water

A Glimmer Of Hope

Sometimes horror befalls our lives. It happens to me, it happens to you, it happens to us all. When it happens to those we love and care about, it can feel like a sword in our heart, maybe even felt to the extreme that we think they are injured even more than us, when in actuality, we have allowed their experience to touch us in a way that produces a far more injurious violation to ourselves than it ever did to them, and yet we are blind to this phenomena due to the overwhelming emotion it produces within us. It is as if the waves of compassion can sometimes submerge our very being into the waters of every possible emotion with an upsurge of ripping signals to try and tame the source of our turbulence. We perceive that source as something that we must conquer under the guise of 'what is just', which is something one can only create for oneself.  When we are blind to what justice really is, we add a lot of ingredients that change the recipe of empathy completely. Before we know it, our anger is in charge of steering the boat, and we can no longer even feel the pull of the tides calling us to listen to the sound of our heart long enough to understand that the whirlwind of emotions within us that caused the actual signals to tame the beast we seek, is really the beast of our own fury. Plato once said, "Until philosophers rule as kings or those who are now called kings and leading men genuinely and adequately philosophise, that is, until political power and philosophy entirely coincide, while the many natures who at present pursue either one exclusively are forcibly prevented from doing so, cities will have no rest from evils,... nor, I think, will the human race." (Republic 473c-d)". He also said, "“Justice will be achieved only when those who are not injured feel as indignant as those who are.” --Plato, Circa 400 BC-

 

 

I read those statements to mean that balance is needed in society. But as Gandhi leaves us pearls of wisdom that beseech us to find the peace within, and the Buddha's call summons us to light our own candle within, we are incessantly drawn toward the outer world in attempts to get the answers we can only find within us. We honor the teachings of Martin Luther King Jr. and John Kennedy for their strong stands they took when it came to social injustice, and still, we so many times reject our own needs to calm the waters of discontent within our own soul's yearning for harmony among men. We listen more to the ripping signals of despair, anger, and greed, more than we listen to the whimpering sounds of our own longing to be whole, safe, forgiving, and at one with the Earth and each other.  Where will the balance that Plato describes begin? The scales of justice must begin somewhere, and I strongly believe that somewhere is only found within ourselves. When a loved one is taken from this world and torn from our earthly gaze, they leave behind a whisper that can only be heard when we meet them at that place where we meet on the inside.

 

 

When we can maintain the inside of ourselves and be at peace, we can then move on and go out into the world and conquer it with love. We may never get to see 'an eye for an eye' the way we once perceived it to be, but that has always been something different anyway. I am most certain that is called revenge.

 

© 2013

 

 

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Author's Notes/Comments: 

About Justice, and how we have we failed as a species to understand that it is not the same thing as revenge.

 

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Equinox

First day of spring,
A day early this year,
It's the first day of spring,
We should get out spring gear.

Cover the flowerbeds,
With fresh new manure,
Water the seedlings,
And then plant some more.

Clean out the tool shed,
And dust off the slate
Bring out the lawn chairs,
And stargaze til eight.

Before you know it,
Summer is here,
So enjoy all of spring,
And then do it next year.

 

 

© 2013

Author's Notes/Comments: 

The whispers of spring.

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Swimming Eyes

I want to swim in your eyes,

ride each wave,

taste each salty tear. 
I want to be dragged beneath the surface

and witness everything you've ever seen.
What you see as beautiful,

what you see as sorrow,

what you saw yesterday,

what you'll see tomorrow,

I want to be there,

watching from your eyes,

riding each wave,

tasting each salty tear.  

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Felled To - Adopted By - the Sea

The coastal shifts knocked me daft; treading blind in
depths with curious push and pull, subjected to the tide,
and beaten back to vague awareness - I braced
myself aloft in the water. Held prone by kicking legs,

I surveyed and found no sign of arrival -
no smoke from abandoned ships or flares alight in the sky.
A deep throb draws my vision into my head
and my consciousness flickers in thinning, desperate gasps.

When awoke by the salted breeze assaulting
me, I stirred and frazzled the waves that carried me away;
with every limb heavy and soaked to bone,
there wasn't much momentum left for me to generate.

I watched the patterns of the stars as I bobbed
along the curve of the ocean's tongue. From its mouth, we sail
as if we belong to this ecosystem
by choice. We don't, but we can pretend, as long as we like.

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What Love Is

What Love Is

"Love is patient, love is kind"

Said by the One who is wholly wise

But how can you obtain the honor of love

When love is something you are not?

How can you understand its depth?

You must know from where love is begot

It starts in a spring of selflessness

And bubbles up in kindness and modesty

Flowing to an ocean of forgiveness

Blanketing sin and reflecting the Son's beauty

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tags:

Music of the Night

Folder: 
Love and Romance

Here, on this side of the valley, the night
spreads her jeweled dress upon the ancient
lake beneath the Autumn moon.

I can hear the lapping of the waves upon
the grassy banks, while Zephyr dances
on the diamond-crested billows, and crickets

chirp their strange songs to the stars.

Here, on this side of the valley, the night
spreads her mystery of ages upon the lives
of men, sparkling ciphers over cloudless

sable skies, as she has wont to do since
Time first was and man and woman fell
in love beneath a bright new moon,

spell-bound, as we now are, by
breathless beauty and the music

of the night.

--(c) Copyrght Jim Valero, 2012.

Seasons on a Pond

A drive in the backseat on a snowy winter night
Staring out the frosted pane as the street lights pass
Its a chilled evening and I can see my breath parting my body
My eyes are drawn towards a frozen pond
The flakes float around me and the night doesn't seem so still
In a few months I see it all thawed out
The flora is now in bloom
Little petals float along the water with no purpose but to be watched
In the nights I watch the pond again reflecting the colours of street lamps that accompany it
Filling the darkness and the pond with a cozy hue and almost warmth
I visit the pond another day...
Now the pond shimmers in the sky's palette
But around me, everything is shifting
Its only a matter of time before the pond sees a reset
More months pass and this time the pond has a new face
The decidous neighbours decorate the pond in red and yellow
The wind manipulates time and passes us, dragging the winter with it
Another cycle is here and the pond sees another life

Author's Notes/Comments: 

The world always changes, but something as beautiful and innocent as a pond just repeats. Why can't we just enjoy it?

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Waves, Take me Away

Foamy waters, wave at me

Smiling from across the sea

Glistening with joyous glee

Oceans, hear my calling plea

Bring me to your harmony

I’ll breathe the air that sets me free

And spend my days with just thee

Me and my best friend, the sea

We’re as alike as two can be.

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The Cycle of life and death of the age

Out of the sea, the serpent of many torments
will ascend
and the moon and the sun in suicidal union
will die before the children of this age
but this age is not yet at an end...

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