The New Civil War
I remember when valour was a virtue
When silence wasn't seductive
But I was born in another time,
When openness was my heart, When I held onto love for dear life,
I was a wandering troubadour on fire,
Oh, sing with me for those days!
As we sit and ponder with our pasts before us,
Do you and me despair at our havoc hours?
The rancor by words, bullets on fire,
Some cry "Hallelujah!"
Others "let slip the dogs of war"
We are all so far from home
We were all born in another time, not so long ago
Now there is a wickedness of many in their walk--
like soldiers in a new Civil War, on the march with the certitude of ancient hate, a present duty in the fight for ancestors "blood and soil"
You and me must not despair of these havoc hours!!
I ask you to find home
I ask you to love the day, and sleep easy at night
Together we can cry "Hallelujah" in peaceful verse
We can tame the "dogs of war"
Together we can find sanctuary and revive "the fierce urgency of now"
Yes, there is no time to wait...we have long bridges to cross and cool water to drink from a deep well

Honey, Do I Look Fat in This!!!

Street Preacher--Pray for Me

The Modern Man--Shrunken, Diminished, Soulless---alone.

The Same
In the middle of a dream I walked to an old woman who cried flower petals as tears.
I asked why she was so eternally sad?
She said her life was shuttered by the loss of her child.
Of how a young boy was taken at night by the spirit of the lake.

Oh, no, no, no...oh, no, no... I spoke to my sleep
Oh, no, no, no...oh, no, no...please, I want to be awake

I awoke, awash in flower petals across my face.
I called my mother and said I was OK.
She said it was 2a.m. and she had the strangest dream...she wept on the phone, and I did the same. Then I learned of a brother I never knew...and how he too was taken by the spirit of the lake.

Walt Whitman

Under a red autumn sky I saw my reflection in a river named after a mystic and for the first time I reveled in the mystery that was me. I felt its icy reverence and affirmed its coldness. This worship. This joy. For fifty years I lived as a human puzzle. My mortal self always anxious as I pushed away what I should have  known. On this day I learned soon I would die. Perhaps it would be in ten years, or twenty years, or thirty years or more. But soon my passing would come as it does to us all. Like a lion with a grey main...or like the great bird who can no longer soar—I would succumb and draw my final living breath. Their journey was my journey. Their mystic was my mystic. We would now drink from the same river’s shore. And together we would no longer fear. I would celebrate our reflection not with loudness or libation, but with the liberty of the ancient hawk who lastly glides and accepts wings that will beat nevermore. ‘Afoot and light-hearted’ I sang harmony with the mystic and the grey lion. I kept pace and then bowed to the great bird as he floated peacefully under the red shimmer of our welcoming sky.