Tag Archives: smiles

KEEP LAUGHING

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Earth is laughing so hard 

she is holding her sides.

Her laughter has not died.

She holds it inside.

Too often, there is not a smile to be seen.

Comedians and laughter are under attack; 

sad attempt to kill laughter, it is true.

But, let me tell you

I awake every day with a smile on my face

and my mind full of plans and laughter as I cope;

planning strategies to keep us all woke

enough to strategize and energize

enough to keep Earth and our freedom alive.

I smile when I find new ways

to resist, persist and overcome

those who strive so hard to make us glum.

Where they see threat, I see possibility.

Where they feel fear, I feel connected community.

When they shout their pain, I shout my glee.

Earth trembles to keep her laughter inside

at the foolish ego-maniacal MAGA leaders’ pride.

Earth continues to teach us her lessons

with a smile on her face from sunrise to sunset.

Giving us the means to keep us alive, and all our needs met.

Balance and connection are what we need

to continue on the path to wealth without greed.

Intersected boundaries are what we need

to continue on the path to true peace.

This is Earth’s greatest gift: her instinctive ability

to make us laugh as we grow in humility,

knowing we cannot berate nor control

Earth’s power to grow, to heal and renew

the damage men and women unintentionally do.

I laugh aloud with Earth today.

Our guffaws and chuckles thrown out wide.

Come laugh with us, then; and hold your heaving sides.

Try to unbend and dry your eyes so you can see.

That laughter has not died, nor ever must.

Constant negativity has nowhere to go

except “dust to dust” buried below,

in the space laughter has made deep within Earth.

And once this doom and gloom comes to an end

the entire world united in mirth 

shall laugh once again.

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Filed under POETRY, POLITICS

HOMELESS SMILES

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I had only eight one-dollar bills in my purse that day.

The too-battered man standing at roadside a few feet away

caught my attention with his too-battered sign held 

close to his chest, on crudely-cut cardboard dirtied 

like him, over time; both dusted clear of all grime.

“Smile today” was the message he carried so closely.

A message so needed, so welcomed, so worthy.

Crossing over a lane to reach his side, traffic waiting

for the light to change, let me and my car, squeeze by.

I passed the dollar bills to an outstretched hand.

Then, the grey-haired man in need of a cut, 

leaned in to say “Thank you. God bless you.Have a nice day.”

The phrase a common lingo in the homeless way.

His eyes were lit from inside and he smiled, not trying to hide

his humanity, his sanity, his grace so sublime.

I smiled back and told him that I loved his sign.

Pulling out a second sign he had hidden behind the first,

I read the line, “Always Smile” and felt his thirst

to be seen and recognized and able to offer something to me.

Tearfully smiling in a moment of grace 

I thanked him the gift he had given to me,

a smile I had unknowingly needed desperately,

the “greatest gift I had received in very long time.”

a thousands suns lit his eyes and opened mine.

Homeless people need to help others as much as you and I.

They may not have shelter, nor food, nor rest;

yet, they still continue to give their best.

They watch us hungrily as we drive by on the road

They hunger not only for what we can give.

They hunger for what they can give to us.

It unburdens their load.

We are in this world together, one smile at a time.

A message of love from one man, alone by the road.

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Filed under POETRY