The natural world continues to create beauty, even if only within my mind on cold wintry days with snow flurries slowing the garden’s awakening. This nation will awaken. The ranks of the woke will increase. Blue-bliss will overcome blood-red. Our nation will flourish again with diverse gardens to delight every sense, and remind us of the endless possibilities of a free people, One Nation out of Many. Let this painting give you hope and bring you a measure of peace today.
This blue earth,
this place of our birth,
grounds us against flight
from this tiny iron rock
hurtling through the dark.
And so, we hold on tight,
bathed in blue light,
sun reflected off ocean’s face,
keeping us in place.
We are cleansed by earth’s air,
a clear and free atmosphere.
We breathe in and then out,
Each breath removes any doubt
that we are of this world, in this place.
We hurtle through darkest space
on this earth, this hard rock
with all its hard knocks.
It is not our imagination.
The gravity of our situation
keeps us awake at night.
We are blue light
against a dark sky.
Help earth and its people survive.
Help keep freedom alive.
VOTE BLUE!
Like it was yesterday and ever day since
is the memory which makes me wince
that childhood can be erased
and all lost innocence traced
to a single moment.
Sister lined up my first grade class
along the back wall, she put us in place,
gently pushing and prodding.
Then, she drew our attention, with no coddling,
to the lesson she was about to impart;
one which will reside there until my soul should depart.
The lesson from our first grade catechism
explained the grace of God as our chrism.
Every child wonders why she is born,
how her life came to be is a question well-worn.
The answer sister told us is simple and clear.
God simply wanted us here.
She added with smiling and quiet sigh.
From the moment of your birth you begin to die.
That is your purpose; to live then die, to journey to God.
I blinked my eyes in solemn surprise, then prod
with the question I just had to ask, “I am dying alive?”
The answer was clear, “Doing good is how you survive.”
Age is not a curse, but a lesson in living
after a public and private life of giving
all that one is or ever could be,
seeking every person’s right to liberty.
With age comes wisdom softly hidden
in that catechism message often forbidden
to instruct the lives of our children,
entertained and overly protected
by a crass generation of parents selected
to bring forth lives to serve others in goodness,
not merely create a personal fortress
filled with money and goods to stem their loss
of lives full of purpose, all honor tossed.
Dying to self starts at our birth.
Living for others gives our lives worth.
Remember this rule from God’s covenant.
Living for others makes age irrelevant.
annarino writes 