From an Upper Floor

This Old House. . . .

I am like this old house.  I have windows that are broken or have shifted in the space designed for them.  I have appendages that were once new rooms added on to make space for new dreams or for widening the premises for old forms expanding.

There were so many things added to make space, to make room for adding new thoughts.  I felt so full.

Like a banquet dinner, overeating because the taste of the new sent me reeling into ecstasy with renewed energy,  exuberance to make new what now was seemingly out of date.

Excited,  couldn’t wait for the construction to begin.  This is what motivated me to move the furniture to new places in the original rooms.  And I did for what seemed like centuries, moved three cushion couches up and down flights of stairs.

Moved  furniture around curved staircases and did not sweat and with magic collapsed a wayward desk stuck hard within the frame of a doorjamb to regain its form on the other side of the door.

When the furniture had tried all the corners,  all the different positions,  we went with the room additions to accommodate the children’s dreams.  Eventually the children grew up and left and the funds ran out and now began  the simplifying.

Do we need?  Whatever we held in our hands the answer was no.  We did not need.  Just headroom to organize the memories of a lifetime so they wouldn’t decay amid the premises that began to fall apart.

The landscaping was the first to go because there was no energy to care for the feeding and pruning of what went unrestrained.  There was no greening of the lawns.

The funds were pared to essentials.  The wall paper peeled and the paint faded and then the bare boards loomed in their nakedness.  The house once held dreams and saw centuries pass.  My dreams inexhaustible, need new frames.

The teachers say that we stay until we use up all the changes, all the additions and all the new houses.  Then come the new worlds.  And worlds they are because one  world cannot contain all the ideas needing to be born.

There are places waiting for the itinerant and exuberant teacher who has in her carpetbag tiles from the Pewabic Natives whose art formed the skyline,  solar trees to grow on mountainsides to furnish heat in frigid places and books with magic words that show the love grown in unknown regions.  I understand the school stands ready.

Consider This. . .

What makes you think we do not use
a worker who thinks and injects
new thought in old ways?

What makes you think we would
let loose the likes of you in a world
for frolic, for nothing more than waste?

We look for farmers for the vineyards,
for the fields needing seeds for food. . .
for thought, for starving minds as well as bodies.

Where we put you is in a place of value,
of your talents, of your loves,  of your sweet thoughts
feeding the children of all ages. . .

How else to sweep clean the Father’s House?

                                                the teachers

photo by Tresy Hallissey

It is long past the time for all people to stand and demand of themselves to be infused with a steel core to uphold their wobbly selves.

We have stood by and watched the principles upon which we have built our lives and our children’s heritage broken and by pieces swept away.  It is long past the time now for all to take stock and question ourselves and ask upon what is it we stand.

All of us can go far back and some new ones, not so far, to see that we all come from distant shores.  We became Americans no matter our beginnings.  So many nations, so many cultures have formed what we consider to be these United States.  How long can we be satisfied to be less than we once were, faults and all?

Lest we expect less from ourselves, we must all work in what ways we can to restore our respect for our heritage which includes all peoples.  There is no partisanship when it comes to bestowing honor and trust and courtesies upon those who differ from us.

Less is demeaning what we are; lowering ourselves to what has taken centuries to build to make our country a leader among  people whose ambitions were to emulate what the United States symbolized.

It took dreams that took hard work and thought toward becoming a haven that the statue of liberty was gifted.  The world watched us and marveled.  And we became the heaven possible upon which people built their lives in this country.

We work now to restore those dreams not only for those seeking to flee despotism but for ourselves now to guard what we have known to be our country.  Or our dream will go begging.

The Strange Bequest. . .

There was a man, a slim man,
whose head was bedecked with a white cloud,
and whose eyes saw dreams
he could not articulate.

He sat one day staring into space and
when I questioned him, he said,
‘I am sitting and watching the grass grow.’
I hesitated far too long and have lived to regret it.

I wish the courage had been mine
to have asked him to share his dreams with me.
For he bequeathed to me a mind that does not rest.
I have the thought that his father and father before him

wrestled the same misty vision
which now is mine to set in motion.
I question this strange bequest for I have not
the staunch heart required to lay to rest

my ancestor’s  anguish.  Papa, I plead now,
to replace my heart with hot ore, inject me with a vial
of celestial courage  and fuse my spine with
with tempered steel. . . .

There is so little time. . . .                                                        

There came a  time when man decided to forget his Source and do life on his own.  Since then it has been a game of catch up.  Our progress has been nothing to shout about but there would be those who would argue with me about that.

But for me it has been a matter of chasing down the first ‘why’ ever uttered by the child in search of a palatable reason for someone insisting he do something.  I don’t think it ever is a matter of courage though in retrospect it certainly is.  No one knows who will pursue that first ‘why’ and where the  journey leads.  And I tell you this, sometimes it is not pretty.

Those who observe know that it is a something, but they don’t know what.  They realize awesomely,  that it takes courage, a kind not familiar.  I say it mostly becomes a stubbornness to not falter and be a stumbling block.

Courage is not garnered overnight nor is it stored for all time.  It is fought for every morning in bathrooms and bushes around the world.  It is worn, with conviction man hopes, into  breakfast.  I know this and everyone who nurtures and is responsible for others know this.  We hope to present ourselves to the new day and convince our loves it is a day worth the living.

The following poem was written in 2013 and is a favorite of mine realizing that courage takes practice.

Found Courage. . .

I ask,

where did you find your courage?

On what tree was it hanging
that you could reach up
and pluck it from its hiding place
to wear as epaulettes
on your shoulders?

The children whisper during the night,
saying their Ave’s to each other,
hoping they will grow into courage
with a red badge to wear.

You say,

they are blinded.

They cannot see their milky courage
like cream rising to the top;
one day to merge
through alerted senses
that call for unthinkable strength.

They have been practicing every day
since they were born.
They will learn that courage
comes with each breath taken
and like the freedom they take for granted
must be won every day.
One day they will find it wears

like a second coat of paint.