Idée d’jour

The truth isn't always beauty, but the hunger for it is.
– Nadine Gordimer

Reliquary

I am a reliquary for my ancestors:
I carry their sacred bones
in my silken heart.

For their part, they embrace my soul
and carry it through the paths of eternity.

Today, as I eat my lunch,
I feel carried by Mom-mom.
I can taste Jello chocolate pudding
With a dollop of milk on top.

Later –

She blesses me when I meet
another grandmother
Enjoying the afternoon
with another blonde grandchild.

Elegy: for my brother

I

Born under the judgment
of an angry goddess
and her 5 o’clock hand

Born to suburban streets
you came of age
In hill & meadow

Born to darkness
born to light
before you knew your Name

II

His spirit was formed
before the dragons were born,
so he embraced the flame

I light this candle
in memory of my brother,
one year gone

I hear his voice
born of an owl’s wisdom,
echo from green rice fields

I light this candle
in his memory
for he hungered for justice

He loved justice
He lived mercy
He walked with integrity

I hear his voice
echo through the foothills
as I light this fire

I light this fire in this circle,
for my brother
now one year gone

His flame is not lost
it lingers in eternity
soaring on the updrafts

I hear his voice
I seek his justice, his
mercy, and his passion

He embraced the flame  

IV

The lost little boy face in the mirror
Does not belong to my brother or my father

Those eyes are my father’s,
The tilt of my head my brother’s

That cracked grin is mine alone.

When I sing, I hear my father’s voice
When I teach, I hear my brother’s voice

When a dark voice condemns me
it is my mother speaking

I built this poem from my memories
what’s left are the stories I’ve been told

The true fictions that build a life
The ghosts that make a lifetime

And I carry these ghosts
in an old knapsack

I bought at the Army-Navy store
These old bones these old voices

This face in the mirror,
this face I carry before me

With my father’s integrity
and my brother’s courage  

V

Your spirit soars
On hawk’s wings
above the Texas foothills

Your eternal vision
Hitch-hiking the updrafts
Seeing

Beyond the thin places
To where brothers embrace
Once again  

Work in progress

Ideé d’jour

I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn:
Those to who evil is done
Do evil in return.
— W.H. Auden

Ideé d’jour

The trade of governing has always been monopolized by the most ignorant and the most rascally individuals of mankind.
– Thomas Paine

Idée d’jour

There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."
– Isaac Asimov

Idée d’jour

Through others, we become ourselves.
– Lev Vygotsky, psychologist (17 Nov 1896-1934)

Idée d’jour

We have probed the earth, excavated it, burned it, ripped things from it, buried things in it, chopped down its forests, leveled its hills, muddied its waters, and dirtied its air. That does not fit my definition of a good tenant. If we were here on a month-to-month basis, we would have been evicted long ago.
– Rose Bird, Chief Justice of California Supreme Court

I think Brother Dave would have agreed with this.

Idée d’jour

The only thing one can give an artist is leisure in which to work. To give an artist leisure is actually to take part in his creation.
– Ezra Pound

Idée d’jour

The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feet.
— J. Robert Oppenheimer

Idée d’jour

A profound unmitigated loneliness is the only truth of life.
-R.K. Narayan [via Word-a-Day)

Idée d’jour

Music is a means of rapid transportation.
— John Cage

Idée d’jour

What greater gift than the love of a cat?
– Charles Dickens

Idée d’jour

Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race.
– H.G. Wells (via Word.a.Day)

How to make a hurricane

Not with your lifestyle;
Not with your hairstyle;
Not with who you love
nor even with who you hate.
Not with your worship
or lack of worship of nobodaddy.
Not with your wife or husband
or lack of mate.

Just take some warm water,
some strong winds, and add
some flat terrain.

Idée d’jour

I am patient with stupidity but not with those who are proud of it.
– Edith Sitwell, poet (7 Sep 1887-1964)

Eclipse

Eclipse clipped crescents into the leaves
Wind rippled across the sidewalk

Idée d’jour

Sometimes I think I'm diagonally parked in a parallel universe.
– Diana Britt

Resentment

Why is it so hard to let go of a resentment?

One of Padre's less attractive traits was a tendency to hold a grudge.  I remember he was upset by Sears and decided to boycott them.  I never did learn what the underlying issue was, but he boycotted that store until his death.

I have the same tendency.  "Holding a grudge" is another way of saying "Holding on to a resentment."

I suppose it to be a form of pride. It's a way of saying I'm right, and everyone else is wrong.  And no evidence to the contrary will dissuade me. Which means, I suppose, that I'm a typical specimen of the human race.

Another way saying this, of course, is to say that I find it hard to forgive.  And, in a fit application of spiritual algebra, I find it challenging to forgive myself those times when I fall short or make a mistake.

It's easier, now that I'm in the elder years, to forgive.  But that lack of forgiveness is a hard habit to break.  I still backslide into lonely self-righteousness.

Sometimes, on a good day, I can laugh at myself. That's the best cure for self-righteousness.  Sometimes, when I make a mistake – one I've made many times before – I can say “There you go again” (helps if I hear Ronnie Raygun's voice).

Sometimes, when someone has wounded me, I can see things through their eyes.  Strive to see the situation from the most charitable point of view possible.

Sometimes, on a good day, that works.

Right now, today, I find I'm still clinging to the ghost of a resentment.  I hope that time will cause that ghost to fade – though, like the ghosts in a Henry James story – time tends to strengthen the hold of this particular resentful ghost.

I keep coming back to a basic notion, one that seems naive on the surface, but still is probably best for my mental and spiritual health: Everyone is doing the best they can with the tools they have.

The person who offended me is doing the best s/he can.  Her motives were well-intentioned.  I'm doing the best I can to forgive.

Idée d’jour

It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends.
– J.K. Rowling