Windows Toward the World

Maybe Americans are ready for a change. Maybe hope is alive. Maybe the election will precede our nation’s coming of age. So many questions fill my mind.

**

“With Mr Obama already turning the focus of his campaign on Mr McCain, Republicans are facing up to the highest disapproval ratings for a president, George W Bush, in living memory and a recent poll in which 80 per cent said the country was heading in the wrong direction.”

from an article entitled, “Republicans fear john McCain defeat against Barack Obama“

Maybe McCain will be seen for what he is: more of the same.

**

And what’s more America is starting to realize Republican’s don’t have a corner on faith. A number of Americans are both Christians (or practicing members of another faith) and Democrats. Many of us see how we treat others as a part of our faith, not something divorced from it.

**

Lifting the Cup by Henri Nouwen

“When we hold firm our cups of life, fully acknowledging their sorrows and joys, we will also be able to lift our cups in human solidarity. Lifting our cups means that we are not ashamed of what we are living, and this gesture encourages others to befriend their truths as we are trying to befriend ours. By lifting up our cups and saying to each other, “To life” or “To your health,” we proclaim that we are willing to look truthfully at our lives together. Thus, we can become a community of people encouraging one another to fully drink the cups that have been given to us in the conviction that they will lead us to true fulfillment.”

Emphasis mine

**

I’m telling it like it is.  America needs a change.

I see Grace in the upper right hand
corner, which may be under water.

Under glass or Plexiglas. Maybe
ice. Bubbles around her face, hair

the fuchsia of flowers. Pictorial
division is vertical, in front of

which, the shadows become
the women whose arms are

the branches of trees—mirrored,
stretched, stretching, reflected.

Certainly raised up over their heads.
This place is “a pressure cooker.”

Precisely. But some of the trees
have green leaves. Which is

believable both on earth and in
a world held together by string.

inspired by “Grace Under Pressure” on Miki’s blog

The Powder Box

for Elsie R. Jones

As a child, I loved cleaning day, my mother
taking her special things from the top of her dresser
and placing them gently on the bed. She let Pam,
Michael, and me look at them, touch them.
We promised to be careful, while she worked her
soft dust cloth, and usually were. Among the items
was the Powder Box that’s in the bathroom now—

the one at the back of the house near the kitchen,
near the drawer where Grover Pinky slept,
when it was too cold to keep him in the hatch,
near the place where the low table held Jergins lotion
to keep our mother’s soft hands soft. The box is not gold,
though it seems so to me. Perhaps, it’s ivory—or stone.
I saw a match book inside, when last I lifted its lid.

Shortly after our parents married in Swindon,
Mummy’s home town in green and southern England,
Daddy, who was then a soldier, was sent to Belgium,
then shipped back home to Joplin. Mum followed,
taking the Queen Mary and a train ride from New York.
I digress here into the drama of an oral history,
(for I was not yet born). It seems

another American soldier, who was going home
before Daddy, offered him the box, which Daddy took,
thinking his young wife would like it. The box had
had a lid, but the soldier dropped it, when
full arms would hold no more. And still, he had
presence of mind to describe his walking route,

in the off-chance that his comrade might find
the lost piece like Daddy did, and pluck it—

retrieve it, from a foreign storm-gutter.

first published in The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature

A Vote for Hillary is a chance to make history.

Get your Mr. First Lady Talking Doll &  help “Homesick Bill” kick Republican a$$!

A woman lies naked,
bronzed and cold—nipples taut—
thinks, “Love in the Mountains.”

No explanation reaches toward her
head, and what she calls love is
nothing or conquest that flies in

the wind. Certainly turquoise is
among flowers & royal & purple &
rust.  Eyelashes guide warrior-wings,

puffs of thunder. She sees everything
but the absent chariot & what Zeus is
swinging, way to low.

Inspired by Miki’s painting, “Love In the Mountains“

Better With Friends
—for Paul

Yesterday three friends sat in folding chairs in front of their cars,
waiting for trains.

So naturally this morning, as the fog bears down once again
on the tree line at the back of the yard,

I’m seeking—in prayer—that perfect phrase,
as if memory weren’t powerful enough for the capture.

A few evergreens, rhododendron for hope,
grow on the side of a hill with the orange of the berries of the holly.

The train sounded its whistle,
while dark diesel-smoke rose, drifting above the blue Conrail,

starting where a road crosses the track and a sign says Dendron,
smoke blowing back toward the east, darkening,

for a moment, a small part of the sky. We watched the engineer wave,
as—even in January—we came prepared with blankets for our legs:

Our radios talked and cameras clicked. The train chugged up the Blue Ridge,
the mountain leaf-brown, washed-out, and winter-lovely.

first published in Southern Hum Appalachian Issue

The iron seat, though painted white,
would stain our clothes with rust,

and the embarrassment of golden mud
causes a certain hesitancy.

We look at flowers,
sniff the ocean breeze,
dip our toes into pollen-
coated streams.

Alone with desire. Flanked by azaleas.

We lie in sweetly-scented springtime
down beneath the magnolia
by invitation of the grass.

first published in Independence Boulevard

Often we think that we do not know enough to be able to teach others. We might even become hesitant to tell others what we know, out of fear that we won’t have anything left to say when we are asked for more.

This mind-set makes us anxious, secretive, possessive, and self-conscious. But when we have the courage to share generously with others all that we know, whenever they ask for it, we soon discover that we know a lot more than we thought. It is only by giving generously from the well of our knowledge that we discover how deep that well is.

Some say, “An ocean storm is
rougher at night.” Some see land
in the horizon and a closer place,

where waves lap the shore. Others
see dark clouds, sailboats on water.
And some, viewing a circle of

bending worshippers, believe
the bugs behind the inner ring might
worship, too. Some say, “The kneeling

rocks can sing. The sky is too blue
to believe. And who’s to know what’s
behind the pink? The moon is

a magnet—the moon who has a smaller
sister.” And yes, upon looking closer,
some say, “She has two.” Some say,

“The queen is calling”—the queen
being a metaphor for anything one
can imagine or dream.

.
Inspired by the picture, “Queen’s Call,” on Miki’s blog

“The opposite of a scarcity mentality is an abundancy mentality. With an abundancy mentality we say: “There is enough for everyone, more than enough: food, knowledge, love … everything.” With this mind-set we give away whatever we have, to whomever we meet. When we see hungry people we give them food. When we meet ignorant people we share our knowledge; when we encounter people in need of love, we offer them friendship and affection and hospitality and introduce them to our family and friends.

When we live with this mind-set, we will see the miracle that what we give away multiplies: food, knowledge, love … everything. There will even be many leftovers.”

Emphasis mine.

**

With this mind-set, we can afford to be liberal. We can see that, if we cooperate, God will provide for all.