A thousand waves sparkle
With lights not their own
The sea’s golden beauty
Is a trick and a loan.

When the water undresses
And cold darkness remains
The ocean is ugly
And its cruelty reigns.

The hearts of men sparkle
With lights not their own
Man’s goodness and beauty
Is a trick and a loan.

__________________________

When I wrote this, I’d recently been staying at a place with a good view of the ocean and some time to be contemplative. #Blessed Is there something inherently beautiful about the ocean, or is the source of the beauty the sunlight that is reflecting haphazardly from its surface?

To be honest, I’m not entirely certain I believe my own writing here, but the goal was to consider. It’s certainly true that the ocean in the dark, and in its midst, is a much different experience than during daylight and from a beach. Perhaps though it is a disservice to the waves to discount their role in scattering the light that touches them.

The comparison with mankind is a philosophical or a theological one. Does love and beauty originate from within, or is it a thing that is given or learned? Do we reflect the love we receive from our parents, or from the divine, or from the Mangani great ape who raised us after our parents died as a the result of being marooned on the African coast by mutineers?

The Drift

A raft drifts away from shore
And the one on it plans to return once more,
But instead he waits and floats along
As waves push, and pull, and plans go wrong,
And before too long, the shore is lost.
What a terrible cost
Is paid by those who roam
Too long away from home.

The tides rush in and pull away
Sand and shells and salt – every day.
And so it is that with the sea’s every breath,
A new beach is born as the old one meets death,
And yet like family they look the same
With similar features, sharing a name.

---

I wrote this while thinking about the always-changing dynamics of a family and the idea of home. People are born into a family. People are grafted into that family via marriage. People die. It’s easy to take them and the sense of home that comes with them for granted until they feel like they’re gone.

How does it happen then that a group of people, who are changing individually and as a collective, continue to feel familiar? Why does the beach always look like the same beach even when it changes so much? Maybe it doesn’t. Maybe there is a point at which you do too much damage to the beach. That’s not the expectation though, nor the historical norm.

The movie Castaway plays with some of these ideas, too. Chuck Noland doesn’t make it home until he leaves the beach of his false home and allows himself to be adrift. Then when he gets home, it’s no longer there.

Humans have always been relatively mobile, but never more so than they are now. I am nagged by the suspicion that this is a terrible turn of events for our species.

The Thief and the Bear

A ghostly figure poked a bear
That had been quietly resting
The massive creature stumbled out
From the cave where it was nesting

A stealthy villain held the stick
Which drew out the bear from slumber
It roared and reared, ran and rumbled
Toward men at work on lumber

With axes tossed and curses hurled
The work is stacked but left behind
Their piles of wood lie on the ground
For the foul fiend to load and bind

As ill-gotten gain was gathered
The bear roamed back home to its cave
The would-be thief of wood gave shout
But he was dragged into his grave

_________________________________

It is often the case that those who seek to profit from chaos end up undone by the storm they unleash. When an evil scheme goes wrong, it goes very wrong. When I started the poem, the first line popped into my mind and the rest followed as a story illustrating this idea.

I described the thief as ghostly in the first line because – whether he understood it or not – his fate was sealed with that action.

via crossidiomas.com

Etymology: The second sense refers to the use of bears to represent Russia, as a shortening of the idiom “poke the Russian bear” (to anger or threaten Russia and start a war with Russia).

The idiom “poke the bear” is a commonly used expression in English that refers to provoking or irritating someone who is already angry or upset. This phrase is often used in situations where it would be unwise to provoke someone, as it can lead to negative consequences.

The Origins of “Poke the Bear”

The exact origins of this idiom are unclear, but it is believed to have originated from hunting practices. When hunters encountered a sleeping bear, they would sometimes poke it with a stick to wake it up and force it out into the open for easier hunting.

Over time, this practice became associated with provoking danger or trouble unnecessarily. Today, “poke the bear” has taken on a more figurative meaning and is used to describe any situation where someone intentionally aggravates an already volatile person or situation.

An Evening Walk to Observe a Christmas Lights Display

Whose lights are these I do not know
That give to me a splendid show;
Their owner will not know I’m here
To see this festive Christmas cheer.

Alone outside I do not talk,
As I pause my evening walk
For bulbs that glow in colored ease
On roofline, windows, hedge, and trees.

A car approaches up the road
And slows to gaze at the abode,
But soon the engine hums away
And silence falls on the display.

I amble down the road to home –
With no more streets tonight to roam –
And wonder who the one might be
Who hung the lights for me to see.

____________________________

There’s definitely a comment on isolation and community somewhere in this piece. Is it normal to wander alone to stare at Christmas lights, or to not even know a neighbor’s name? Alternatively though, in a season that is filled to the brim with social obligations and expectations on one’s time, there’s something nice about the idea of being alone in this type of environment.

We seldom experience a silent night, in and around Christmas.

If you have never wandered a neighborhood on foot, alone, to stare at a Christmas lights display, I recommend it. Caroling and company and crowds have their time and place, especially around the holidays, but there is something special about the contemplative opportunities afforded by a winter ramble to look at lights.

After the Storm

The Storm that raged has shut His lips
His eyes that flashed are closed
Spittle that flew, reduced to drips
The fury now composed

The stones He hurled now lie about
The damage done is ended
A breeze, His whisper, it does not shout
’til what can be is mended

___________________________

Not long ago, I had the experience of traveling with a storm that felt personified. If you have spent much time in the Great Plains, you know that thunderstorms there typically move in a Northeasterly direction.

Traveling south along side such a storm, moving in the opposite direction, I and my companions felt as though we were clear of it. Then abruptly and inexplicably, a portion of the bad weather phenomenon broke away from the rest and moved due South. The bad weather stayed just in front of our car the entire remainder of the drive, daring us to accelerate and catch up with the red blob displayed on the weather ap radar. We opted instead to make multiple stops at various and sundry locations, so that each time we caught up to it, it could regain its lead. This slow approach left the drive slow but visible and less dangerous.

Our 8 hour drive turned into a 12 hour one.

Poem originally published October 31, 2021

Hope

My hope was cast forward, into the black,
And I trailed after as best as I could.
The light meandered – it left then came back –
And beckoned me on after if I would.

---

I remember that when I wrote this, I was thinking about how hope lives both within us and outside of us, in the unknown future, and that we express and possess it through our actions. Hope is the desire that animates our actions. Faith or belief set the course, and then hope inspires action.

Nevertheless, not all beliefs or desires are wise or advisable. Some might say though, that having hope in the wrong thing is better than having no hope at all. Perhaps that’s true. Better still, though, would be having hope in the right thing.

We wrestle with these concepts all the time, in our lives and in the art we consume. The clip below is one of my favorite explorations of these themes.

faith

interjection

1. By my faith; in truth; verily.
   Similar: verily

noun

The assent of the mind to the statement or proposition of another, on the ground of the manifest truth of what he utters; firm and earnest belief, on probable evidence of any kind, especially in regard to important moral truth.

Belief; the assent of the mind to the truth of what is declared by another, resting solely and implicitly on his authority and veracity; reliance on testimony.
Similar: belief

hope /hōp/

intransitive verb

To desire and consider possible: synonym: expect.”I hope that you will join us for dinner. We hope to buy a house in the sprin

To wish for a particular event that one considers possible. “We are hoping for more financial support. “

To have confidence; trust.

Faith is an assent of the mind toward an idea. Hope then is the desire to act on faith. Faith without hope can be rather bleak, just as hope without a well-grounded faith can be self-destructive.

Originally published on October 6, 2021

Wraith

Heaviness fills the air
Halls once beating with life
Now have nobody there

Ghosts and memories roam
But leave no marks in dust
Spread thick upon my home

I live still but am rotten
A spirit burdened by time
And purpose now forgotten

__________________________

It is possible to die before you have died and for the past to be more present than the present. It doesn’t need to be this way, but all too often it is.