Saturday Haiku: Butterfly

    open field

    heavy with summer

    butterfly dreams

                          ~ CK

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Photo: a swallowtail butterfly drinking nectar from orange butterflyweed

from Avondale Park Rose & Habitat Garden

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The True Story of a Boy and a Dragonfly

This is an old poem of an even older event. For me, it is a reminder to be open to any invitation that life offers. Sometimes the wondrous unfolds out of the mundane, and sometimes the child is more open than the adult in accepting invitations to wonder.

 

Dragonfly

It’s a childhood memory,

Somehow vivid as trips to grandma’s house

And family dinners on Sunday.

A dragonfly --

That ancient creature of iridescent beauty

Precise as a finely tuned machine

Swift as any fairy --

Greeted me in the back yard.

She hovered for a moment

Then darted to the hillside.

Returning to me,

She hovered again

Then darted back to the hillside.

“I’ll follow that dragonfly,” I said.

She floated along just in front of me,

Allowing for my five-year-old steps,

She followed the path up the hill

And around the bend.

We reached a plateau

Just past the pine tree

Just beyond sight of our back porch.

There, to my surprise,

Was a host of dragonflies.

It looked like some important dragonfly meeting place.

They were flying about in a great circle

Like a living, vibrant wheel,

Like some shimmering vortex

Connecting this world and the next.

She flew on ahead of me and joined the circle.

I stood astounded.

I couldn’t stay long.

It was a dragonfly meeting, you know.

                                                      ~ CK

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Image: Illustration from "The Water-Babies, A Fairy Tale for a Land Baby" by Charles Kingsley,
           illustrated by Warwick Goble

          Public Domain

          Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

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Monday Music: Ventura Highway

A great hit from the 1970's! (Notes about the song are below)

Notes from Wikipedia:

Dewey Bunnell, the song's vocalist and writer, has said that the lyric "alligator lizards in the air" in the song is a reference to the shapes of clouds in the sky he saw in 1963 while his family was driving down the coast from Vandenberg Air Force Base near Lompoc, California where they had a flat tire. While his father changed the tire, he and his brother stood by the side of the road and watched the clouds and saw a road sign for "Ventura".

In the booklet for the boxed-set, Highway, he states that the song "reminds me of the time I lived in Omaha as a kid and how we'd walk through cornfields and chew on pieces of grass. There were cold winters, and I had images of going to California. So I think in the song I'm talking to myself, frankly: 'How long you gonna stay here, Joe?' I really believe that 'Ventura Highway' has the most lasting power of all my songs. It's not just the words — the song and the track have a certain fresh, vibrant, optimistic quality that I can still respond to". The song has a "Go West, young man" motif in the structure of a conversation between an old man named Joe and a young and hopeful kid. Joe was modeled after a "grumpy" old man he had met while his dad was stationed in Biloxi, Mississippi at Keesler Air Force Base.

"That's Gerry and Dan doing a harmony on two guitars on the intro. I remember us sitting in a hotel room, and I was playing the chords, and Gerry got that guitar line, and he and Dan worked out that harmony part. That's really the hook of the song."

Saturday Haiku: Darkness and Light

 

we live in that sphere

that juggles darkness and light –

finds beauty in both

                         ~ CK

___________________

Photo by Steve Minor

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Persistence

  

  

Persistence

Moving ahead

Often involves

A certain ability to look

Beyond the bird poop on the windshield

To see the curves

In the road

While remembering 

The graceful
Airborne beauty

Of a flock

In flight.

                       ~ CK

____________________

Photos courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Upper: Winding Road Down to Beeley Village, by Alan Heardman

Lower: Måsar flyger, by Fredrik Alpstedt

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Open Wounds and Soul Distress

Police in riot gear watch protesters in Ferguson, Mo. on Aug. 13, 2014.
Photo by Jeff Roberson--AP  (Featured in Time Magazine)

When events unravel, such as we have witnessed over the past week in Ferguson, Missouri, some of us wish that such sorrowful events were not our present reality. My first reaction to the police response was that we do not need such military styled police forces in this country. The move toward the military outfitting of local police came after 9/11 with certain provisions of the Homeland Security Act. In essence, out of fear we sold our freedom and headed toward a police state. Is it too late now to turn back? I hope not.

The crux of the unrest, however, in Ferguson and across America goes deeper than oversized military-styled police responses. It runs through our history as a wound that we have not been able to heal thus far. I cannot pretend to offer any solutions. I cannot even pretend to claim understanding. I have been trying, however, to listen. The only recommendation I can offer is that we stop and listen.

His Name was Michael

Here are two voices, past and present that we can listen to: Ralph Ellison and Michael Twitty. I will let these two gentlemen offer a perspective that I cannot give. Michael Twitty calls himself “a food writer, independent scholar, culinary historian” who preserves the food ways of his antebellum slave ancestors and who is an interpreter of how America’s history with slavery affects us all. Ralph Ellison was an African American writer who lived from 1914 to 1994. He wrote The Invisible Man, from which I will share an excerpt, but first I would like to share Michael Twitty’s commentary from his blog, Afroculinaria. It is raw and from the heart, and it is something that so many of us need to hear.

Ferguson : My Thoughts on an American Flashpoint, by Michael Twitty

I have been asked by many people to take a close look at the Michael Brown shooting case in Ferguson, Missouri and offer my opinion.  I felt it best to take a step back and really absorb all the circulating currents of opinion and matters of fact before I made any personal pronouncements.  This is my best attempt to answer that call, hopefully soberly, responsibly and with as much restraint as I can muster in the face of this deeply American tragedy. (Please continue reading here)

His Name was Clifton

I spent some time last summer with Ralph Ellison’s, The Invisible Man. Near the end of that existential 1952 novel there was a passage that I was particularly struck by. The passage is the protagonist's eulogy for a fellow member of “The Brotherhood” who was shot in the street by a policeman:

“...His name was Clifton and they shot him, and I was there to see him fall. So I know it as I know it.

 "Here are the facts. He was standing and he fell. He fell and he kneeled. He kneeled and he bled. He bled and he died. He tell in a heap like any man and his blood spilled out like any blood; red as any blood, wet as any blood and reflecting the sky and the buildings and birds and trees, or your face if you'd looked into its dulling mirror -- and it dried in the sun as blood dries. That's all.They spilled his blood and he bled. They cut him down and he died; the blood flowed on the walk in a pool, gleamed a while, and, after awhile, became dull then dusty, then dried. That's the story and that's how it ended. It's an old story and there's been too much blood to excite you. Besides, it's only important when it fills the veins of a living man. Aren't you tired of such stories? Aren't you sick of the blood? Then why listen, why don't you go? It's hot out here. There's the odor of embalming fluid. The beer is cold in the taverns, the saxophones will be mellow at the Savoy; plenty good-laughing-lies will be told in the barber shops and beauty parlors; and there'll be sermons in two hundred churches in the cool of the evening, and plenty of laughs at the movies. Go listen to 'Amos and Andy' and forget it.Here you have only the same old story. There's not even a young wife up here in red to mourn him. There's nothing here to pity, no one to break down and shout. Nothing to give you that good old frightened feeling. The story's too short and too simple. His name was Clifton, Tod Clifton, he was unarmed and his death was as senseless as his life was futile. He had struggled for Brotherhood on a hundred street corners and he though it would make him more human, but he died like any dog in a road.

"All right, all right," I called out, feeling desperate. It wasn't the way I wanted it to go, it wasn't political. Brother Jack probably wouldn't approve of it at all, but I had to keep going as I could go.

"Listen to me standing up on this so-called mountain!" I shouted. "Let me tell it as it truly was! His name was Tod Clifton and he was full of illusions. He thought he was a man when he was only Tod Clifton. He was shot for a simple mistake of judgment and he bled and his blood dried and shortly the crowd trampled out the stains. It was a normal mistake of which many are guilty: He thought he was a man and that men were not meant to be pushed around. But it was hot downtown and he forgot his history, he forgot the time and the place. He lost his hold on reality. There was a cop and a waiting audience but he was Tod Clifton and cops are everywhere. The cop? What about him? He was a cop. A good citizen. But this cop had an itching finger and an eager ear for a word that rhymed with 'trigger,' and when Clifton fell he had found it. The Police Special spoke its lines and the rhyme was completed.Just look around you. Look at what he made, look inside you and feel his awful power. It was perfectly natural. The blood ran like blood in a comic-book killing, on a comic-book street in a comic-book town on a comic-book day in a comic-book world.

"Tod Clifton's one with the ages. But what's that to do with you in this heat under this veiled sun? Now he's part of history, and he has received his true freedom. Didn't they scribble his name on a standardized pad?His Race: colored! Religion: unknown, probably born Baptist. Place of birth: U.S.Some southern town. Next of kin: unknown. Address: unknown. Occupation: unemployed.Cause of death (be specific): resisting reality in the form of a .38 caliber revolver in the hands of the arresting officer, on Forty-second between the library and the subway in the heat of the afternoon, of gunshot wounds received from three bullets, fired at three paces, one bullet entering the right ventricle of the heart, and lodging there, the other severing the spinal ganglia traveling downward to lodge in the pelvis,the other breaking through the back and traveling God knows where.

"Such was the short bitter life of Brother Tod Clifton.Now he's in this box with the bolts tightened down. He's in the box and we're in there with him, and when I've told you this you can go. It's dark in this box and it's crowded. It has a cracked ceiling and a clogged-up toilet in the hall. It has rats and roaches, and it's far, far too expensive a dwelling.The air is bad and it'll be cold this winter. Tod Clifton is crowded and he needs the room.

'Tell them to get out of the box,' that's what he would say if you could hear him. 'Tell them to get out of the box and go teach the cops to forget that rhyme. Tell them to teach them that when they call you nigger to make a rhyme with trigger it makes the gun backfire.'

"So there you have it. In a few hours Tod Clifton will be cold bones in the ground. And don't be fooled, for these bones shall not rise again. You and I will still be in the box. I don't know if Tod Clifton had a soul. I only know the ache that I feel in my heart, my sense of loss. I don't know if you have a soul. I only know you are men of flesh and blood; and that blood will spill and flesh grow cold. I do not know if all cops are poets, but I know that all cops carry guns with triggers. And I know too how we are labeled. So in the name of Brother Clifton beware of the triggers;go home, keep cool, stay safe away from the sun. Forget him. When he was alive he was our hope, but why worry over a hope that's dead? So there's only one thing left to tell and I've already told it. His name was Tod Clifton, he believed in Brotherhood, he aroused our hopes and he died."

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* Please also see my latest post on the subject, "A Southern White Boy Takes a Look at Ferguson – Again."



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Monday Music: Sleep (Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir)

Here is one of Eric Whitacre's remarkable endeavors in which individual voices sent to him from around the world are combined. "The 2011 Virtual Choir video features 2052 performances of 'Sleep' from 1752 singers in 58 countries, individually recorded and uploaded to YouTube between September 2010 and January 2011." http://virtualchoir.org

The music is composed by Eric Whitacre for the poem by Charles Anthony Silvestri. Scroll down if you want to read the poem.

SLEEP*

The evening hangs beneath the moon,
A silver thread on darkened dune.
With closing eyes and resting head
I know that sleep is coming soon.

Upon my pillow, safe in bed,
A thousand pictures fill my head.
I cannot sleep, my mind’s a-flight;
And yet my limbs seem made of lead.

If there are noises in the night,
A frightening shadow, flickering light,
Then I surrender unto sleep,
Where clouds of dream give second sight,

What dreams may come, both dark and deep,
Of flying wings and soaring leap
As I surrender unto sleep,
As I surrender unto sleep.

©2001 by Charles Anthony Silvestri

(*Retrieved from http://www.charlesanthonysilvestri.com/sleep.html)

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Saturday Haiku: Pine Siskin at the Window

finding nourishment

she turns her head, observing

and then flies onward

                   ~ CK

__________________________
Photo by Dick Daniels at http://carolinabirds.org/
Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons


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Celebrating the Feminine Principle

"She is always and forever rising. When she arises, there is creativity, compassion, and wholeness… We would all do well to take this day to recollect and to recognize all the beauties, delights, rewards and treasures that have come to us in life by way of the feminine principle."

Today, August 15, is the Feast of the Assumption of Mary. It is a Holy Day of Obligation in the Roman Catholic liturgical year.  The Assumption of Mary only became dogma in 1950, but Carl Jung called it the most significant religious event since the Reformation. To him, if codified a deep longing for that feminine archetype to take her place alongside the Holy Trinity. He went on to say that “For more than a thousand years it has been taken for granted that the Mother of God dwelt there [in the heavenly court].” (See Answer to Job, by C.G. Jung, pp. 99 - 100)

Interpreting and Honoring

When one looks at the fields of literature, art, music, religion, psychology, and
archaeology, it is quite clear that the feminine principle cannot be suppressed. She is always and forever rising. When she arises, there is creativity, compassion, and wholeness. Many people will disagree on the significance of the feminine that is displayed in so many aspects of life. Some will call her Goddess, some will call her Mediatrix, and some will declare her Queen of Heaven. Some will call her anima while others will exult in the divine muse. Traditional Catholics will have their view, feminists, artists, musicians, psychologists, academics, and “new age-ers” will each have their particular take on the significance of the various manifestations of the feminine archetype. How we interpret the transcendent feminine principle and how we name it is far less important than the fact that the feminine is honored. And on this day, she is honored in a big way. She is recognized as an immanent presence in the highest realm of the universe. We would all do well to take this day to recollect and to recognize all the beauties, delights, rewards and treasures that have come to us in life by way of the feminine principle.     

I think of the feminine as necessary for bringing balance to life and creativity to the spirit. I, of course, am thinking from a male perspective. A woman would naturally have a different understanding of that feminine archetype (and any comments from a woman’s perspective will be welcomed on this post).

Poetic Connection

I mentioned in another blog post that the Catholic view of Mary is a stumbling block to many Protestants, but it was one of my greatest attractions as a convert from Protestantism.  The following poem is my first attempt to write about the profound nature of the feminine archetype. I was still a Baptist at the time, though I borrowed the Catholic title of “Our Lady.”

To Our Lady

My love bore twilight in her breast,
And starlight beauty shone
That bade me gladly leave the rest
To seek out flesh and bone.

My love bore sorrow in her eyes,
And joy within her heart
That made me fully realize
That all-connecting part.

My love bore grief within her bones
And victory in her brow.
Her strength rolled back the massive stones
That held my heart till now.

                                                    ~ CK

 *     *     *     *     *

Other related posts:

• A Jungian Appreciation of Mary
• Ave Maria (Morten Lauridsen)
• Schubert's Ave Maria (Bobby McFerrin)
• Reflecting upon Michelangelo’s Pieta
• To a Local Goddess

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Photos: The upper photo, judging from the water mark, is by Eddi van W. I found it being used on two websites: Temples of the Moon, and Woo Woo Momma.

The lower photos are details from Michelangelo’s Pieta

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“Lead All Souls to Heaven”

Depiction of St. Brenden the Navigator

In a talk that he gave to the novices at Gethsemani Abby, Thomas Merton once compared spirituality to a journey down the river. He talked about the Irish monks who took off in a boat, going where God led them. He said that the image of embarking on a boat and letting the river carry us is a metaphor for how we can abandon ourselves to the guidance of God. It is not an image of being in control, but rather of resting in the boat and trusting the river. Merton speaks of that journey being one of progressive insight that is ultimately fulfilled upon the spiritual pilgrim’s death with full realization in heaven. He went on to say that “journey” is symbolic of our state on earth – we are all going somewhere.*

Spiritual Journey

I like the imagery of embarking upon the river when speaking of the spiritual life. My own view of spirituality is not one that is centered upon life in heaven after death.  I don’t think Thomas Merton made the afterlife his focus either. He referred to heaven in traditional terms as the ultimate destination of the faithful soul after death, but his focus was on how we live in our present life on earth. In my view, we are all on a journey and we can make that journey as spiritual as we want to. By “spiritual,” I refer to that act of understanding the true value and meaning of our existence. That understanding may be enhanced by seeing the work of an artist in a gallery, listening to music in a concert hall, or watching a sunset and realizing that we are connected to creation.

To find our spiritual path, we need not take traditional imagery literally. For example, when I hear or read traditionally religious terms like salvation, heaven, hell, paradise, etc. I find that if I think of these things symbolically rather than as actual places in some afterlife, then that imagery begins to inform my life and to expand my appreciation of what Life has in store. In other words, spirituality is not about life after death, it is about life in the here-and-now. When we begin to see that, then we can let the imagery of traditional religious language inform our journey as we embark upon the river of life.

I wrote in Spirit Work, Soul Work, “True spirituality integrates and connects. In order for spiritual practice to be more than just an opiate or a distraction, it must take into account the whole of life. Work place, family, hobbies and social life each represent opportunities for the implementation of spirituality. Every religious tradition offers methods for spiritual practice, the goal being to eliminate distractions and to pay attention.”

A Universal Hope

We have some powerful archetypes to inform us along our journey. I have an appreciation for Marian spirituality, and I am fascinated by stories of Marian visitations. From a purely psychological standpoint, these stories can be very illuminating in regard to the role of the feminine archetype in our lives (see A Jungian Appreciation of Mary). The reported visions at Fatima in 1917 are most intriguing. There have been books written about the phenomena that occurred there in Portugal, and there was even a movie made about it, “The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima.”

There is a prayer, supposedly requested by the Blessed Virgin Mary at Fatima, that is now traditionally recited while praying the rosary: “O my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of hell, lead all souls to Heaven, especially those who have most need of your mercy.”

Lead all souls to heaven, especially those who have most need of your mercy! I love finding concepts of universalism in faith practices. When I first began to learn to pray the rosary As a Catholic convert, I was already familiar with the story of Fatima, and I was also drawn to the idea of universalism. It was a true joy to find this prayer for all to find their way to heaven, even those we might consider to be far from God’s grace.

The Gate of Heaven Is Everywhere

Thomas Merton

What do we mean when we speak of heaven? What is this universal hope, and how is it apprehended? What does it mean to you? For some, it may be a metaphor for union with the divine, for others it could refer to personal fulfillment or psychological wholeness When the Gospel of Matthew speaks of the kingdom heaven, sometimes it is not referring to life after death but rather the imminent reign of God on earth. The book of Matthew was written for a Jewish community of people who would not have spoken the name of God. The term, “Kingdom of heaven,” was used rather than Kingdom of God. Unfortunately, many readers of the New Testament text today see heaven only in terms of the afterlife.

We can turn again to Thomas Merton for an image of how we might understand heaven. There is a famous passage in his Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander** in which he describes an epiphany that occurred on a rare trip from Gethsemani Abbey to Louisville, Kentucky:

In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world, the world of renunciation and supposed holiness. The whole illusion of a separate holy existence is a dream.

Merton wrote of how the people he saw on that street corner were just and much a part of God as he and his monastic brothers were. The only difference was that “We just happen to be conscious of it” but that that did not mean he was any better than the rest of the world. As he continued to discuss his epiphany, Merton declared:

It is a glorious destiny to be a member of the human race, though it is a race dedicated to many absurdities and one which makes many terrible mistakes: yet, with all that, God Himself gloried in becoming a member of the human race. A member of the human race! To think that such a commonplace realization should suddenly seem like news that one holds the winning ticket in a cosmic sweepstake.

…It is like a pure diamond, blazing with the invisible light of heaven. It is in everybody…I have no program for this seeing. It is only given. But the gate of heaven is everywhere.

So while that Marian prayer from Our Lady of Fatima is to lead all souls to heaven, Thomas Merton affirms that the gate of heaven is everywhere, if only we will become conscious of it. That is all the more reason to set our craft upon the water, and trust the waters to take us to that destination that we seek on our spiritual journey.

Irish currach

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References:
* "The Spiritual Journey," lecture given by Thomas Merton on January 16, 1963; from Thomas Merton on Contemplation, audio recordings from the archives of The Thomas Merton Center at Bellarmine University, Louisville, Kentucky, under the copyright of Know You Know Media.

** Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, by Thomas Merton, 1966, Doubleday, Garden City, NY.

Photos: 
St. Brendan from "Irish Monks and the voyage of St. Brenden"
Thomas Merton from Dover Beach blogsite
Irish currach from Kelticos 


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Monday Music: She Moved through the Fair

"She Moved Through the Fair" is a traditional Irish folk song dating back to medieval times. It is sung here by Anne Briggs who was very influential in the English folk revival in the 1960s, though she had a relatively short recording career and never aspired to widespread fame and commercial success.

Saturday Haiku: Drought

sometimes struggling

the land conserves energy

as it waits for rain

                        ~ CK

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Photo:
A dry riverbed in California
Public Domain
Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons


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Harper Lee: Treasure of the South, Gift to the World

Harper Lee in 2006
 (Birmingham News photo by Linda Stelter)

It has been 54 years since Harper Lee published To Kill a Mockingbird. In 2010, with the 50th anniversary of the book's publication, Harper Lee and her novel were the topic for many a publication.  BBC News Magazine published an article exploring why To Kill a Mockingbird continues to be so hugely popular in Great Britain. In publications almost as foreign to some of us in the South, The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, and Smithsonian Magazine all featured articles  trying to explain the Harper Lee phenomenon.  Those articles were, respectively, “The Courthouse Ring,” “What 'To Kill a Mockingbird' Isn't,” and “Harper Lee's Novel Achievement.”

Every summer, Harper Lee's hometown of Monroeville, Alabama, hosts tourists from all over the world who come to see the town that inspired her novel, to visit the old courthouse, and to see the theatrical production of To Kill a Mockingbird, performed by local actors. I have never been go Monroeville, but two of my friends made the trek this summer to see the play. One day I'll make it over there. It is one of those things on my "bucket list" of things to do before I die.

Lee's novel is a perennial best-seller, and the movie version of To Kill a Mockingbird is a cinematic work of art in itself. My main point in featuring Harper Lee is to share what two Southerners have said recently about Harper Lee. I am no expert on the renowned author, and certainly make no claims of any personal knowledge of her. I much prefer for you to hear what Wayne Flynt has said about why Harper Lee wrote only one novel, and to read what journalist John Archibald has written about what we may learn about Harper Lee from reading her novel.

A Most Graceful Dance 

Wayne Flynt, Professor Emeritus in the Department of History at Auburn University, is a widely sought after speaker and author of many books including Poor but Proud, and Keeping Faith: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Lives. He has visited with Harper Lee on numerous occasions and in a recorded interview offered his theory on why she only wrote one book.  An historian who is superbly nimble with statistics, Flynt readily calls to mind statistics which he sets to a graceful dance in celebration of To Kill a Mockingbird:

"Harper Lee, Bless her soul, has become Boo Radley"

John Archibald is a columnist for the Alabama Media Group whose work appears in The Birmingham News. He recently did an opinion piece which implores the public to stop trying to draw the reclusive author out, but rather to take a look into her writing to see who she is and to see the gifts she has given us:

  

There's so much talk about Harper Lee. Has the first lady of Alabama literature finally gone 'round the bend? Has she lost herself, holed up in that Monroeville world of hers? Has she simply put her trust in the wrong people?

Everybody wants to know, to draw her out into the sunlight. Was she suckered by a sweet-talking carpet-bagging biographer? Or was it Lee herself who did the suckering?

Stop it. Just stop it. Because if there's a story to be told about Harper Lee, Lee herself already told it better than anyone. In To Kill  A Mockingbird.  (Please continue reading Archibald’s essay here.)

A Realistic Hope

My guess is that the world will continue to be enthralled by Harper Lee’s one book, and that people will continue to make pilgrimages to Monroeville, Alabama to see the place and to touch the courthouse rails where a story for all the ages was born. For as long as we are enthralled, and as long as we look at that story of justice denied with a measure of hope in our hearts, we will be all the better for it. We will forever have Harper Lee to thank for a vision of a time in the past that is not the “one brief shining moment” of an idealistic Camelot. Neither is it sentimental nostalgia.  Instead, it is a look into ourselves to see why we live in the communities we have created, and how we can have hope that we can do better.

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Photo: The photo of Harper Lee is by Linda Stetler and is from The Birmingham News file. It is a 2006  reception for her at the Alys Stephens Center in Birmingham, where she received a lifetime achievement award from The Birmingham Pledge. 

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Monday Music: Evacuee (Enya)

While leaders and politicians wage war with armies, tanks and drones, citizens who are displaced must bear the sorrow of lost homes, lost loved ones, and separated families. The song is "Evacuee," from the album Shepherd Moons. The words and music are by Eithne Ni Bhraonain, Nicky Ryan and Roma Shane Ryan. It is performed by Eithne Ni Bhraonain (Enya).

Evacuee

Each time on my leaving home
I run back to my mother's arms,
one last hold and then it's over.

Watching me, you know I cry,
you wave a kiss to say goodbye,
Feel the sky fall down upon me!

All I am,
a child with promises
All I have
are miles full of promises of home.

If only I could stay with you,
my train moves on, you're gone from view,
Now I must wait until it's over.

Days will pass, your words to me,
it seems so long; eternity,
but I must wait until it's over.

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Saturday Haiku: Urban Raccoon

following humans

he wandered far from the peace

of a woodland stream

                                            

                                ~ CK

______________________

Photo from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Public Domain

Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

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