Let Principle cohere focus As unconditional Love
Entirely allowing
Focus appreciation
Through all perspective's
Intervibral coincidence,
Enjoying
Allow I self the hand of preference.
Born Free
Sense
Know
Less resistance
Allowing, You're Worth it.
Get caught, Satisfied with your own natural grace.
Turn time on a dime.
Freshen your focus,
NOW.
Once upon a time, in a village near the forest, lived a man with very dark hair and a serious countenance.
He was living alone in a wooden house. He was making everything with his bare hands. Every day he walked, before sunrise, deep into the forest.
He picked the highest tree and worked from day to night. All his furniture, even his plates, spoons and forks, was made of wood.
The man did not have a lot of friends, or neighbors, and the closest house was miles and miles away. He never married and he spent all of his life working the wood. His work made him famous in the nearby village and they came to him and ask him to repair everything that was broken. And the man gave all his time and attention to the wood and it was as if he and wood understood each other. The wood was given new life and became a beautiful table, a beautiful chair, or a very nice door.
People were starting to come to him from far away,
from the big city, asking for more furniture and other decorations.
One day he was preparing a wooden chair, and he was out in the open air, when suddenly a rare perfume came to him. He looked around but nobody was with him. So, the man continued to work the chair and try to give it a nice shape and wanted to put also some beautiful colours..
Again the perfume made him turn his head and then he noticed on the earth a very beautiful strange flower with several colours…
“I do not remember seeing this flower before” he said. “No, you don’t. Because I was a seed and some days ago a sparrow brought me here from a foreign country. But as the sparrow got tired from the long journey, he hid me in the earth, and he thought that he would come and eat me later…. But he forgot. I am a seed and if u bury me I will grow up and become a… “ “A beautiful flower that smells so nice” said the carpenter.
“Yes, but I smell like that only if I am happy.. Some minutes ago an ant passed and we spoke.
He gave me news about my family, so I am more happy.”
The perfume was exceptional. It was like the perfume of the orange flowers with a bit of ylang ylang. The man had never thought he could speak with a flower.
“I must finish my chair, I have a lot to do. I must
finish before night comes, ” said the carpenter and
started again to work on the chair.
“Why are you so hurrying to finish your chair? I see nobody else here with you. Do you have family, a wife or children?”
Asked the flower.
“No, I am alone and I am very busy. So do not ask me silly questions, I must work because I have a chair to deliver….” “How is possible to work in such a beautiful day, Look up, the sky is so blue, look at the forest and the trees, such a beautiful picture.” said the flower, and continued ” I need some fresh water and if you have some more grass, you can bring it close to me, so I will have company. “
“Love yourself… “, said the flower and turned his petals to the sun.
“I feel much better, but I really need some water..” repeated the flower again.
“Ohh OK. I will go to bring you some water.” The man left and went to the house. He took a big vase and he put some water in it. Then he went out and he threw the water onto the flower.
“Ohhhh you almost destroy my little petals. I tell you, you really never love anything or anyone. You just threw the water, with all your force. You must be gentle with my petals.”
The flower explained to the carpenter for hours the gentle way
he must water him. And that he must from time to time change and cultivate the soil. And he asked the carpenter if he would find some other seeds, and plant them close to him, so he will not feel alone.
Then the carpenter had a better idea, to take a big pot. He put some soil inside and he suggested to his friend the flower to grow in there so he will not be alone anymore.
The carpenter and the flower became friends; he was strong enough to carry the pot with him
even when he went to the big city for buying new tools.
After months passed the carpenter was so attached to his flower that he started to read books about gardening and every day tried to make his friend happier. He bought a new pot and he placed it near the window so his flower could have a sun bath all day. When he went to the forest for cutting wood for his work, he carried the flower along in a small wooden wagon
so they were always together.
They spoke a lot about everyday life and sometimes about the future. But the flower always said that we must show our love now, not in the future”.
Today is so important for the flowers, from the first sunshine that catches us, we must take as much light we can, and drink water, and have someone to care for us, as we are so fragile.
The flower grew up and became even more beautiful.
And his perfume also became so popular that
when neighbors visited the carpenter, they asked for the name of this flower, so they can also find the seeds and plant it in their garden.
The carpenter told his neighbors, “My flower is very rare and I do not know if you will find the same seeds. I named my flower “Love”. But as this flower has a deep impact on my life, I give him this name. Because he helped me understand that today is more important than the future.
And love is a free energy and the more we give away, the more comes back to us. “ The carpenter and the flower stayed friends for a long time. And the carpenter always left some hours free after his work for gardening, as he got so many secrets from his friend, that he could grow any strange seed and see it grow into a mighty tree or lovely flower.
His garden was very famous and people came from all over the country to see it. And when someone asked him about the secret of this beautiful garden, the carpenter responded, with a smile: “Love, is the secret.” The End
Translated from Arabic to English by Ashraf Aboul-Yazid
Siddall, Sherry. Sweet Land (Finishing Line Press, 2021)
Sweet Land is a Love poem: the unknown, the personal touch. Ark charts a walk on the beach, meditation: the ocean’s tongues lap, and the shells wash up and on as “buttercups,” the whole inner and outer changed for the good.
“Before the Frost” is an example for Love and Hope. Memory of a nursing home, as I interpret: “I never thought it would come to this . . . :” Poem ends:
“winter is coming
it will be glorious soon, all
the light absorbed, done.”
And North Carolina’s state bird lives in the poem “Cardinal.” “I hear fierce birds again, as a brown horse watches me over the fence.”
Sherry Siddall’s Sweet Land rocks and waves with Love of words and surround. Bareness crackles and winter’s gone, “no future here, no joy, but still those buds,” always the breaking in the sweet sweat of living day to day among “supple” twigs that become the red bird that settles all. And then “Elegy,” cardinal dead beneath my window.
Who has not seen this? Siddall lets us spread the “redness where there is no color.”
“Hunting Season” speaks for me, for I feed the small game I hunted for the table when I was a boy, a “hunter.” Her poem’s about hunting ducks; I substitute doves in my memory in her words, “limp feathered bodies” on a rail.
These two lines in Sweet Land sum Hope: “None of earth’s beauty holds us so fast / as this sky, this immensity flying past.”
Shelby Stephenson was North Carolina’s poet laureate, 2015-2018. His recent book is Shelby’s Lady: The Hog Poems.
Michael Robinson, right, with fellow contributor Joan Beebe
Night Descends on the Nation’s Capital
January 6, 2021
Smoke rises from the Nation’s Capital.
Flashbangs explode used by the rioters.
Along with bear spray attacking the police.
Killing an officer and harming many others.
A mob of white rioters invaded the capital in daylight.
In full military gear with zip ties and Trump flags,
Using the American flag to beat a police officer.
It was a dark night in our nation’s history
Like the nights in 68, when D.C. burned to the ground.
You remember the night that Dr. King was assassinated.
The nights when the black community took to the streets.
The nights that the national guards patrolled the streets,
The police Shot tear gas into the crowds of black Americans.
The jeeps and military vehicles raced down the streets.
Guns mounted on the jeeps in the nation’s capital
Remember as troops stood on the steps of the capital.
A night when a little black boy hid in the bathroom.
Afraid that he would die in the fire of the night.
It all happened with the looting and vandalizing.
Our democracy and the foundations of the nation attacked.
They looked to assassinate the Vice-President,
And the speaker of the house and others.
It was a night of total pandemonium as Trump watched.
A coup perpetrated by Neo-Nazis with Trump’s blessings.
Unchecked, as they shouted death threats repeatedly.
The night when a hangman’s noose,
Was erected on the Capitol grounds.
White supremacy has gone unbridled,
For decades terrorizing those of color in America.
It was that night that America was blackened,
And the President watched with delight.
Black Americans have been lynched for decades.
This night the night our congress was being hunted,
By the mob in combat gear without their hoods.
Wanting to lynch as many as they could find.
While parading the confederate flag in the halls of the Capital.
Note: Lawrence O’Donnell spoke of military jeeps with guns mounted in D.C. 68 riots on one of his shows. I remember the jeeps in the riots; however, I have not been able to source it currently the jeeps with mounted guns in D.C. There are photographs of jeeps with mounted guns in riots in Illinois
Source Alan Taylor, The Atlantic April 3, 2018.
1-25-2021
My American Flag
It hangs on to the edge of my desk.
Ripped and torn for years of flying on that old car.
After the September 11th attack on America.
This was a moment in which America meant so much to me.
