us in.

Plantings

Image courtesy of https://www.mutualart.com/Artwork/Green-grapes-on-the-vine-with-morning-gl/0F474D245DD85FB8
I tire of seeing memes about having a positive attitude and choosing one’s feelings plastered
social media.  It is no surprise our young people are in the midst of a mental health crisis when constantly bombarded with messages telling them, in essence, “The only reason you are sad is because you are making the choice to be sad,” or, (one of my favorites for sabotaging anyone’s self esteem) “You have a choice to make your day wonderful or not.” While such simplistic messages are well meaning, I believe they are sometimes extremely toxic.  After all, what if your parent died on that day? Did you make the choice to have a horrible day?  What if you go home to a toxic abusive environment? How can you choose to make your day wonderful? So before reposting those wonderful positive messages on social media, let’s all take a step back and think about what we are really saying to someone who may be going through something or in an environment where there is no choice in the matter but to feel what he or she feels. Let’s send messages that say it’s okay to feel what you feel and acknowledge it and to take time to feel it all,so something can be gained from it—a lesson, a positive action taken, whatever it may be, so we know our suffering was not for naught. Hence, this piece.

I gathered my despair,

my tears, my losses, all my grief.

Sat with each,

held them close,

let them dry,

waiting for spring.

 

When the ground warms,

softening, ready for tilling,

I will plant my despair,

sow my tears,

plough rows for my losses,

dig a hole deep enough to hold all my grief.

 

In the turning of time,

from the shrubs of my despair,

I will snip flowers and herbs

for healing others.

From the vines of my tears,

I will pluck the fruits and vegetables

to pile upon the table for all who need.

From the fields of my losses,

I will reap the harvest grain

to store for when a time of need arrives.

Finally, from the tree of all I grieve.

I will pick the sweetest fruit

of memory.

 

 

Spring Melting

image courtesy of southernexposure.com

Spring threatens to melt into us. 
Summer follows soon enough.

Birds will return, seeking seeds and worms,
Building nests for the young to come.
Will the birds remember the songs they sing?
Songs of summer, songs to mate?

Flowers will emerge, warming their petals 
And leaves under a brilliant sun.
Will they remember how to open
Their blossoms?
Will they remember how to dress themselves
In glorious color?

How can the birds or flowers remember
When the world walks a tightrope
Over the abyss
And sunflowers may never grow again
Tall enough to bow their heavy heads to God?

Bouquets of the Ramshackle

wk 227 ramshackle
https://sammiscribbles.wordpress.com/2021/09/18/weekend-writing-prompt-227-ramshackle/

https://amanpan.com/category/eugis-prompts/

With ramshackle shards
Of heart, soul, self
Falling away like the browned petals
Of a long-wilted bouquet,
We create a riotous noise
In ramshackle attempts
To find some connection.

Lumbering, awkward attempts
At reaching out to touch once again,
To replace, to freshen 
The brown wilted and missing parts
With new bouquets of spring
Whose stems sit in eternally
Fresh, clean waters.

We dream of a life lived
No longer ramshackle,
With no long-wilted bouquets
Of a past to haunt with falling petals,
But a life returning whole,
To move without noise
Through the world once again.

Turn It All Back

Image courtesy of Jon Tyson on Unsplash.com
wk 224 marshal
https://sammiscribbles.wordpress.com/category/weekend-writing-prompt/
Marshal forces
Of the earth, moon, orbits of planets,
Laws of time,
All we hold mighty and true,
Stop everything in its tracks,
Turn it all back
Before the start of any of it,
Falling away,
Marshaled from memory.

nothing thwarted

Image courtesy of AlphaCoders

https://sammiscribbles.wordpress.com/2021/08/07/weekend-writing-prompt-221-thwart/

We thwart not the sun or the moon,
the movement of planets, 
the coming of rains or drought.

We neither thwart 
our birth nor death.
We try to thwart what our hearts feel
And the desires with which it plagues us,
But our hearts feel and desire still.

Even our tears cannot be thwarted--
though they may not fall,
the tears fall unseen.

Bloodied

Image courtesy of Reddit.com
Weekend Writing Prompt #193 – Faction | Sammi Cox (wordpress.com)

Factions of the past

Still here–

The many monsters,

Gods and Goddesses all,

Worshiped and created

By a thousand wars

Humanity fought

Against itself

And fights still

Against the poisons

Standing on the battlements

Within humanity’s own

Bloodied heart.

The Earth We Leave

Image courtesy of Dreamtime.com

A world bequeathed to us

In the breaking sounds of softness

Sighs from the weight

Of lost innocence and souls,

Mourning the loss of her lineage of love

In our desire for riches and more,

Grows weary of the heaviness of us.

 

The tonnage of our selfishness

Swirls in her oceans,

Fouls her air,

Tears apart her mantle.

 

In anger,

Her sky weeps,

Her winds whip up her seas–

All to wipe the weight of us

From her face, her body.

 

Thus, the earth we bequeath.

https://sammiscribbles.wordpress.com/2020/11/07/weekend-writing-prompt-182-bequeath/

The Second Commandment

image courtesy of daily verses
https://sammiscribbles.wordpress.com/2020/10/10/weekend-writing-prompt-178-asinine/

I take the truth

for it is mine,

rolling myself in it until

protected from the acid of the asinine

that drips from the pens, the tongues

of many and power,

of those we call elite,

of those we once called—

friends.

 

I grieve the words spoken

by asinine tongues

and actions taken

by hate filled hearts

that do not comprehend the words

we were taught—

“love your neighbor as yourself”—

The second commandment.

 

We Didn’t Care

Image courtesy of VectorStock

Dreams came,

Dancing for a time

While arrogance grew.

We were better, best–

With nothing left to prove

Glorious above any others–

God’s chosen led by the chosen one,

Or so they claimed  

While people died in the streets.

We turned our fingers orange with Cheeto dust,

Stuffing our mouths,

And didn’t care who died.

It was all for our entertainment, anyway.

We watched democracy die

With Lady Liberty and Justice

Beaten bloody in the streets.

But hey, Walmart had toilet paper and Doritos–

And that’s what really mattered.

We screamed about white, black, blue

Red, and all the rainbow colors

Until our screams and colors bled

Into midnight blackness

Then the lights went out

When God’s Grace got up and left.