From an Upper Floor

No Lost Causes

A one sided effort does bring results.   Even when it appears to be a lost cause, it is not. That someone cares enough to do what needs to be done is never a lost cause. There cannot ever be a lost effort to do good in the universe.   That would be an oxymoron, a contradiction.   The ability to see this is paramount.   Even when no words are spoken there needs to be someone who cares enough to help expedite matters. If there is not, it is a fruitless life. But should there be caring, there is hope and a chance for life again.

Even those of lesser stuffs, those stuffs are only lesser because of the parameters set by others.   Take the parameters away and there are no limits for good. And that is what good is all about, what gods are all about.   Within the person there are no limits for good. What is life sustaining and life giving wherever the need is, is good.

When we wander through the mental houses of those we care about or are responsible for and find much that we would like to help with and then decide not to, the ‘then not’ means we wash our hands of the matter. To wash one’s hands of the matter is to relegate all to the dung heap. If the one who can do something about anything finds the matter too sticky, the flies will be attracted and the matter will deteriorate and rot. The purpose of keeping on, keeping on means that the people are still worth the effort. As long as a some one cares, there is hope.   Just one to care is needed.    Just one.

And often we are that just one someone.

August 20, 2011

Veronica Hallissey has been writing since the 1960s, with her poetry published in a variety of small press magazines. Born into a farm family in Lockport, NY, and educated at the University of Buffalo and other midwest institutions, she brings and unusual point-of-view to her poetry, combining strong natural images with a deep spiritual language. She lives in Lake Forest, CA.
War No More

In my mind I am still in the midst of the Big War as my generation called it.   I am collecting my belongings, gathering them closely under my long, big black coat and huddling close to vacant buildings. The snow is dirty with footprints and other soot beneath my feet and I long to have it disappear so I will not be so apparent in contrast. Across my head mortar fire pierces the cold night and I stumble. I think I am dead. My possessions are scattered and there is no life without them. They exemplified my personhood and now I am not even an idea.

Again, there is another skirmish, still from another time. A speaker stands among the multitudes and is giving forth an idea to clothe man’s mortality, he says. ‘I give to you Spirit, for without its recognition you continue to think you are nothing.’ My life is just fine I think and my catcalls and railing against him yields only to my spatting at him and running him through the village. I followed him and made his life miserable till we both died.

I stood watching my young son in a high collared uniform one day at smokey tracks as the long train waited for the boys to board.   I stood by impotent with grief as he gazed into the face of his young love who held her upturned face with a hand firm on her straw bonnet. The pain etched in both faces stays with me still.   Too old to battle that war, I battled others.

In triplicate sometimes. A young man waged stop-gap measures in a series of events with eyes that held pain written before this century began to fulfill itself and thought only this life brought insurmountable problems. Others in great numbers have incurred wounds that modern medicine with all its magic cannot even begin to heal. And others whose mail is addressed to places I cannot pronounce leaves no recourse but to worry about the uneasy state of affairs.   But I know war and you know war, too.

But I do not worry unduly.   There are places in my memory box which are unleashed and in dreams I am enmeshed in wars which only the history books have access to.   My age precludes my participation in the earliest skirmishes, we are taught.   But I have the details written in my genes. I have the human interest stories etched on my heart because I was there. And you were, too.   We have fought the enemy and continue to fight him. He is our kin.   He is our brother. He is us. I am he.

August 6, 2011

Veronica Hallissey has been writing since the 1960s, with her poetry published in a variety of small press magazines. Born into a farm family in Lockport, NY, and educated at the University of Buffalo and other midwest institutions, she brings and unusual point-of-view to her poetry, combining strong natural images with a deep spiritual language. She lives in Lake Forest, CA.
Paradigms

        Negotiating earth oceans is not the same as navigating

        universal seas.

        Nature is such that never is a dream dreamed without

        the dreamer being given the ability to make it manifest.

        Dream your dreams for if you do not dream them

        they will go begging.

        The highest framework we can choose is one by

         which the heart is healed.

Find the bread for the day and you will

be able to provide the butter.

In the beginning we were before we are.

Slowly we shake their cocoons

and the butter- flies.

July 27, 2011

Veronica Hallissey has been writing since the 1960s, with her poetry published in a variety of small press magazines. Born into a farm family in Lockport, NY, and educated at the University of Buffalo and other midwest institutions, she brings and unusual point-of-view to her poetry, combining strong natural images with a deep spiritual language. She lives in Lake Forest, CA.
Fine Wine

Fine Wine

   We have bound and gagged the bird

   who would carry the olive branch

   to the heads of state

             guarding vehemently their fragile egos.

             Guarding so that the horrors

             of retaliation would not

             devastate their souls

             for stealing the young sons

             who had no knowledge and no chance.

             Where is the king

             who would avow his peace

             that others would live symbolically

             in love with the dove?

             Now. . . . here is the chance

             and the time where love

             cancels the errors and begs

             unconditionally for forgiveness.

             We've taken what was most cherished

             and crushed to death

             what would have been fine wine.

July 12, 2011

Veronica Hallissey has been writing since the 1960s, with her poetry published in a variety of small press magazines. Born into a farm family in Lockport, NY, and educated at the University of Buffalo and other midwest institutions, she brings and unusual point-of-view to her poetry, combining strong natural images with a deep spiritual language. She lives in Lake Forest, CA.
Even If

            Even If . . . . .

              If you sing this song with me,

then follow the words

    for they are gentle

    and full of meaning.

   They will take you to places

              far from here

              and show you your heart's yearnings

              and help you to understand

              the 'why' that plagues

              your days and nights.

               So sing this song

               even if the words

               are slow in coming

               and even if the melody

               is new and different.

               For in the difference

               you will find a new world

               taking shape

               and in the harmony of it all

               you will find your place.

July 8, 2011

Veronica Hallissey has been writing since the 1960s, with her poetry published in a variety of small press magazines. Born into a farm family in Lockport, NY, and educated at the University of Buffalo and other midwest institutions, she brings and unusual point-of-view to her poetry, combining strong natural images with a deep spiritual language. She lives in Lake Forest, CA.
Our Sacred Source

I heard a grandchild say at a very young age, ‘when mama is happy the whole family is happy.’ I have seen when a family is in turmoil, in sickness, in argument, that nothing goes well.   It is then that the hot water tank springs a leak, the washing machine no longer washes and we are in despair.   We are all out of bread, out of milk and there is no cereal in the cupboards. I have also seen things go right when a family is working in harmony even under adverse conditions; even when illness and tight budgets or even no budget are taken in stride because the parent gods work to make it so.

A young friend says to me that she hates what no sun day after day does to her and is it ever going to stop raining! We give credence to feelings like these.   One day I said to another friend, “how are you treating the world?”    “Don’t you mean how is the world treating me?” he asks.   I assured him I meant what I asked.

It is not a far stretch to see that our Mother Earth reacts the same way. Our Earth reacts to human trauma.   It reacts to human turmoil and human agonies.   There are those who say that earthquakes and tornadoes, hurricanes and other tragedies are parts of Nature and because we have such high tech systems, we learn of them more quickly.   But we are a planet of great numbers now and we live in each other 's pockets.   We no longer have large expanses of lands and waters that can absorb Nature’s hiccups.   A tsunami is not a hiccup anymore when thousands of people are running for their lives while water is washing miles of shorelines and pushing new beaches where beaches never were before. When the Earth splits in two and hundreds are swallowed up in another earthquake while the other side of the world moans in pain as markets are affected, jobs and economies are torn asunder, this tells us all we are part of Nature.   We are as natural to our planet as all other species and events. Thoughts carry power as strong as Nature itself. Thoughts and emotions weigh heavily and will have their aftermath somewhere.   We cannot separate Nature’s events from the emotions that view them.

Nature’s events and our thoughts and emotions rise from the same bed.   Let us respect and pay homage to our Sacred Source.

July 4, 2011

Veronica Hallissey has been writing since the 1960s, with her poetry published in a variety of small press magazines. Born into a farm family in Lockport, NY, and educated at the University of Buffalo and other midwest institutions, she brings and unusual point-of-view to her poetry, combining strong natural images with a deep spiritual language. She lives in Lake Forest, CA.
Because It Is

                                     Because It Is

                                     You cannot dream things that never were

                                     for in a sometime and a somewhere

                                     they've taken place and left their indelible memory

                                     on your mind.

                                     Only to be remembered when a slim shadow

                                     casts its spell across your life

                                     and causes you to bring forth a relic,

                                     a piece of the dream that had its substance

                                     in a far time when love was pocketed

                                     near your heart and brought forth to heal

                                     a wound, to make life complete.

                                     Never to question why or why not.

                                     Simply because it is.

June 30, 2011

Veronica Hallissey has been writing since the 1960s, with her poetry published in a variety of small press magazines. Born into a farm family in Lockport, NY, and educated at the University of Buffalo and other midwest institutions, she brings and unusual point-of-view to her poetry, combining strong natural images with a deep spiritual language. She lives in Lake Forest, CA.
Forever Is A Long Time

Premises are the foundation upon which we construct our systems of belief. There are those of us who come replete with boundaries signifying right and wrong and what is kosher and what is not.   Then there are those who come in with wings attached it seems.   And then there are the ones who have nothing in their carpet bags when arriving and are expected to fly by the seat of their pants. Complaints are profuse from the ones who chafe with rules and then the ones with nothing don’t know where to look for guidance since even the ordained are not exactly clear on boundaries.

But here is the kicker.   What I have as a perceptual premise is what my understanding and experience have integrated. What I must do is apply this principle to everyone because they may have their gods as their mentors in a belief system maybe far removed from what I hold true. Our lives are a testimony to what we believe is our world with a system that serves us. In a world where there is space for everything we consider to be sacred, ethical, and decent, there can be peace and civility if we all adhere to the highest and best within each system.

Of course there are those who would negate our freedom to live and worship. The results we are all too familiar with. We do what our belief systems deem the highest and best to repair and heal the ravaged wounds those beliefs incur. What we need to do is live our truth as the example others would want to adopt. We must think it through. And think it through again.   And again.

Forever is a long time to keep picking up our mistakes because they bear our names.

June 26, 2011

Veronica Hallissey has been writing since the 1960s, with her poetry published in a variety of small press magazines. Born into a farm family in Lockport, NY, and educated at the University of Buffalo and other midwest institutions, she brings and unusual point-of-view to her poetry, combining strong natural images with a deep spiritual language. She lives in Lake Forest, CA.
A Trying Thing

It is a trying thing we do. We want to understand what we remember of a specific time when all we have are bits of memories and what historians say went on at the time.   But we cannot take as fact all that we read or hear. Everything written cannot be taken as gospel.   Everything heard cannot be taken without question. What we have in our memory bank we get in snatches and try to make as much sense out of them as we can.

For when we try to do more than this, we are playing a guessing game.   It is also a guess when we are not certain whose memories we are jousting with.   Are they our memories of this life or perhaps other lives of ours as more of the world believes or perhaps even of distant or ancient ancestors written into our DNA?   Are we responsible for unfulfilled talents or love not returned?   Can we or should we put to rest our ancestors’ anguish?

And what about all the historians’ views of history? How much of it is conjecture?   How much of it is piecing what bits can be garnered to fill in the spaces when the times themselves have left no record?   There is much that can be retrieved through concerted research. But retrieved also must be the long lost habit of conversation with aging persons. There is much that oral history will reveal that written history has neglected to mention.

It is a hard work we do to find a putting place for memories.   But it is one way to find out who holds the candle for each of us.

June 21, 2011

Veronica Hallissey has been writing since the 1960s, with her poetry published in a variety of small press magazines. Born into a farm family in Lockport, NY, and educated at the University of Buffalo and other midwest institutions, she brings and unusual point-of-view to her poetry, combining strong natural images with a deep spiritual language. She lives in Lake Forest, CA.
Meditation

Come with me to this place

I visit often, hidden behind an eyelash;

where it is Easter all the time and

rebirth is not a sometime thing; where

gods cavort in joyous abandon.

Come, we dance. . . .

Today the world stood still. In the

bright afternoon sun I saw a butterfly

dart into a spider's web woven between

the power lines and lift it up and carry

it with him.

In the silence I heard the question.

How heavy is a spider's web on a butterfly's wing?

Since everything is balanced,

the question is proportional.

A friend said to me, 'only you had eyes to see it.'

Does the world stand still for you? Ever?

June 16, 2011

Veronica Hallissey has been writing since the 1960s, with her poetry published in a variety of small press magazines. Born into a farm family in Lockport, NY, and educated at the University of Buffalo and other midwest institutions, she brings and unusual point-of-view to her poetry, combining strong natural images with a deep spiritual language. She lives in Lake Forest, CA.