I cursed at the bee -- as if unfairly stung --
With the taste of its honey still thick on my tongue.
Oh sweet poison: Hypocrisy. I can’t get my fill of you.
For it’s harder to do what I say I should
Than it is to say what I should do.
7/22/16
Entered in: Bite Size no.149 Poetry Contest
A philosopher once complained
that the stars refused to answer questions.
For forty years he interrogated the heavens.
What is justice?
What survives death?
Why beauty?
Why suffering?
The stars responded only with light.
At last, old and exhausted,
he climbed a hill one winter evening
and asked no question at all.
The sky unfolded above him
in magnificent indifference.
A silence vast enough
to contain every mystery.
There, finally, he understood:
the stars had been answering all along.
Not with explanations.
With presence.
For some truths cannot be spoken,
only witnessed.
And perhaps wisdom begins
when certainty ends,
when one learns to stand beneath eternity
without demanding that eternity become small.
Tasks, by their very nature
are often painful to perform.
Polysyllabic pedantry exacerbates undertakings unnecessarily.
Strict contest-runners rate your
adherence to the stipulated norm.
Would Robert Frost perform feats
of wordplay? Or leave forsaken
such boring chores? I airily
dare opine this, for Keats,
is the road not taken.
Like rednecks have their gun,
and German shepherds have muzzles,
one posits, all too warily,
that poets need their fun:
like doing harmless crossword puzzles.
The grandmother speaks to her granddaughter:
When I was a girl the best advice from a loving parent concerning,
A suitable mate for their daughter,
Was 'find someone your own age',
Don't fall for someone twenty years your senior,
Now, well, if he is in good health, young at heart with a good sense of humor,
I say don't write him off,
When there are so many young ones who will never reach fifty.
And then there are the other ones who are just plain full of it,
With their only interest in life being, themselves.,
And the attitude that the world owes them a living because they are entitled.
If you love him bring him to your granny,
I have plenty of wood that needs chopping,
And fences to mend,
There is a dance on Saturday too,
And if he can make your Granny laugh,
He just might be good enough for you.
No matter how much time you have to help others,
No matter how many resources you have to help others,
No matter how many favors you call in to help others,
No matter how many ideas you can come up with to help others,
There is a harsh lesson we must all learn about others,
It is not often you can save them from themselves.
Not even if you are their Mothers or Fathers.
So, if you have done all of the above for others,
And they still are hiding under the covers,
There is nothing more to be done about the others,
No matter how much it bothers.
If God is able and willing to prevent evil,
Then why doesn’t He always prevent it?
If God is able, but unwilling, to prevent evil,
Then doesn’t that make Him complicit to it?
If God is willing, but unable, to prevent evil,
Then why claim that He is omnipotent?
If God is not willing or able to do good or prevent evil,
Then, why do people claim He is relevant?
If God is just a voyeur to Man’s good and evil,
Then why claim His motives are benevolent?
If, as you claim, God seems to exist,
Then why do these questions seem to persist?
As the Cup Runneth Over
thirst
dire, immediate
pleading, despairing, compelling
newborns, world, pneuma, rivers
living, assuaging, redeeming
quenched, blessed
wellspring
(c) sally young eslinger 11/8/2023
Concerning Our Shadow
Written: by Miracle Man
1/13/2004
The memory of a person is predicated upon,
the length of shadow that was cast on earth.
Some, shadows remain long after departure,
while other’s seem to scurry into the grave.
By many aliases they're known:
Crawfish, crawdads, mudbugs, yabbies.
They abound in brooks, and streams, and swamps,
As well as roadside ditches and rice paddies.
Their astacology has shown
They prey like scavengers and mobsters,
While some, more taxonomically aloof,
Try hard to pass as mountain lobsters.
Throughout the world as food they're meant,
Both from the wild and from the grocer,
But not as a substitute for meat at Lent
Because they're not considered kosher.
And so the cunning, craven crayfish,
The ones that didn't get away,
End up in boils, or bisques, or soups,
If not served up as étouffés
In swanky overpriced cafés.
There’s Who I am, What I’ve done,
And Where I want to be.
And how I choose to view them each
Sets their priority.
Just saying this is Who I am
Excusing What I’ve done
Means Where I want to be remains
The place where I’ve begun
But if I say that What I’ve done
shapes Who I am complete
Then Where I want to be becomes
A goal I cannot meet
Yet knowing Where I want to be
Without the other two
Will leave me lost and wandering
In deserts I’ve gone through
Let What I’ve done be marker stones
On pathways within me
That guide me up from Who I am
To Where I want to be
10/16/22
ER: Enlightenment Recovery Poetry Contest
How big are we in the scheme of the universe?
Actually, less than one letter in a 1,000-page novel,
A concept about which I find hard to converse
Confining thoughts mostly to my private journal.
Frankly, the theme beleaguers our ideas of prayer,
And how can such a microscopic being relate to God
Questions whether S/He is, indeed, here or there!
Somewhere in space or here on the earth’s sod.
I believe that God resides in every person’s soul
Or, as we euphemistically say, …in our hearts,
When we grasp this concept, we become whole
Within ourselves, I believe, God-dialogue starts.
Prayer rises from within our thought-processes
Utterings from the innermost parts of our being,
Cries out, in traumatic times, from deep recesses
Releasing our supplications is incredibly freeing.
Does God hear these zillions of individual prayers,
And does God respond to each prayers’ needs?
Only, I believe, if S/he lives within the pray-ers,
With little regard for individual beliefs or creeds.
Written August 19, 2022
Skiing on a cup of java
the little ant got burned
Limping out to lick his wounds
he decided to return
Once again the ant was scalded
yet he seemed quite unconcerned
I guess that ants are just not programmed
for this lesson to be learned
This one preparing
to nowhere
here it is standing still
or slowly galloping
a horse for horse's sake?
When winter
did come I will check
the horizon weather
to see if tomorrow
this love beats
I will keep the
memory of its receptions
the following years.
Here tonight
our love is
blind, isn't it?.
Good nightmares
rating high
in rainbow.
Of dreams, each
of a smile
in purple.
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