This is Wednesday, December 13, 2023. This is my gift to readers this holiday season. No doubt there will be meals one will be asked to bring something to pass. This is a favorite this year and I am not sure how I let this go unused.
I will alibi myself by saying it has been a very hard year.
The ingredients you no doubt have on hand. When I get through posting, I will bake another batch of these Cinnaminaminamum indulgences. My second batch since Sunday last,
and I will call myself again what grandson Josh called me at 4 years of age. . . good cooker.
Trust me, they will also call you good cooker.
Magic rolls . . .
1 cup plus 2 Tablespoons warm water
¼ cup oil
¼ cup sugar
2 Tablespoons active yeast
½ teaspoon salt
1 egg
3-4 cups flour
Preheat oven to 350 degrees
In stand mixer combine water, yeast, oil, sugar. Allow mixture
to rest for 10 minutes to get furry and know yeast is working.
With dough hook mix in salt, and egg and 2 cups of flour. Add remaining flour ½ cup at a time until dough cleanly leaves side of pan.
Knead gently until dough knows the feel of your hands
Shape dough into golf ball size balls and let rest 10 minutes
(while they rest. . .
Mix the following topping. . .
1 package regular cook and serve butterscotch or vanilla pudding
½ cup brown sugar packed
1 teaspoon cinnamon (or more)
Melt 1/2 stick butter
mix dry ingredients well and use all generously or half and save for your next batch. . .
Place rolls in greased 9 by 13 inch pan. Spoon melted butter over rolls and sprinkle topping however much you want on rolls. (I go generous because they are indulgences and special)
Bake for 30 minutes in 350 degree oven till lightly browned. When cool make confectioners icing just powdered sugar and milk and drizzle over rolls.
Indulge good cooker, indulge.
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 Ramona, CA.
We involve ourselves in arguments that exhaust when there is no need. Because our actions will broadcast where we are in our thinking better than the most eloquent essay.
What will be most apparent will be our calm determination only to one who is looking for what they know to look for. The calm will be evidence of the footwork, meaning the thoughtful conclusions it will show that went on within. If there was none, it will be evidenced that our behavior already has direction from us.
If there is discussion concerning the issue at hand, our questions tell us that we already know the answer. Therefore, the issue needs further thought. For instance, should we ask what harm could our action cause?
We already know. It has been part of consideration on issues that when we ask the question, the parts of the whole issue already forms the answer and it is with more thoughtful work that the pieces need to be put in order. It is a process that demands time and work.
A heart friend who knew me well would always question, why go there? Knowing how much work the process would require. And I was often told that credentialed were paid big dollars to find answers and so far they did not, who indeed was I to think I might?
I never gave thought to answers as such to what I researched. I looked for satisfying conclusions for this time in space for me. The next time I pursued the topic, I expected more information to be added to what I now had. This is what the spirit of learning entailed. Not definitive answers to what I was beginning to see there was no beginning and no ending. And the ending would tell me that the final chapter was writ, but everything pointed otherwise.
John Stuart Mill said, “that no philosophy was possible when fear of consequences was a greater principle than love of truth. Ahhh so, this is what I learned. Here is where sensitive discrimination was necessary when human psyches were involved.
Should upset be the result? Would I be willing to stay around to help broaden the focus and heal the wounds? The argument concludes with even more work. The teacher continues to teach.
photo by Joseph Hallissey III
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 Ramona, CA.
When I was younger and found footing in my woman’s novels, I came across soon to be a favorite writer. It was a time when the library was my sons and my main excursion to replenish our idea resources.
Marcia Willett was her name and a favorite book ‘A Week In Winter’ was a delightful and thoughtful awakening to what had been a sleeping knowledge in me. In a conversation of two women the phrasing I wrote of was this.
‘If someone steps aside from the herd, he is likely to be torn to pieces. We are all so insecure you see. If you believe differently from me, I either have to question my own beliefs or prove that you are wrong. Misguided, stupid and ill bred, it really doesn’t matter how I label you as long as I continue to feel complacent and safe.’
Many years ago I read that and today in the culling of too much writing of mine and too much clipping of too much clipping, I came across a Sydney Harris , (a favorite philosopher guru) with the words saying that we fail to reward pursuers of knowledge. We praise celebrities who entertain and dance and throw a ball but not those who devote their lives to the pursuit of knowledge.
Even now the tears rise as then when I realize I was apologizing for intelligence needing to share the excitement in learning something with a beloved. When reflecting on my immediate response, I was appalled at my lack of gratitude for a gift bringing such grace and life to so many. Knowing if I saw a child ever apologizing for this rare and beautiful gift, I would pull them by the ear if necessary, out of a situation wanting what was earned by heart’s work and love of learning.
Yet we realize that a home with a parent on the premises who chooses books and music and good talk will produce creative and contributing adults.
The article appeared in the Detroit Free Press on September 16, 1985. Marcia Willett’s book was published in 2001 in Great Britain. So the commonality of these thoughts brewed in and among us for several years and languished in my dusty notes to drive me to the ibm machine which remembers their muscle memory in today’s hands which are insensitive.
Survival in a large family was what was a necessity. Public education was what was destiny and not college. But furthering my knowledge was my drive and as the family closed for the night, the dance with the sages began. It was an ancient saying that to educate a daughter one educates a family; a son one educates a one. We must offer this passion for learning to those who would use this gift of mind.
Our eldest said that their growing years were enchanted. Our middle son said I challenged his thinking every day. Our youngest pursues me with challenges for constructive detail only the divine carpenter holds.
I have seen knowledge treated as sacred from the gift of mind. It has humbled me greatly. I am indeed a rich lady.
It Is Time. . .
It comes with a cost. Learning can rip the heart. Let the words be carried to the Ethers and wrung dry of your tears.
You shout a language foreign to the ears of him. You live nowhere but in your heart and nowhere but in your mind. It is time to go to that small place and bless who you are.
Tears of anguish ask for acknowledgement. The words are lost on the south wind which carry them north and lost on the north wind as it brings them south again.
Your heart is tapped deeply revealing the Source of who man is. It is time. It is time.
It is time he knows this.
(February 12, 1983 journal entry)
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 Ramona, CA.
‘How did you know to do it?’ he asked. I loved and raised babies and painted roses on their cheeks and planted evergreens in their hearts.
Now you should put the sabers at the foot of the evergreens. The dove sings high, gargles her song at times, but you know my friend, you know.
The PoemMaker
In every time and place there is a one who will dip pen in the heart and write.
The Philosopher-King
The rose will bloom in December, I promise. And I do not make promises lightly.
My Mentor, the Nazarene
(I knew that eventually I would have to define my god or what it is I have held as my truth. Having been brought up in a traditional orthodox religious home, from the beginning I was watched. And heard the apologies to the priest about what I was saying. Somehow it is important I put into words that are understood what is my knowledge or what I came into the world remembering. I overheard a new reader say he gave up on me because he had to resort to the dictionary for every second word. My favorite English Lit teacher says my language is often archaic. But considering the ancient world I volunteered from, to me it’s understandable.
I am not credentialed so my education has been for well over a half century a daily independent study program. When my world slept, I went to the books. (when my brother Ted died I learned from his daughter that after dinner he went to his books, his friends he said, like I do) Thought given and integrated and practiced. I cannot quote theories and postulates, I write what I know and after much struggle, am lightly editing my last journal entry of July 23, 2017 that tells how it is with me. I had scribed the following from that entry.
We are given to speaking in a lofty language too so bear with us. What you are searching for is not without peril for you delve into territories best left to those whose ambitions list with the arch angels. You form a doctrine also best left to the farmers of the soul whose intent is to feed the people. You love your humans and do not leave them adrift. But we educate. Your dreams also are lofty at times but we lift when we can and surprised are we at times.
What we can do is give you a premise. A premise with teeth but not without bite. You wish to give what peoplewill find comforting and yet something to grow on. And think. Work is something people avoid when they can but we give it a go.
Ineffable. That which is too lofty, too sacred and must not be spoken of. Must not be spoken of. Yet if we are to see growth and a planet not in peril, we have to work. Ineffable. The rolling thunder of which you speak, the implicate and explicate is what the scientists call it. We call it the core and outer limits of the dream as you say. You wish to enhance or enclose with an embrace the awesome splendor of the love you find permeating. You live in your god since he is All That is. The outside of you is the inside of his outside and this you knew from the beginning. The awesome splendor of the embrace is what your god is for you. Awesome. It is a word that people use and can relate to. Yet it does not answer the question why the killing of 6 million humans was not sufficient reason to stop one human.
You will not find a reason within human intelligence to explain that symptom of depravity exhibited by a human toward other members of his species. How could your ten year old heart at that time be ravaged by its knowledge and not the god to whom you were given for safekeeping? Though your parents held to the Grandfather God concept, you did not even then. What you ask the human mind cannot grasp. But maybe we begin to explain how goodness can operate without emotion and still be considered above evil.
It seems the word ineffable stems from being not spoken in terms of outside the sphere of sacred. Sacred is common with you. Beyond sacred is ineffable. Not spoken of. You find this difficult; hard to live with a concept beyond the realm of speaking. You think and therefore have the right to speak providing you intend no harm to the house of another nor to break the rice bowl from which he eats. So we adhere to these concepts. But there is a realm of existence so far beyond where we are and you are that it cannot be spoken of because there are no concepts beyond the immediate conceptual. Simply Is. All else Is. Or are, steps toward getting nearer to that place where awesomeness will begin to conceive a form holding yet further realms of thought not possible. Realms of thought not possible for the human brain.
It seems nonsense and yet, yet, ineffable is the word to use. Too lofty, too sacred and not spoken of because there are no words in the human lexicon, dictionary, able to describe. When people speak of the god they believe in who has a hand on their shoulder it is a leaf that they feel and lean on. A leaf. The tree itself is a mighty redwood of understanding with roots going down levels of life that consume Every Living Thing and whose height is above sight. When man says there is no god he does not feel the weight of the leaf yet. He still has many lives to go to get to that point. Ineffable.
You see the word in conjunction with the mighty redwood. Man is a lightweight against the leaf but when he feels it, it is progress. For there now is the presence of Conscience. You see the sacredness of life and the child hurting. Many have not reached there yet, thinking still that all is a match of chemicals, hormones mostly that propel humans. Humans you say are divine and place them in Genesis where the beginning was. They cannot assimilate that information and cannot relate. Knowledge rises from within and is a Given.
Ineffable. Beyond the scope of humanity because there is no form, no concept of the word becoming. God is a thunderous roll of Becoming Yet To Be and that is why minds say that life is everlasting and everlasting. The residual of that thunderous roll to becoming is left within Mankind and is the god within. The leaf maybe they feel. That they humanize that weight and say their grandfather god will open his arms to them may be all they can handle at the moment. That there is a stronger someone than they is what they need. Someone to justify them. And what they do. And even if what they do is not good it may be what their human father commanded, wished, or taught so they are obedient to their human father god. You see the evolution and why it stagnates. Education is required for growth of the human spirit. We begin again.
The Vault of God
And the inside is the outside of the inside of God and I am he, or it or she.
Just as my children were part of me, the outside of me, while inside, yet separate.
I am they, that part of me that flows through them, yet are they separate and
they are part of me, an expression of who I am, yet separate.
With my memory bank, just as I am the holder of my mother’s memories, I am
the vault of her who had me as her expression. I am the vault of God who
expressed himself through me and I am the holder of memories.
(I told a long time friend that for me God is a verb and Jesus is my Mentor. A verb cannot cuddle nor is a comfortable pillow. But I was not then at the place of rolling thunder yet nor where all time is simultaneous that quantum physics espouses. So there was a lot of growing to do and much living yet to thread through. My mentor became my friend as I was held accountable and as I sought his divinity, I found mankind’s and my own. In the Dead Sea Scrolls (The Nag Hammadi Library) Jesus said ‘I shall give you what no eye has seen, no ear has heard and no hand has touched and what has never occurred to the human mind.’ Even with no credentials and whatever our persuasion, we all have a highest and best we hold onto. It is a good beginning.)
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 Ramona, CA.
I don’t know what could have prepared me for my entry into a white Protestant family. It was not that they were well versed about the sect, but something special born into. And certainly nothing in my history would have told me the details awaiting me.
What I keep learning has been a burden and no doubt started centuries of wars and dyspepsia in humans. I hear our David’s question always, but how did you know to do it?
What did I do? If he meant to discern Ancestor’s Anguish, what had been the shouldered from generation to generation, it has been the superiority of white protestants through the generations about what they have missed and what was taken from them. And the Roman’s sense of singular specialness that they were the ones Jesus spoke to of building his church.
When I realize what had fallen onto my shoulders from the ancients to the progeny saying ‘I cannot handle this’, it makes me ill. From the mother who was expected to care for a baby was saying how little she was too, to the now male parent wanting the sexual free love he saw freely given in his sons’ lives.
I was not averse to the prejudices of my own family, the ‘colored’ as they were referred to as well as the Jews. The Black peers did not have access to literature and the Jews placed importance on education that opened doors closed to everyone else. Also we were cast as non Romans because the Pope was not our head of state so we were prejudiced against. The divisions were great.
White superiority is not a current thing hawked. It was a teenage grandson who encouraged my blogging and set me up because he thought it time I became upfront. He was celebrating his 4th birthday when he said he met his cousin in the place where people wait to get born and her name was Olivia.
So where do memories come from in the young who do not feel their current gender , whatever they are, when it is not the one they feel wearable? From where is that memory? Pray tell what will you say when a young one approaches you of their apriori gender and says they want it now!
My mother shouted at her priest insisting she did not teach me whatever I was saying in grade school, and did not know where I learned that! We are not new to any of these teachings. Some of us are more perfectly sealed than others but eventually we are all fair game for the Great God’s vengeance. What will we do when that voice within becomes audible and we actually hear what is meant for us? Will we be running down the street shouting say it isn’t so? Say it isn’t so!
Have you not thought the meaning of life everlasting? And world without end, and amen and amen?
I scribed what was told me about my differences and how I appeared to others when I tried so hard to be like everyone else. It is not easy being different. Not easy. But the children will teach and take us by the hand. We run out of time and impatience is a weapon when we feel threatened.
And worlds watch. And the blue boy also said, we are watch-ed, we are watch-ed. Our names are known.
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 Ramona, CA.
Because energy can no longer be summoned, memory comes to play as I flip pages of this very difficult lifetime of my history. Quickly I ensconce in a time the Teachers called a quirk of mind. It is my evolution’s restart and life’s rescue. It also makes a normal life impossibly hard.
I think of my friend the Joy who came into my home after Religion Class and threw herself down on the couch and said she had only a glimpse of what Hinduism was about. A glimpse. Not a bit of understanding. And I with a quirk of mind began the following:
The Aryans swooped down from the territories I understand is now Iran and went into India, the territory adjacent to inner Europe. They were the root group. They were those who spoke the languages that were of the same tongue, perhaps prostituted from the original meaning, but same family.
What do I know of the times? I would say but have no way of knowing the conditions in 3500 B.C. But give or take a time or two when the Aryans swooped down, being displaced from their territories because of famine, floods, or terrorists from the east and north of them, they invaded western India.
Into Delta country where the Indus River had been home to 30,000 inhabitants, a settled habitation. Well governed with sewage systems, farming and habits necessary to get food from growers and to those needing it.
The Aryans were not part of what India’s culture knew but must have been hospitable to them for absorbing into their territory. There is no evidential as to how long it took. Either the Aryans were assimilated into India’s culture or Indians to the invading culture but resulting was Hinduism.
The Indians did not leave because of familiarity of such conducive living conditions. The Aryans being nomads gravitated always to food, farming and trade. Basically also because of no root in the people made it easy to be conquerors. Also since communication as we know it was negligible, there was no competition such as my god is better than your god syndrome. Basic survival was it. Hinduism was a philosophical and sophisticated system of beliefs. The Aryans being nomadic were attuned to more diverse cultures shared their history with root people less tuned to outside influences. It would be simple to unite both peoples than to create. Destined for its time, Hinduism unites because of the largess of its philosophy. It encompasses and provides a place of rest for most people.
My friend, the Joy asked how I did this. I said I don’t know but in later times was told it was, ‘a quirk of the Mind’. Maybe, but an exhausting quirk, dragged to work in tiring times with no hot bath. What I wonder about is how real the situations appear to me when I plant myself in them. Do I recall or just assume an identity to help lighten the knowledge? I really don’t know. Just as when the Nazarene speaks. Am I in the audience or do I plant myself in? Yet what I feel are the emotions and times not separate to who I am. It does not take much for me to be there in spirit but the emotions roiling within plant me in the fray.
Yet I have spooked people out by saying things they are thinking. Yet I don’t know where they end their thought and I begin because what I think I am thinking are my thoughts. Sometimes those thoughts must seem strange even to me. Did I say what I want to say out loud?
It is like dissecting a butterfly. And then I would not be able to talk at all nor think.)
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 Ramona, CA.
\I was just 16 when my younger sister caught me in a lie leaving me so embarrassed that on the spot I knew that I would forever tell the truth. And from that moment on, I became a truth teller. I alibied others or as my sister said, made excuses for them, but was hard on myself.
It was at this time that I fell in love with Shakespeare and memorized his work in parts; ‘it must follow as the night the day that thou cannot be false to any man’.
So, flirting with this last decade of a hundred years, with health problems surfacing daily it seems coupled with the previous White House resident not familiar with truth telling has left me feeling it has been a hard go of it this time. If I did not have my journals reminding me indeed this lifetime since my early thirties has been lived through, I would question my place in it.
Always wondering the why of everything while decluttering, I came upon this poem needing daylight again. It is a Cosmic Acknowledgement and a warm hug. I bask in it. Thank you and Amen.
Be Still . . .
Be still, this too shall pass and let me tell you why.
The blue waters you take for granted may dry up, and the grass beneath your feet will crunch like your breakfast cereal.
You may not live to see another snowfall you have grown to love. You may not see your sensate world covering its sins with the damask cloth used on holy occasions. But this too shall pass.
The faces of your private world you have grown to cherish will disappear from view. You will miss their nearness and will go looking to fill the void they leave.
But I tell you this too shall pass.
For when you realize that I would take nothing from you without giving something back, I know you have learned your lesson well.
In its place will be a knowing that in another world what you have earned can never pass away.
That is my gift to you.
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 Ramona, CA.
Theodore D. Socha, a longtime Royalton resident, passed away on July 19 at the age of 97. He was predeceased by his beloved wife of 68 years Harriet K. (Muck) Socha. For many years Ted and Harriet operated a family-run apple orchard, sharing their harvest with customers from throughout western New York, and living his credo of “staying close to the land.” Ted was a 78 year member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, beginning his career as a lineman in the 1940s, installing telephone poles with teams of horses. He was an avid reader, and a man with a strong work ethic — and opinions.
My brother Ted left our world Wednesday morning. We were eight standing, my siblings and I, and they leave me the last standing, to turn off the lights when I call it a day.
The quiet brother, the one I remember him saying many times over, Ma, she’s crying again, read me easily all my days with few words exchanging. He lost his hearing early on but still he knew me and my thinking.
We walked the fields during one of my visits and with nothing said out loud about the shaky time I was in, he offered his renovated rooms whenever I needed. To me it was ‘money in the bank’ while I sorted through some rough emotional pillage.
Cosmic life and belief systems test us in ways no longer applicable in changing worlds but until we articulate and prove more authentic ways, we will continue to wonder our viable presence where we are with as many obstacles as we endure.
I have scribed in journals, that the gods we believe in have no memory of life I contend and no knowledge, none, of gender expectation of role models for the untaught. The cries of crisis have no bedding in their brains.
Six million cries were not loud enough clinging to each other being marched to the ovens. Not hard then to understand the addiction of physical life when the only accountability is a pat on the head and the words go forth and sin no more. Forgive them Father for they know not. . . .
I do not know what to call my condition of heart. I know orphan because parents have left. I never expected as the sickest one in the family ever to be the last standing. Yet I will remember to turn out the lights when I leave the room. I will check the children mentally and make certain the stove is turned off and should there be a killing frost again, I will leave the water running barely so the pipes do not freeze.
We were taught well to care for our land. We also were given minds with memories from where we have come. We take who we are with us and know because we hold life sacred that we will be prepared for what awaits. But right now, I miss my brothers. They were special and they loved me. They knew I was serious about life and they tried to protect me. I want them to know how much they have meant to me. I just don’t know who I am without my brothers because I have had them for almost a hundred years. my god, for almost a hundred years. . . vrh
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 Ramona, CA.
Lori came to my door while I sat and wished for a derrick to materialize to lift me unto my bed. It never happened but a small miracle did and gave me wings to soar by myself.
Seems like a small thing? A really small thing and yet by itself I have seen the energy of such a small miracle turn worlds upside down. And give angels an extra set of wings. She simply said what her plans were for the next day so that I would have an agenda to build my day.
I like feeling I am a contributing member of my family and am not kept. No doubt in a nursing home I would long have been quietly put to bed and sedated. I am still contributing and even learned to make anise seed toast for my Finnish son by another mother who said his family called them dunkers and also called them lokfurs I think.
Another thing came to mind in conference last night was David coming home for chemo because his Hodgkins was in stage 4. The anxiety level made it hard for him to sleep. I pulled a chair close to his bed and sat in silence to allow whatever healing to work its magic. I found the grip of his hand loosening after awhile and his God Within was in conference with what was their business. No boundaries were violated nor needed to be. The first time he told me in the morning how important such a small thing transferring energy was. A small thing to be sure.
A grandson found me vacuuming and needing a break halfway through. Why are you doing what you don’t have to do, Gram, he asked. The truth needed to be told I knew so I proceeded. Because I love your mother, I said. A small thing but she did not need one more thing to do that day.
I tell you true. When you reach this place in life where all things connect, ALL THINGS CONNECT. Nothing is ever lost or not noticed. No lost causes EVER. My Mentor gave Mankind what they wanted; a stronger, smarter human who walked this earth to be called God. But the Nazarene hoped that Man would grow up and we would not, though, have to suffer the little child in the old man to the grave.
Man is a God Participant whose God Within works as hard as Man Himself works. The footwork though, must be done by man himself. And that was never a secret.
photo by Diane Rybacki
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 Ramona, CA.
My Mentor said seeing you will not see and hearing you will not hear. I have long known that we are other than what we seem. When the veil was lifted for our middle son David and he saw what was his to see , he asked of me, how long have you been dodging us? And I knew who he saw looking at me and said to him, all my life David, all my life. And he asked how I could go on living when I knew what I knew. I answered in three words, Tresy, David and John. You three grew beneath my heart and if I had taken the hand offered, you would be motherless. Tempted I was because of disappointment, but commitment had no options. Responsibility came with human skin.
That space in time left shortly when he did and I never asked him, to my regret, who he saw. I took a poetry manuscript called Cactus Jesus and the New Wine to an English professor to review when David died in ’85. When I went to collect it, I met the professor’s fury with what he called me, an anarchist. Not pleased, he said instead of lifting man up, I brought the gods down to where I was. No one, he said angrily, had ever done that to his knowledge.
Today, having just been home less than 48 hours from an Emergency Room visit, I was looking for previous work on we become what we feed our mind. Coming across the journal entry of March 27, ’95 are the scribed words,
‘yield to the knowledge as it embraces and fits you snugly as your skin does. When what you sieved and savored gives way to a broader knowledge and grants long life to you, when you bring the gods to where you are, you are then home. You can live then where you are when you realize what you have done. You brought the gods to where you are and no one does that without knowing what it is they do.’
What must be taught sometimes is bought at high cost. Did I know of the isolation, the rejection, the misunderstanding, and not having anyone willing to have me lean, however momentarily? I did not but learn I did. In spades.
I wanted to give my sons knowledge of love on this Earth and that life itself was sacred in all dimensions and must be guarded specifically. I wanted them to know this and the only way for me to teach was to be the example of this surety. My only thought was to learn and be what I wanted them to see. That it would take almost a hundred years was not in my frame of thought.
That it was the food of my days and nights, I now see. What we feed our minds is what we become. I am tired. I kept uppermost in mind that I did not want my sons searching for explanations of my behavior to those they respected. I wish we had laughed more because there was much fun. And the hours spent talking after dinner were great reward. We become what we feed our minds.
To truly choose to ignore what is presented on the mind’s screen is ethical suicide. I could not live with it. Could you?
artwork by
Claudia Hallissey
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 Ramona, CA.
White Superiority Is Not New. . . .
