When words hurt the head and images are enough to tax the most tenacious of souls, nothing but a light touch will heal.
A woman struggles to keep her precious baby from drowning in the ocean; they are called refugees, unknown families in a watery cavern of desperation- flashes upon the news.
In the womb of some state somewhere another mother insanely submerges her two little boys only to drown and die alone-thrashing bubbles of confusion.
A vengeful maniac unloads bullets into an officer at a gas station and we must swallow the vitriol from yet another shooting death. No matter anymore, what race, what skin, what blood type. What significance is the eye color, or nationality; the ideology of a revolving door of hopes and dreams of a multitude.
The identification marks of a human being beat inside a mother’s heart.
I pull old sheets and towels from the shelves in the closet, an attempt to make sense of my own life, to clear and clean as if my motions might help someone somewhere. The scraps of cloth bagged near the unused sewing machine remind me of what I have not done.
In a pasture down the road a pony whinnies at the scent of fresh hay and apples.
The words sometimes hurt my head in the midst of day.
Images are enough.
Our world seems to be becoming an increasingly disturbed place. Why are so many throwing these poison darts at us ?
Hi Carl, good to see you. What a crazy world lately. It is my hope that people can work peacefully together, as idealistic as it may sound.
It is good to read the horror of what is happening to the earth’s people put into a question for which there is no simple answer – if there is an answer at all. That’s where I am on the subject. I like the simplicity of your task of sorting old sheets and hearing the pony’s whinney. This reminds me of one of my favorite lines of poetry. It is in Auden’s A Christmas Oratorio (I think). Speaking of the days after Christmas the line says “I know the kitchen table exists because I scrub it.”
Yes, Viva! Daily chores seem to be the best grounding and centering tools. Will look for the Auden piece. He was one of my mother’s favorites ❤
The whole name of the Auden piece is For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio. I Googled it. There is much more to the poem than the line I mentioned. I’m impressed all over again at the meaning I find in Auden’s words.
Yes, am enjoying it! ❤