#sadness
NOT AROUND
Today we commemorate 9/11…we remember the moment our world turned grey…it’s our annual reminder…of everyone and everything we lost that tragic…fateful day.
There have been 20 years of children born Sind 9/11…an entire generation not around…not around the day those lives were lost…not around the day our world came tumbling down.
Not around to remember how beautifully that day began…not around to tell…
how that beauty would change forever…the day the towers fell.
Not around to see people jumping out of windows…frightened women…frightened men…not around to remember telephone calls to loved ones…they’d never see again.
Not around to see the population of a city swallowed in debris…
Not around to see our country’s courage…our resiliency.
Not around to know of the heroes…for there were heroes everywhere
They were on the ground beside us…they were flying in the air.
Not around to understand what was in each person’s heart and soul…
In a plane when they decide to fight…when they uttered the words, “Let’s roll.”
Not around to see the carnage…smell the smoke…or here the din…
Not around to see people running out of doors while police and firefighters were running in.
That’s why we commemorate that day…
why we remind ourselves of the panic…the anger…the destructive power of a jet…
So those not around back then will long remember…
a day the rest of us cannot forget.
DREAM ANOTHER DREAM
Her life was not an easy one…it was filled with misfortune…heartache…and pain…but every time she’d fall…she’d pick herself up again.
She’d brush herself off…take a deep breath…then stand tall…all the while her optimism never wavered…and she never lost her smile.
I asked her one day, “How do you do it? How do you keep from feeling low? Is there a secret to your happiness…if so…I’d like to know.”
“The answer for me is simple.” She said. “Nothing too extreme…the key to my happiness has always been…my ability to dream.”
“When life hands me a disappointment…when I lose my self-esteem…when one dream fails…or has been broken…I dream another dream.”
“And when a dream has ended…good or bad…I take a moment to rejoice…or cry…then I remind myself there are as many dreams…as there are stars up in the sky.”
“Then I choose another star to dream on…and if that dream leads to scars…I look up to the heavens…and I choose another star.”
“I dream another dream.” She said. “And if another day I’m lucky enough to make it through…I stop and take a moment to count how many dreams I’ve made came true.”
Her life ended as all ours will and though I still think it unfair…remembering her words I chose not to live in my despair.
Instead I dream of the moment we will meet again…Hey! It is easier than it seems…to follow her advice…to dream another dream.
DREAM ALONE
They were good friends when they were young…they’d lie together under the stars…he’d search for constellations…she loved Jupiter and Mars.
The two of them were so young all they had to do it seemed…was to laugh and play and sit together under the stars…and dream.
And oh the dreams they dreamed…of things they’d do and the places they would go…never realizing at such an innocent age…there was much they did not know.
They didn’t know on those evenings looking up at the stars from her backyard that life would not always be that easy…or would hit her quite so hard.
As she grew up her life became one of sadness, of sorrow, of uncertainty and doubt.
He saw her sinking into a quicksand of depression…but he could not pull her out.
She left him a note the day she killed herself with instructions to read it…under either Jupiter or Mars…It read: I’m sorry to be leaving you but there’s just too much darkness between the stars.
He rereads her note often…on nights sitting under a starlit sky
and even after all these years…he still can’t help but wonder why…
Why he couldn’t help her find a way through her sadness…over the terror of her starkness…a way to help her see the stars…instead of all the darkness.
As he looks up at the stars today he tells her, “I’m still missing you…and I am sad for all the dreams we made that never will come true.”
“And I have to tell you something when we were young we couldn’t possibly have known…
It’s not as much fun dreaming…when you have to dream alone.”
HOLIDAY SADNESS
For many of us the holidays are happy times…it’s when we smile, we laugh…we grin but for many others the holidays is when sorrow comes flooding in.
When the waters of sadness rise around them…as they are reminded of a death, they wonder how long they’ll be underwater…how long they’ll have to hold their breath.
And though they know the flood will on day end and their life will resume unimpeded…they wonder how they’ll repair the damage once the waters have receded.
How will they rebuild each time they’re reminded of their pain…if they’re lucky they start to notice little things…like the sky after a rain.
Like how the sunlight paints the morning sky as it welcomes in the day.
Like the laughter of their family…and friends they’ve met along the way.
There is no time limit on sadness…and it may take a while…but eventually they begin to remember all the things that made them smile.
And the more they remind themselves of the pleasures in their life…the less they think about the pain…
a skill they will find useful…when the waters rise again.
SOMEONE TO HOLD ON TO
Things will not always go our way
We know this fact to be true…
so may we be blessed when bad things happen
we have someone to hold on to.
GOODBYE ROSE
Cancer is an ugly disease…not only for the life it takes
But for all the sorrow and sadness…left floating in its wake….
Although I did not know her personally I’ve kept abreast of cases she has tried
which is why I was saddened yesterday when I heard that she had died.
But what finally caused my tears to flow…what opened my floodgate
was, amidst the many tributes to her, were the messages of hate.
The more I read the sadder I felt until soon I was feeling numb
as my heart filled up with sorrow at the country we’ve become.
Cancer comes in many forms causing families sadness, sorrow and strife
progressing slowly through the body until it finally takes a life.
Hate is a form of cancer…I wish people would understand
How it’s metastasizing quickly…as it spreads across the land.
Two forms of cancer make me sad today…
The first that took this woman I am thinking of…
and the second that is slowly killing
this country that I love.
OUR FOUNDATIONS
There was a time when we were children
when we loved everyone…indiscriminately…
when we were pouring the foundation
of who we, one day, hoped to be.
Mixed into the foundation
of who we hoped to be
were the beginnings of a dream
of the world we hoped to see.
When our foundation was completed…when it dried
there we hoped to find
a house built on acceptance
on being loving, compassionate and kind.
But when we looked around us
at the diversity of our world…and of our nation
we found every house was not built
upon the same foundation.
And we came to understand and appreciate
what many before us have known:
How every house, no matter the foundation
has a beauty all its own.
And so our dream amidst such diverse foundations
is that everyone will come to find
a world that is accepting
that is loving, compassionate and kind.
Which is why, as adults, we are so sad today…
when we see so much hate
when we kill each other so indiscriminately…
and we wonder when did our world turned into
the world we never dreamed that it would be.
THAT SOMEONE
When searching for the key to happiness
It’s difficult to know exactly what to do
Sometimes I wonder if we should be looking
into our sadness too…
We should look for someone who knows our sadness
who can see the tear before it reaches our eye
for someone who accepts our sadness
who knows it’s okay to cry.
For someone who understand us
who can read our changing mood…or tone
who knows when we want to be held
and when we want to be left alone.
For someone who understands sadness has its own schedule
who knows what is at stake
someone who will sit beside us…and hold our hand
no matter how long we take.
For someone who knows when it comes to sadness
this lesson they have learned:
It is only through patience and love and understanding
that happiness will return.
And if you’re lucky you will find your happiness…
You’ll find that someone who
all the while you were looking for them
they were looking for you.
GET OVER IT!
These poems I write I write for me…I like to take the time
to put my feelings down on paper and to make my stories rhyme…
It’s kind of like a daily diary…it’s something I love do do
and when I’m finished I like to share the words I write…with you.
What I write are my feelings, my views…I write about the world I see
and I don’t desire nor do I expect every one to agree with me…
And when you don’t agree I’m usually fine with that…
but yesterday I have to note
I was a little saddened by one response…by what one person wrote.
I posted a poem about how George Floyd will never get the chance to teach his daughter how to fly…
lamenting how he cried out…
how it was a tragic and senseless way to die.
That same day I received this note…which saddened me I must admit
The note said, ‘He’s not the first and only person to die!
and ended with, ‘Get over it!”
Get over it…get over it…these words reverberate inside my head
Get over it…get over it…is what whoever wrote this said.
Get over how a person…any person had to die this way
Get over how another person’s life was so callously taken away.
Get over the tragedy the inequity….the inhumanity?
I confess it is always going to be a challenge getting over it…for me…
So the question I must ask the person who said, ‘Get Over it’
be you a woman…or a man
Is the problem how difficult it is for me to get over it…
or how easily you can?
'He’s not the first and only person to die! Get over it.’