Ponderings

A Prayer for Belfast

Poetry, Ponderings, Travel

because this is the night the bonfires are lit,
three stories tall.
And sometimes bombs go off.
Pipe bombs, parades, and peace, mostly.
We hope.

The Troubles are over in Northern Ireland, but this week tends to be a bit troublesome. Troubled. The Twelfth.

A holiday for some. On holiday are others. The history runs deep. And the hurt.

I wrote this last summer in the shadow of the wall, where my heart wept:

One wall
Two stories
Two countries
One wall
Two memories
Two passions
Too tall
Two enclaves
Two hard hearts
One wall
Too much pain
Too much to change
How does one navigate a wall?
Two murals
Two memorials
One wall
Too many dead
Too much blood shed
For what?
A wall that holds the peace
but holds them back,
That breeds a lie
and fears attack.
The roads split because to walk from here to there
is to cross a wall that must not be crossed.
Because they live there
and we live here.
That’s just how it is
in the shadow of fear.
And you never talk to those people so near
because they have their banner
and you have yours.
In city center you might meet,
but at home you lock the doors
and mark your street,
and retreat behind the wall
because that’s just how it’s done.
As kids we grew up with our heroes
and our flags
And we threw stones, it was fun.
So now we have a wall.
It’s safer.
That’s just how it’s done.


Shankill Road

Rock, Paper, Scissors

Ponderings

Words can cut you up and bleed you out.

They can break the windows of your heart, your hopes.

Sharp words. Strong words.

But paper can knock a body over, land your heart on its face, brimful.

Soft words, kind words, unexpected. They’re the strongest.

You know, we’d win a lot more if we threw more paper.

Empire: sweet melancholy, wistful glad.

Music, Ponderings

There’s a hello in this goodbye. Or is it the other way ’round?
Hope, love, and sorrow tangled up in a knot of words.
 
Happy songs sung sad do something special. So do sad songs sung happy.
Words and music pulling the perfect tension.
Some progress from sad to happy; others from happy to sad; some go there and back again.
Then there’s the songs where lyrics and sounds skate back and forth.
Between sweet melancholy and wistful glad.
Tears and triumph.

Happy or sad, this one? I can’t tell.
What’s the mood?
What’s the secret?
Maybe it sounds different on different days.
Maybe it’s both.
 
“Empire,” by Philip Dunne.

Have a listen. What do you hear?

Hope, continued.

Outdoors, Ponderings

Today he frolics,
and my heart.
Strength arising.
Living, playing, growing.
Mama’s close by.

Sure, I see the danger out there, 
and too close for comfort.
They could break his bones;
it could break my heart.

But, maybe, like glow sticks,
we’re brighter when broken.
Meant to be that way, when the night comes.

Maybe this is all a mosaic–beauty from shards.
Maybe that’s why I hope.

Or maybe it’s because I write stories. Because I know things have to go wrong
for everything to turn out right.

I don’t know why it is that way. But, somehow, it is.

Things start off good. Better only comes after worse.
Best only comes when it’s all done.
And it’s not done, yet.

So I hope.

From a Bench in Brenham

Outdoors, Poetry, Ponderings

The frontier is in the air today.
I’m out exploring.
A country drive took me here.
But then, I can’t leave home without a country drive.
Sometimes it still amazes me that I get to live in such a beautiful place,
the quiet of a country lane.
It’s not where I grew up.
But then, it is, I suppose.
In a way. A lot of ways.
I glance down at my “Made in Mexico” cowgirl boots.
I brush aside a windswept strand of hair–
rusty-raven like I could have been a San Antonio señorita.
I think about cisterns and cattle auctions.
The buildings facing me still have false fronts.
1887 is branded on the peak of one.
Below it, I can’t take my eyes off
the prettiest shade of blue I’ve seen all day.
Better than denim and bluebonnets
and the Texas sky in April.
It looks like promise.
Blue like water.
Life, on the prairie.
Almost like the ceiling of an old Southern front porch.
Blue like “let’s put down roots.”
A spring, a hope.
Bluer than eastern ocean, bluer than western sky.
It’s the blue of a frontier lullaby,
the blue of dreams a mile high.
Dreams you chase down with a covered wagon and an axe.
It’s an unseen destination.
A journey yet uncharted.
It’s an eastern girl realizing she might just be a western girl.
And she’s not sure how it happened,
only that it’s who she is. Somehow.
Whatever that means–a western girl.
She feels it–a happy kind of blue.
The pioneers who look back never make it.
The ones who paved the west weren’t born westerners.
It’s who you become.
Life out here, it’s still a little bit younger and wilder and freer.
A happy kind of blue.

When Lettuce Dances

Outdoors, Poetry, Ponderings

Lettuce didn’t have to be beautiful.

It didn’t have to poke up from the earth

curled at the edges like a flamenco dancer’s skirt.

 

Did you ever wonder how something brilliant green

emerges from water, sunshine, and dirt?

 

Have you ever contemplated the volume

of detail packaged in a single, insignificant seed?

Instructions for a showy leaf in that mysterious purple-green–

curly and elegant enough for white tablecloths and bowties,

or one flat and peppery–bistro ready.

 

Did you ever wonder?

Ever contemplate a salad?

 

I walked in the garden this morning.

At noon, my fork played with lettuce,

and I gave thanks.

Truly gave thanks.

It didn’t have to be beautiful,

but it is.