Emerge, To Be

A saber struck through
My heart, failing to understand –
Why I am here, and they are gone.
Tears cut furrows down my cheeks
My sobs the neighbors, awake.

Each one a star of heaven’s sky –
What IS this? Who AM I?
Others say, “It’s not your time!”
But why theirs, if not mine?

My soul quakes, aches, to call
Them all, bring them back
Their parts to play, the stage
Devastated with their absence,
The curtains fallen, crimson glory.

I could name them, one by one,
Those precious, who are gone
Through actions, they cannot unmake,
We cannot restore them, taken
By the working of their hands.

Please, please understand
No matter what you have done,
Been, seen, experienced –
There is still enough, still love,
Still more, friendship, joy in store,
You belong; you are pricelessly dear.

Reach out, find someone, let them
Be a heart to catch you, help you.
Reach, keep on until you find one
Who shows you there is meaning
And a hungry need for you to be.

Life without you is less shiny,
It is incomplete; your smile
Fulfills someone’s need, you are
A blessing indeed, and there exists
A purpose suited to your unique identity.
I know the battle is exhausting
But let us not give up; I am counting
On you to recognize life as a gift;
Stay, continue fighting, together
Everyone can make it.

Observe

If we celebrate
Anything, we should celebrate
Being here, being alive;
Because living is not a given
Life keeps passing, good-bye.
We are only the blinks
In the movement of eternity,
Breaths in a storm only
Sent once to live and die,
Sing as if you mean it; try.
I would not ask you
To participate if did not I,
The beauty of forever
You can grasp onto, hold, find,
If you reach for it, nearby.

Prompt: What compels your attention, takes you out of the moment?

Counted Syllabics

Knowledge is, is not
Secure enough for full trust,
Hidden remains, much.

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Strange, strange, and stranger
The games we all join and play
To avoid boredom.

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Finding it again
An unlikely happening
Still, we keep dreaming.

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There exist moments
Of which none possess knowledge
Even those present.

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Where did we find it?
How were we bound around it?
Why does it exist?
Though it guards it jealously –
Perhaps love knows the answer.

Prompt: I played with Haiku and a Tanka here. Should you wish, do some of your own.

Gratitude:
After days of shortage, I finally slept.
The gift of writing.
The gift of reading.
The presence of my dogs.
The luxury of time alone.

Willing Walls

Every rock feels like a wall
Weighted on the edges fit
To gloss right over
Enjambment holding words, lines
Together sentenced inside
The poem, river stones
Smoothed yet separated like
Those who secrets keep
Under mounds stacked much
Higher than maybe any desire.

Constant, no buyer
For the passions readily
Acquired under siege
Of rolling onslaught, bolder
Than before romance tendered.

The song, melodious surrender,
Now love, revoke the walls built
On forgotten dreams
Turn to see what such fascination
Means as inspiration – flames –
Creativity, freedom inclination,
No mystery tearing down
Careful barriers
Constructed to prohibit feral
Growth as if nothing is enough.

Love is no stone though
One might throw, causing ripples
On the surface, it seems time
Is only these shared moments,
All other becomes deprivation extreme,
A heart can be open
Or remain as hard as a stone;
The bedrock alone
Challenged with an anomalous difference
Which may be given and shown,
Love is and becomes the soul’s true home.

These Four

Fertile light
Which nourishes
Every living thing,
Letting healthy energy
Pour over all life
Existing and growing
Full within common
Circles of influence.

Water, bearer, builder,
Giver, in everything,
The element of cells
Binder of creation
Healer of random hurts
Companion on the journey;
Life contains a thirst
Deeper than any ocean.

Air, holding breath
Loss, immediate death;
Containing space,
Spirit, dreams
Where time meets
Being – quiet, soothing,
Invisible nurture,
Life bringing fullness.

Earth, the surface,
Ground, beneath all feet
Remaining, sustaining
Though civilization
May timely turn
Into its overwhelming
Dust – there lives trust
The base providing
What fuels living
Enough to retain foundations
Raising survival, life.

I am aware most use fire instead of light in a presentation such as this, but light is how it began in this instance. What I am given I usually keep.