It has always been
understood and too often
forgotten. Spring comes.
Tag Archives: hope
BY THE WAYSIDE
Yesterday I fell
by the wayside
where hopelessness dwells.
The journey upward felt
like a forced retreat,
no longer a climb
on confident feet
to reach the summit
where love presides,
where ego lives above false pride.
Instead, the slope had become slippery
and I,
and I,
and I
fell to my knees
my hopes subsided.
There is no time for this
I have decided.
I may slip again
and all my hopes fail
but, I will stay on freedom’s trail.
The climb ahead
becomes more rugged.
And I become stronger
the longer
I climb.
And I,
And I,
and I
will always go up
where skies are blue,
to reach others
willing to climb
up
from the other side.
This I promise myself
and I promise you.
AVOIDANCE
All I want
is to avoid
my own thoughts
lately clothed in fear
so pronounced
they bring me to tears.
It finally must be said
anger fades to grief
when death brazenly nears.
Watching a beloved die,
clutching the hand,
wiping the brow,
for perhaps the last time
applies to nations.
I watch my beloved country
whose solemn vow
has always been protect and defend
all those living within
the boundaries of an idea in place
to open freedom’s gates
to all equally, within its small space.
I hold my nation’s heart and soul
with trembling hands
and shortened breath.
In painful realization
that so many countrymen
in this amazing nation
fear not, nor mourn with me
the loss of our democracy.
Friends and family alike
smirk and snarl in true delight
the unleashed dogs of fear and fright
which rip apart all we have built
without a trace of grief nor guilt.
They break my heart
as they tear our world apart.
FUTURE WAITS
Future refuses to talk.
She holds her cards close.
No expression crosses her face.
Her fierce calm holds us in place.
We gamble our fortunes, our lives,
within her unfathomable space.
Withholding breath we wait
to discover our curious fate.
“Play the cards you have,”
she says,“before it is too late.”
The game here now will last until
each card has been played.
Holding onto cards
means new presents are delayed.
The young know this better
than their elders do.
The young play with greater abandon,
unconscious of the heavy stakes
that keep my eyes open all night through,
awake, until light from a new day
through the closed blinds seeps through.
A new day.
A new game.
Time to play.
Future cuts the cards.
No time to waste.
Vote!
Filed under POETRY
WRITING
“Start writing” the app says.
So easy is it to reveal
The secret places in the heart,
The solemn vaults in the mind,
The wounded spaces in the body?
Think that is not a really big deal?
Hiding from self seems the norm.
For a very good reason
From the day we are born.
First we must grow into one we know
Can protect and defend
The one we hide deep below.
What risk writers take to open wide
A self hidden and safeguarded inside.
Risk is too small a word for the task
Of showing self vulnerable, anxious, naked at last;
seeking connection inside you, with words that will last.
Filed under POETRY
GIVE US AIR !
Vice-President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz
August flopped heavily
Sweatily
Vociferously
and fully aware of the pressure
building in the heated
air.
Little relief in scattered
rains that shattered
a populace already battered
by heated rhetoric
over the curtained waves of
air.
Two-thousand twenty-five
reasons to despair
the planned assault on our care
of one another and a planet
dumb-soaked without a care for
air.
August is hard to breathe in,
in and out, and in again;
cheering on Harris-Walz
awaiting the slightest breeze of
air.
I can breathe again.
We can breathe again.
The earth can breathe again.
Finally, we can move forward again.
In November we can vote in cooled
air.
WAKE UP THE YOUNG
The older I get
the harder it becomes to
carry heavy hearts.
Young hearts are heavy
these days of heatwaves, flooding
and fires of war.
My own heart has slowed,
unable to speed or race,
beating a steady pace.
The young run shouting,
fueled by alcohol and fun,
circling around me.
I try to tell them,
straighten your path toward the goal,
a race to be won.
I shout from the sidelines
loss of freedom is gaining
on you, as you play.
Age carries no weight.
My words tossed away as trash,
as victory fades fast.
Woke becomes useless
for the young who sleep too late.
Please, now, come awake!
Goodness and Mercy
Goodness and Mercy
follow me every day,.
Their footfalls softly fall
As I make my way.
As darkness drops ahead
they lift their torches
to light my way,
comforting through nights
that threaten
To never go away.
I hear their voices
in children at play.
I feel their touch in hugs
from friends keeping loneliness at bay.
I share their laughs and smiles
with strangers on my way.
I am carried in their arms
by those who lift my fears away.
I accrue my many debts
but it is they who pay.
They carry me toward my fate
when I would wearily delay.
And, when it seems useless,
they remind me to pray:
“Thank you, Goodness and Mercy
for following me all my days.“
Filed under POETRY
KEEP ON ROLLING
Life is a circle
which rolls back along itself
in never-ending movement,
its motion so slow
we cannot see where it goes.
But going forward it is.
It reaches goals a mile a minute,
gaining speed on downward slopes.
Only then do we notice
the movement at all.
We roll with the punches
over new terrain,
fearing any moment we may fall.
But the circle keeps on rolling,
circling from beginning to end
then back again, moving forward
all the while, where wheels
are allowed to move freely.
There are those whose lack
of courage and curiosity
try to put on the brakes
and stop life’s relentless spin
into the future we cannot see,
looking backward as the wheel
spins forward over and over again.
Their fear grows with each
forward motion
drowning in an ocean
of doubt and uncertainty.
They confuse beginnings with ends.
It is difficult to see
when so small we all be.
we look right and we look left;
too small to see
a wheel as large as infinity.
But never doubt, my friends.
We keep on rolling, rolling, rolling
moving forward over and over again.
Our progressive movement
is not a fall,
from grace;
we are always in
the best place;
This time is simply
a new start after all.
We shall come through
as we always do
to new places
with new faces
new beginnings
that never end
but circle on,
and on again.
annarino writes 
MERRY CHRISTMAS 2024
Hope is the deep breath needed to sing Carols
heralding Jesus’ birth.
Hope is the breath first breathed into all living things.
Hope is the breath that softens
the hard contours of defended hearts.
Hope is the breath that soothes
the rough edges of fearful minds.
Hope is the breath that animates
the graceful move to gift our very selves.
Hope is the breath that lifts
the blindness of hateful eyes heavenward.
Hope is the breath that challenges
the world to dream of peaceful, new beginnings.
Hope is the breath that stores
the strength needed for moments when courage is needed.
Hope is the breath that brightens and enlightens
the darkness within each breathless soul.
Christmas is a time for deep breaths filled
with hope to face another moment, day, month, year.
Keep breathing is all that is required to fill
the world with Hope.
Each breath keeps Hope alive.
Merry Christmas with every breath taken
deeper in every way, every day
during the Jubilee Year of Hope.
Leave a comment
Filed under COMMENTARY, POETRY
Tagged as breathe, christmas, courage, deep breathing, faith, good vs. evil, hope, Jubilee Year of Hope, opposition, poetry, Pope Francis, UNITY, war and peace