Three dreams in a row
And all I know
The first taught how
To design a plow.
The second showed
The purpose of the plow.
The third dreamed warned
Of the uselessness of fields unfurrowed
Where no seed can grow.
Time for plows, shovels or spoons
Fields are waiting.
The time to dig is now.
Filed under Uncategorized
Scene: Dorm room of Resident Advisor where RA is handling suicidal student refusing professional psychological counseling referral.
For the 10th. Day in a row the scene has been repeated, several times a day, for 10 days. I was that RA.
Finally, the RA says, “If what you want is to kill yourself, go do it.”
The student’s reply, “I will! And you will feel so guilty.”
I reply, “No, I shall not feel guilt. I will be very sad that someone with so much to offer took her own life, instead of accepting help to do the right thing…continue living.”
The student angrily returned to her own room. In a suite of 16 young women. I notified the suite that she was in need of constant observation; and to call me immediately if her behavior became more desperate. After months of living with her, everyone in the suite was aware of her condition and threats of suicide.
Within 15 minutes the student returned and with venomous looks agreed to professional counseling. Immediately, I had a counselor from the university on the phone with her, making an appointment for the next morning. This was a success,
Two-by-four therapy is sometimes necessary, but not for the faint of heart. It is one reason I became an attorney, instead of a social worker or counselor. I wanted the biggest two-by-four I could wield.
We always need to listen. We do not always need to speak words. We sometimes need to wave a two-by-four to build the future we want. The strongest negotiating tool is not always the language of rational speech; but, the language of power and control. We sometimes need to speak the two-by-four.
Congress, are you listening? president Biden, are you listening? Local Democratic Party, are you listening? Put on you gloves and start lifting those two-by-fours into place if we can hope to Build Back Better.
Filed under POLITICS
SOME WORDS MUST REMAIN
SILENT ON THE PAGE
INSTEAD OF SPEAKING OUT LOUD
THEIR OUTRAGE.
NEED I SAY MORE
TO THOSE WHO EXPLORE
EVERY NEWSPAPER AND PODCAST,
AND BROADCASTS GALORE?
YOU KNOW WHAT WE FACE
AND THE FEAR THAT REPLACED
THE EXCEPTIONAL HOPE
AMERICAN BIRTHRIGHT BESTOWED
ON THOSE WITH OPEN HEARTS AND OPEN SHORES,
OPEN MINDS AND OPEN POLLS.
NOW SHORES AND POLLS ARE BEING SHUTTERED
SCHOOL BOARDS AND STATEHOUSES CLUTTERED
BY THOSE NULLIFYING NOT ONLY OUR VOTES,
BUT OUR RIGHT TO CLAIM
OUR DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC
IN MORE THAN NAME
ONLY. IF ONLY, WE COULD SPEAK OUT
UNASHAMED AND ALOUD.
WE ARE NOT PERFECT, PEOPLE, BUT WE MUST BE ENOUGH
AS THE GOING GETS TOUGH. WE MUST BE ENOUGH.
Filed under Uncategorized
OUT OF THE PIT
12-18-2021
We yearn to turn corners
while we burn
for familiar faces
and easy spaces
where change is paced
and we can remain sedate.
But, transformation
of a dying nation,
shaken to its foundation
can never feel safe
by standing in place,
while violence and fear
obscure all we hold dear.
Using both brains and brawn
we must soldier on
crossing boundaries beyond
those we set long before the big con,
like filibusters and indictments
of former president’s incitements;
until our path is no longer blocked
by those who should be locked
up.
Up, look up!
It is the only way to climb out of the pit.
Climb, even though Republicans sit
on their hands, hands out for any bit
of coin, or power, unwilling to admit
failure. They only look down, sit down,
lock down the march to save the crown
jewel that is the republic where world-wide freedom is sown.
This is not the time to count the cost
of what it takes to regain what we have lost.
Up! Up! Look up!eoublican apart
Filed under Uncategorized
OUT OF THE PIT
12-18-2021
We yearn to turn corners
while we burn
for familiar faces
and easy spaces
where change is paced
and we can remain sedate.
But, transformation
of a dying nation,
shaken to its foundation
can never feel safe
by standing in place,
while violence and fear
obscure all we hold dear.
Using both brains and brawn
we must soldier on
crossing boundaries beyond
those we set long before the big con,
like filibusters and indictments
of former president’s incitements;
until our path is no longer blocked
by those who should be locked
up.
Up, look up!
It is the only way to climb out of the pit.
Climb, even though Republicans sit
on their hands, hands out for any bit
of coin, or power, unwilling to admit
failure. They only look down, sit down,
lock down the march to save the crown
jewel that is the republic where world-wide freedom is sown.
This is not the time to count the cost
of what it takes to regain what we have lost.
Up! Up! Look up!
Filed under Uncategorized
Babies conceived by woman
alone
no fuss, no sex, no mess, no male.
responsible for it all,
alone.
Keep all women virgins
then, now, forever.
Keep all men out of it
and out of women.
Except, we don’t.
it is all pretend,
a virgin birth
play without end.
“Sacrilege!” some would say.
But I remember Sister Robertine’s words:
“It is a man’s world, but a woman’s heaven.”
Girls suffer to be saints
while men sin.
So easy, then, for men
to decry a woman’s need
to end
the fruits of their sin.
Love supplants virginity,
not sanctity.
Filed under Uncategorized
Caring need not mean
carrying another’s burden;
nor lifting a load too heavy
to bear alone,
yet often does.
There is a danger of injury
in shifting loads.
Better to brace
weakened strength
and leave the load in place.
Better to widen the stance
on planted feet
solidly grounded
while arms embrace.
Better to dance together.
this, too, lightens a load
with far more grace
and less harm.
Filed under Uncategorized
Too bright a light
washes the image
from our sight,
and blurs the edges
as if night
hid the view
in plain sight.
Spotlights have their use.
Their brilliance overrides
the fear of missing
what disaster often hides:
Scenes of tortures
deep and wide
meant to remain hidden.
“Smaller is better”
says the mother of a short child,
in a tiny house, with a small income.
“Too big is too wild”
she states without guile;
“It is the tiny smile
which touches hearts”.
The twinkling stars
in the darkest sky
remind us how far
our souls have journeyed.
And the star atop the tree
joins those strings of lights
to brighten our way.
Filed under Uncategorized
12-06-2021
Every morning as I made my bed, I started a new chapter in my book of life by telling myself, for example, “Today is the chapter where Louise starts school; or ate with the hobos by the river, or turned black and blue all over.” Each life experience began a new chapter. Today is my thousandth, or more, chapter. Today is the chapter where Louise writes her book for others to read. Not that others have not been reading me for nearly 73 years by simply watching and reporting upon my shenanigans. Today, they go to print.
Life for me was a book being written chapter by chapter. Sometimes under my control; most often, not. That was the exciting part; the part that kept me truly alive. Each episode was laid out thoughtfully, straightened and smoothed as I straightened and smoothed the sheets on my bed. There was always a need to recognize and tend to the rough edges and lumps. They required hands willing to pull tout the seams exposed by the tossing and tumbling of a child’s restless dreams created in my sleep. I once asked my Mother, “ Mommy, when I get up in the morning is this my real life? Or, is my real life what I dream after I go to bed? They are both the same, both as real. How can I tell why is real?” My mother’s answer, after shrugging off the slight frown of surprised concern on her face, was clear and concise. She said, “ I don’t know where you go in your dreams. But your real world is here with me. This life with me is your real life. And that is where you shall stay.” The sheets, this life, continue to need straightening and smoothing.
My earliest memory of this life is the slatted play of light and shadow across my body as I lay on my back in my crib. The shadows moved with the sun, sometimes dancing in strange patterns if the wind blew. I could feel the light and dark dancing in the breeze across my skin. I was too young to understand how any of this occurred. The memory simply tells me what and where. I recall small hands tossing something aside to grasp the light in a tiny fist, I hear the sound of gurgling laughter as I cheerfully played this game of “catch the light.” Whose fist is that? Mine? Curious, I asked my mother where my crib had been placed? My younger brother had just been born and his crib was in my parent’s bedroom. But, I recalled this light play in a corner of another room. I showed Mommy where the memory indicated and she said, “This is where your crib had been placed, but surely you cannot remember such a thing. You were too young. I told her I always heard a loud thud as I reached for the light. “You always threw your bottle out of the crib. I had the hardest time getting you to take a bottle in the crib.” She believed me then.
Memory is a fascinating teacher. Pieces of memory do not hold equal value. Many pieces are lost in the shuffle as we arrange the puzzle pieces that create a life.Those memories we recall may seem senseless. But, it is those tiny, seemingly senseless, memories which hold the greatest value when examined closely, their rough edges smoothed and straightened.
In these dark days of December, we remember that life is the interplay of darkness and light, the void and creation, destruction and rebirth. Every solstice changes the rhythm. This memory mattered to me enough to remember it and its recognize its value. The sense of beauty and awe in the dance of light and shadow across my body opened my senses to the wondrous impermanence of their interplay; and the expectation of their further encounters. This awe at such beauty stayed with me. Even on the darkest nights of my soul as I cared for dying parents, faced the struggles of chronic illness which stripped away so much of the life I had I built. Even then, there was beauty in the dance between light and dark, hope and fear, known and unknown. How could anyone forget such memory?
I am glad I chose to grasp the light in my tiny fists. Glad I chose open hands, and tossed that bottle out of the crib. I chose food for the soul. And in these dark days I choose both darkness and light, the good and the bad. Each. Both. Together they create a beauty beyond understanding. Together they fill me with hope, and the courage to face the unknown. And together, with open hands, we can gather the light into a beacon to lead us out of the darkness we now face.
Filed under Uncategorized
The morning-after is always a let-down, a moment of weary headache-ridden resignation that the panic held at bay can no longer be denied. This is my country in this moment. We had a grand time for too long, sipping the heady drink of equal rights for people of color who long had been in bondage; and for women who remained subject to men, and for non-heterosexuals who hid from everyone’s wrath. We celebrated the promise of the power and strength which comes through embracing diversity and equality; long promised, and too long denied. We danced to the tune of American exceptionalism. Our belief in ourselves coursed through our veins. We danced and we drank, then drank some more. Heedless of the obligation to take our achievements seriously, we failed to protect the values we had accumulated over so many years of struggle; and, after such hurtful sacrifices, often too painful to discuss openly. Blind drunk, we waited too long to sober up.
If we had not been drunk, would we have noticed the smirks and innuendos, the open plotting and strategies of those at the Tea Party in our midst? How could we have missed the sheer exuberance of their hate for us? Did our ascension in the world of science and technology numb us to the animal nature seeking power and control, and the fear engendered by an expanding universe of ideas? Did our celebration lead us on a merry chase through such vast fields of entertainment that we stopped to play too long for our own good?
Why did no one tell us to go home and get some rest; and, that tomorrow would be a long day? Or, perhaps they did; but we were too intent on our pleasure to acknowledge the alarm clock would soon go off. And perhaps, the alarm clock did go off, but we simply stopped it and went back to sleep. Why was this not news? Are some truths too difficult to comprehend, or simply too challenging to report? Or, maybe, those reporting stayed too long at the celebration, drank too much, and danced too long beside us.
America, it is time to sober up.
Filed under POLITICS
annarino writes 