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Wednesday, January 19, 2011

A Winter Day (written earlier but posted now)


In this season of winter, of quiet landscapes except for squirrels and birds at the feeders, I have a gift.  It is called Time.
            So I read poetry from the collection of books not opened until now.  I listen to the music saved for such an opportunity, soft and reflective.  And I write.

The grief of the tragic shootings in Tucson rises inside and I feel a melancholy sorrow for not only the victims of the deranged man with a deadly gun, but for the times we live in. I do not know this time, the climate of our society.  I don’t recognize the vitriol spewing from radios and television.  I feel a certain guilt for the safety that surrounds me, although it could suddenly be torn apart by unexpected danger. 

We live in our fears.  Some are real, but most are not – simply products of our imaginations, or as in the case of the man in Tucson, the product of madness.

When times such as now confront us with their brutal reality, only the poem can come to our aid by expressing what we cannot otherwise say.  We can speak no longer in prose:

The day brings its light to the world
This world
This world of glory and sadness
Of rejoicing and regrets
Of grace and fear
Of hope and darkness
Now we have no words
No way to offer the sound
Of peace, music of a better time
How dare we offer solace
To those whose grief is unappeased
Yet how dare we not make the attempt
For we are on this small speck
In the unimaginable universe
Together in our vulnerable
And fearful existence
Hold us you out there
Hold us in your strength
That moves undaunted
Into the time we have left