Having been a newspaper clipper when living in Michigan with the Detroit Free Press, I rediscovered things. One was Bob Talbert’s article speaking of Monsignor Francis X. former professor and rector of Sacred Heart Seminary and what he passionately preached to his students. . .
Watch your thoughts; they become words.
Watch your words; they become actions.
Watch your actions; they become habits.
Watch your habits; they become character.
Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.
(and reading texts of an elected Republican on the January 6thinsurrection,
asking his henchmen,’ tell me what to say now’ I ask do you not ever think for your self?
And a clip from Neil Chethik’s column when asking his two year old for a blessing on their newly planted garden. . .’ instinctively he put his palm on mine and uttered the only prayer he knows. . .For life and love and all things good, we offer up our thanks.’
I remember a line from one of the wonderful women writers I clung to for wisdom on how to live graciously and sensitively and with knowledge of the goddesses. . .when one of the characters in a book not remembered said I cannot live in a world where I do not thank someone for this wondrous life.
When we are inclined to thank SOMEONE for this good fortune, how about God or Gods or Yahweh or Father or Christ or parent-gods or godparents? Or the street sweepers or the sanitation workers or LIFE with CAPITALS?
As my favorite poet writes. . ‘the heart translates and makes it all human.’ Amen and Amen.
(being a daughter of the original Jenny and having the jenny genes ensconced, I noticed that she gave males great latitude and females none. Her teaching obligation to her children was that fathers could be easily forgiven, but mothers should never be an object of explanation or worse, embarrassment.
In this my frame of thought, I hold everyone stiffly to a high bar. I know that and also it is a place of isolation. The cognizant fact is that we all perform better than we expected we would. Considering . . everything about us.
I have been the GOAD my commitments pushed against I learn. I still try to emulate my Mentor. I hope someone will tell me I do better than I think.
The photo of my grandson and my youngest great granddaughter are reasons for my life. It is the grip of the father’s hand on his daughter and the sureness of her stride at not quite two years that tells me my words and actions have taken heart.
This has been my contribution to LIFE. I need nor want no other.)
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.
It is long past time that we take cognizance of what it is we have done to our Earth planet. She is still here for us to love and care for. She is still here for us to give us breath, polluted it may be in some areas, but where we are, hopefully it is clean air. She gives us water abundantly. She allows us to live as human beings amidst the best that our livelihood has to offer. She loves us with a passion.
But what we have done to her is abominable. We take advantage of our resources and give nothing back. A few steps to the recycle bin oftentimes is too far to walk. But she keeps on loving with no discretion.
Yet we are asked once a year to honor her. Hopefully this once a year will be enough to embarrass us, make us feel guilty that we change our ways and give honor to her who has been our grounding, our bed of rest and the best classroom in the universe.
How else to honor this lady, this mother, this teacher? We must find new ways if we are to preserve our way of life; to continue in this classroom where to have an idea is to make it manifest only as long as it takes us to collect the material.
There is no other place as conducive to easy learning as this classroom is. No other place that accommodates us to the degree that our Earth Mother does. We will chance it every time we decide that the next time we will do better. The next time there may not be this green Earth.
We are in a crucial junction. We are where we are because we have neglected our stewardship to care for this place we inherited. What to do? How much do we treasure the early morning with the dawn rising clearly and with punctuality? How much do we treasure our love of our evenings when the sky darkens and the moon sources our light? As we reach for our Other and hope that what we wish for ourselves is also wished for Others.
How much do we treasure our rainfalls? When foods that have risen in price so that the quart of milk a day for the young is too steep a price for good health? We treasure our way of life. We treasure what is ours and we hope that our grandchildren’s children will be able to be inspired by the same sun and moon and richness of this green planet.
We must begin, each again and again. Our environmentalists have told us time and again what we must do. We cannot wrap ourselves around the idea that this Earth cannot sustain life as we know it. If we feel the upsets simply when the weather does not suit us, let us be aware that Nature too reviles our habits when we do not honor her.
It is long past the time to change our habits. The bill is overdue.
*****
(Being a clipper of Detroit Free Press when living in Michigan, two things discovered and cherished. . .from Bob Talbert’s years past speaking of Monsignor Francis X, former professor and rector of Sacred Heart Seminary.
’Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words, they become actions. Watch your actions, they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.’
And reading conflicting texts of a now questionable elected Republican on the January 6th insurrection, asking his henchmen ‘tell me what to say now’ I ask do you not ever think for yourself?
And a clip from Neil Chethik’s column when asking his 2 year old for a blessing on their newly planted garden . . . instinctively he put his palm on mine and uttered the only prayer he knows. . . ‘for life and love and all things good, we offer up our thanks.’
We can remember that prayer for we are inclined to thank SOMEONE for the good fortune that we still breathe. For starters, God or Gods or Yahweh or Father or Christ or parent-gods of all. Or simply LIFE with capitals and benign Ethics.
As my favorite poet writes, ‘the heart translates and makes it all human.’ Amen and Amen.
photo by Lori 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.
After many years of struggle, and a broken heart in repair constantly, I finally began to peace and to piece my problem when reading the Clan of The Cave Bear. I know, I have spoken nonstop and written many times of this. I recommend this book again, please.
Through the years of thought and study and contemplation, and conversation which no one truly wanted to engage in with a ‘why go there?’ mentality, I found an answer somewhat to at least give direction to me. And a way to broaden my understanding to further enlighten the heavy concept of evolution.
My inability to understand or comprehend is not an obstinacy in the individual to change behavior but their inability to do so. The minute we ask, how could you whatever, or how could you not . . . whatever, we see the inability of the individual . And we have to realize then the purpose of life is to learn and to broaden our understanding. Then the next step leaves no gap in the fabric of the person.
It has caused me great pain throughout my life because I thought it all a matter of will. The will to change or where to change. I thought to work harder, longer, and be open to wants, I could then fulfil all obligations and adapt further. It was not reciprocal of course.
It did not work both ways. Only by wanting what my behavior showed, the Other would hopefully emulate the ways to gain what they see. But that we have no control over.
Our democracy has been an encouragement to all people desiring a chance to express and live by their chosen beliefs. To be bluntly hammered by our elected ones in the previous administration who wish to undermine our democracy in favor of their own power agendas gives rise to obvious selfish choices. These are not those with inabilities of intellects but conscious choices.
There is a difference. Inability to comprehend because the footwork of steps not taken to integrate knowledge is one thing. Conscious choice for power is quite another. Deliberate policy change of our elected officials must be noted. And is our responsibility to remember when voting.
Autocratic governments intent on power is a dreaded thought in mind as we enter sleep at night. Most of us are not familiar with the word genocide. Yet as adults we carry the faces of those pleading for life burned into our memories with the eleven o’clock news. The devastation has us reaching for the already half empty vial of nitro glycerine tablets on the night table.
The inability to comprehend is not part of autocracy. It is an evil chosen to eliminate a peoples. Make no mistake in this understanding.
Years of tradition, differences in cultures, climates or locations, all serve various functions; mainly to help people survive. And the primary instinct is not to die. And any change directed toward diversity from what is known is met with hostility. And ends up with the Other feeling there is something wrong with them. They are not good enough. Which gave rise to the beginning question, how could you?
The brain has to open in all areas just to learn to smile, to laugh, to sing, to conceive or grasp concepts. From the first wail to the last gasp, it is a matter of evolution. What we learn to do and is grasped by others, will enhance the good or ill of humankind.
Dr Jonas Salk said that since humankind knows pretty much how to survive healthwise, it is past time to concentrate and help humanity to survive humanely. It is time we learn to practice and learn the kind of precepts that will enhance our abilities to help the less fortunate to survive not only humanely but joyously.
It is time for all to kick the wheel of progress out of the mud and give humane evolution a jumpstart.
When we judge, when we vow to get even, when we cast that first stone and break a spirit, life will demand restoration. Balance is the forgiveness life demands for itself.
We all want to make a difference. Created equal? In a world unnamed yet to us we will be the ones needing patience and help in the rudiments of life we are not familiar with. It is a matter of learning to become whatever our potential is. We are diverse, not matched in all ways. Some things, yes, but all ways, no.
And luckily for us all, there is no final chapter.
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 a young girl of 12 and it was our first summer on The Farm and it was a hard one. But it also was filled with good food straight from the warm earth. My mother had a talent for growing things in the city despite its polluted air even 70 years ago; people knew it then to be unhealthy. But in the clear air of the country, in the soil of her loam filled garden, her talents blossomed as did her crops.
We were getting produce ready for the stand near the road. As we were preparing the fruits and vegetables, selling them as fast as we put them out, friends from the city were arriving. They were diverse characters. Some were people in her circumstances with many children and little money. A few were wealthy but the outstanding characteristic of all these relationships was mutual respect.
Toward the late afternoon, I was tired and whiny. The source of my irritation was the fact that my mother was giving to her friends, without charge, the best and finest of what we were putting out. A bushel of potatoes here, quarts of strawberries there, a basket of fresh vegetables here.
But the strawberries were my argument. I loved them and the ones she grew were the reddest, juiciest and largest I had ever seen. They were sweet clear through and the dream stuff of that first June on The Farm. With the heavy cream separated from the rich milk the excellent cows gave, these were mine she was giving away. The strawberries summed up my resentment.
‘You can’t keep giving away our profits!’ I said. ‘You have given away half of all our produce!’
She turned to me and in a voice I have not forgotten with the lesson that has stayed with me.
‘These are mine’, she said. ‘I will do with them what I please. These are for me to give away if I want to. No one can tell me who to give to. My friends may never do anything for me but if one of them does some thing for my children or my grandchildren, then that will be payment for me.’
I have thought often of that lesson in gift giving, in giving what is yours. In the course of my days, when someone did something for me I did not expect, there was the lesson in strawberries. When so much has been done for our children by their friends and ours, the lesson in strawberries comes up.
When time, whole weekends of time, have been given to sit with a sick child, to listen to an impoverished spirit, to make dinner when the task seems insurmountable and appetite non-existent, to do any of these when time has become our most precious commodity, it is a gift of Spirit. When a check arrived unexpectedly from someone whose only reason was ‘I remember how I would have felt to have received this’ or the someones who oftentimes helped our children through school because ‘it was done for me.’
I thought of the lesson in strawberries.
As I review a life where so much has been done for me and mine, from sources unexpected, I am grateful for the lesson in strawberries. My mother gave what was hers to give, what she worked for and gave freely. She was paying it forward long before the idea became novel. I do notforget.
When we are asked to pay forward for gifts given and received, we must remember the lesson this lady of ten thousand lions strong leveled me. As the world works and fights to uphold democracies all over, we must remember from where most of us come.
I see my grandmother in the wrinkled old faces that I find mirrored every day. With tears pleading simply to go home. Will I forever see Richard Engel embrace that lined face younger than I am with a history I will never match? And a devastated country fractured beyond recall surrounding?
Let us pay it forward so the children’s children do not have to assuage our anguish forever. Pray let it be so.
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.
She was little more than a toddler. She was plain, even mousy by standards of beauty deemed for the very few. Stringy hair, hazel eyes with poor sight even and not the porcelain English complexion esteemed by her heritage. Left with her brother in Scotland while her mother set out for Canada to set up housekeeping for a husband wounded in the first world war and sent to a Toronto hospital for care. Left too long for the toddler, for when she and her brother were sent to travel the ocean with hired friends, she arrived to find herself no longer the center of interest.
Arriving to find a new sister, with blue eyes, curly blond locks and a porcelain skin already called ‘doll’ because of her exquisite English heritage. Welcomed the first sister was with acknowledgment that she was a big sister to look out for the ‘doll’. Her cry was ‘I’m little, too!’ and would be for almost a hundred years.
Heartbreaking, but pathetic also, to the generations listening powerless to untie the knots that were tied by circumstances only those who tied them could untie. To hear an octogenarian begin every explanation of her life with those words, ‘I’m little, too!’ and need to be parented by everyone regardless of age was an uncomfortable position for everyone. Requiring always to be center, even when birthing her only child and stealing from his father the parental love and caring necessary for his growth.
The girl toddler grown aged never made peace even with her own son. Always displaced she was, shunted aside for every newly minted child coming into the family. Hers was a life of pampering the aging psyche forever the child by a husband who could care for only one. He learned too late for him with no time left, the unhealthy conditions for everyone. And how what was not done left the shouldering of burdens on the unsuspecting coming into the family.
We learn ‘suffer the little children’ with the words taking root and no one thinking that the conditions of the beatitude would take forever to unearth. No one thought we would perpetrate upon our progeny burdens that would make leaden their feet and prevent growth. We would fertilize beliefs that we must assuage the anguish of the ancestors and give them what was owed. Hence we prepare the ground for more bloodshed.
Do circumstances of our lives provide the fodder for weapons of war and peace and goodwill are the two weeks of grace given as reward at the end of the year? I don’t think that was the intent when the prophecy was fulfilled. We have to grow up sometime. Else the stagnation persists and evolution is halted. Think on it. This small instance of one little girl is multiplied forever anon. The cost of war? Don’t get me started.. . .
Excerpt from the Knotted Family Ties. . .
I close the shutters and pull up the steps. I learn to live in my own house. I stay my time and do what is mine.
Jesus, it hurts to watch and be able to do nothing.
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 look at the same things we say. The things we look at are there, but what we see is not the same. I repeat again the time I was asked by the psychiatrist when my world crashed what I saw going down Michigan avenue. I closed my eyes and told him and when done he whistled through his teeth and said, ‘you realize that other people do not see what you see.’ And when I was silent said, ‘you don’t.’
All my life I tried to be like others and thought I was. But was constantly told to be careful what I say. My mother first cautioned me and I did not know why until I heard her justifying to her priest, denying her teaching me what I talked about. ‘I don’t know who teaches her!’ Except I was a kid and did not have a social life outside of grammar school.
I was a farm kid in my teenage years and rode the bus to school with my siblings and came home with them on the same school bus.
My love of learning prevailed and I later tutored my fiance thru Officer Training (while we were in Military life). Married at 20 and pregnant for the first three years, I did the homework for my husband (straining to support us) for his Master’s social work with good reviews and marks saying homework essays were good thinking and outside the box with A’s.
Since we depended on the public for our living, I was cautioned daily to watch what I said so as not to lose public support. Three years in a new city with little money and no family to call on and being parent on premise and home maintenance manager left me a shambles. Rebuilding began.
I have written about journaling and study so I have notes, over a half century of them backing my writing. My perception has always been criticized because I assumed I saw what others saw. I will be 91 in May and I have finally made peace with what I see. And what I hear. Why has it taken almost a hundred years?
Our family friend John says maybe my survival depended on my thinking I was not different and yet this difference in perception allowed me to live. The bareness of others’ sight would have killed me. Just as criticizing my interpretation of what others are saying, by elevating their thoughts, I give them the highest meaning I know. To hear another say that was not what was meant. . but that was what I heard. I must believe what I see and hear. My life depends on whether it is a real car I see jumping the curb.
I scribe my teachers calling my perception kaleidoscopic. I will quote from a journal entry editing best as I can aspects of what has taken me almost a hundred years to live with and now talk about.
The journal date is Oct 24, 1991. It came about with a dream of Pewabic pottery of which I knew nothing. I scribed. . .
‘You were working with tiles and with the pottery from a distant past. The materials were not as ancient as you depict simply because they were of borrowed times. When speaking of borrowed times, within the past and present, or past and future there is a melding that defies the linear description common to where you are. If we take the computer where you sit and work and transport it to another time, it would not have the functions but the rudiments would be the same. Ability to work with the hands would be utilized and the time differential would be such that there would be little difference except in the illusion, i.e.materials.
Even the seepage would be there, the machine and in some form a part of where you would be, and what you would be doing. Hence the term, bleed through. It seems that this area of thinking is common to you and presents so much difficulty for you see what you see from a kaleidoscopic view bringing into focus bits and pieces of several dimensions.
It is a difficult state to be in but you can utilize this by taking a more comprehensive look at things and bringing to it what you can see with eyes that work a bit differently.
It would seem that from a distance all would be of a piece, but when the eyes view a particular scene with so much input from other dimensions, a new dimension is thus created.
You would then find others dismiss as inconsequential what you see, which is not the case. For what you see is many dimensional and the differing perspectives that you propose would do much to enhance the ability of others to understand those things needing a larger premise.
But when you describe your Pewabic dream you already ask the question what were you doing there and when was this. You already have the ability to ensconce yourself in the time frame you wish to work. Dreaming is the dimension where you learn what it is you do and bring your abilities to bear. You utilize the classrooms everywhere and mesh with folks of the times. They know you and wish for your coming. You speak their languages and understand their desires speaking to their hearts. We ask too, how does she do this? By thrusting your heart into place and using it as your springboard.
What we ask now that you present this from such a limited piece of a dream so vividly, that you take the information and relay it. Do not lay down the tools you have been given. Time now to give to others some semblance of stability in a time of no normalcy.’
It seems like it has been a walk in the park. It has not. This has been the hardest life lived. David asked just before he left us how did I know to do it? Do what, David, what did I do?
I was born with an open head and remembered the world that taught me my word is my bond, my honor, my trust and my love. Where other worlds here are questioned, it is hard to know of other worlds and pretend you don’t so they won’t call you crazy. But to go to church with hope that the God you believe in speaks true of life everlasting, no one questions .
Someone cared enough to stay the route and showed me what unconditional love was. The lesson was taught well because it has been the rod that held me upright. I don’t remember the teacher but obviously that Someone was a good teacher. The lesson took but the teacher was the example with no name.
Kaleidoscope perspective pertains to a new way of seeing. I did and therefore you will do also. The Jenny genes lodged in all of us and it has been a hard row to go. The numbers are many and some have been tragic. Hopefully the successes when counted will be many. Familiar? Evolution is what it is called. Do for one and all will do.
But apply this precept to other forms of life. Like to that of birds or other creatures who do momentous things. The question arising, is how do they do that? Or why? See where it takes one? The learning never stops and life becomes a virtual wonderland. Try it on for size.
Trust me, boring will not be a word you use.
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.
Always with gratitude, but Kiss the Morning into Being Sometimes. . . . it is all that can be done. . . . . veronica
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.
This I journaled in my Jan 14, 2022 entry. . . Much had been going on for most of the month of December and now into January with two hospital visits with atrial fibrillation and adverse reactions to new meds, I started a letter to friend John thinking to post it but I would have caused depression in many a sensitive reader. And entering the third year of the Covid pandemic, my blog readers did not need another verification that we might go down the tube again.
And now with Putin invading Ukraine and with the Russian peoples taking to the streets in protest, we may see the answer to problems we face that wars will never solve again. I admit that when Putin took Crimea in 2014 I was busy with personal problems having no room for international conflicts.
Our heads can only handle what we can handle and sorry not to be hail fellow well met. But sweet Jesus, how much more of everything can be met without going to the waters on our knees?
The following was written after much argument and negotiations with my cosmic teachers. Because you see my rants are still the same.
I need also do an essay on Ambient Adherence. I think much is lost when not taken into consideration is the ambience adhered of attitudes from the place where one is. I did not realize what I was picking up simply by breathing the air and injustices on us who integrate the time and place and also the mechanics of the devices we carry with us.
We inhale the vibes of our days. If we are thoughtful, we see our issues and try to heal ourselves. We also look for ways to avoid the pain of looking within and the work involved. We also see the games played and the lies told. We are not fooled.
Like for instance, how Televisions capture the pictures of people in the midst of going about business and relating to the times. And who profits the most by playing the games used by choosing which families to incarnate.
The handheld phones and the swift answers to likes and dislikes remind us always that we have a voice. And who profits from addictions and mental problems of children who are harmed the most.
Enough reminders make us either immobile and sick or sick and mentally unable. People will leave these times with mental conditions needing many generations to overcome, leaving disabled souls on the curb. These are called gifts?
I realize that not everyone has the courage to confront their issues but for the privileged few who are given further education, the hope is that somehow there will be a spine also given to clean up their acts. What we see is that the privileged find ways and means of avoiding self confrontations.
With education comes the knowledge that the world offers many ways to doing some good for reputations to be honored without any work being done on the self.
And the self being one that has contributed in many ways through the centuries to the morass of ancient angst but then who casts the first stone?
artwork by Lucinda Cathcart (my niece) TinyStudioCrafts.com
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.
What is visible is visible and what is also visible can be chosen not to be seen. The depth of perception only depends on the inmost courage of the individual in his capacity to deal with impending events.
Courage is not garnered overnight nor is it stored for all time. It is fought for every morning in the bathrooms all over the world. And it is worn with conviction man hopes into the kitchen for breakfast with the family.
It has been that life of quiet desperation Thoreau wrote about. To live one’s life directed to the greater life is only done with knowledge that the greater life exists. For this to become common knowledge means the footwork has been done.
But only as we observe with knowledge that life is neverending, is everlasting and the challenge is in the journey, in the hope that humankind will tolerate the fact that destiny is in his hands.
And what happens in the world inhabited is but a reflection of the greater worlds and what will transpire in greater degree elsewhere.
And the planet Earth will prevail, and humankind will survive, and the Universes will reflect the good we hope to inflect in the heart of man.
A program televised told of near death experiences of several people. One of the persons reflected on her experience as vast, simply the other side was vast. And vast it is. With boundaries set to see what limited senses reveal, that there are those who see what others do not.
Unless words find a bedding, like the words everlasting life, the cycle repeats but with a difference to come. Circumstances will not be as favorable and forever actually come alive, a death path is walked and cannot give houseroom to what actions by omission and commission wrought, nor the planet hospitable.
When icons are smashed symbolizing centuries of man’s desire to translate the divine into the material, he smashes also the humans who built them.
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.
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.
As co-creator and creature both of the universe, it is man’s prerogative and innate yearning to stand erect. To bow down all the time leaves one eventually on one’s stomach. Man rose from the crawling position. There are too many yet who find the child’s position too comfortable.
To stand erect means that certain responsibilities must be accepted. And that includesresponsibility for one’s person and attitudes. There are worlds yet where man will find the child’s position more comfortable and comforting.
To be adult means that one has to survive the inner turmoil and the outward condemnation which the world applies.
You do not defame the heavens. The heavens are not all that peaceful and without its own turmoil. There are many cliques yet which aim to destroy what man in his finest moments tried to accomplish.
We continue to say at every life’s departure that we go to a better place. Unless our life’s pattern has been to work toward that better place, we may find ourselves again learning the lessons we failed to learn but in lesser circumstances.
Like primer on bare wood, being and doing good must be innate.The Source of our impulses must be the Greater Heart.
The Roses Are For You. . .
I tell you true. You were known
before you came here to this vast land.
A waste for some, a paradise for others. . .
for one a dim place, for another the sun shines.
You took upon your spirit a work, a job,
looking to make a difference.
You said to send you where your heart
could change the world. . .
You were given your wish, hard as it seems.
You have not failed. Your ripples are felt
on unnamed shores and even the unborn
know your thoughts well. . . .
Come, be kind to one the heavens
sing praises for. Your work is virtuous
and your talents creative. We make bet on
the one winning the trifecta.
The roses are yours. For keeps.
(it was scribed and it was a Given. I share the message. We 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.
