Now a day man is impatience in the earth. We have no sympathy to others. Though we need to be kind as a greatest creature in nature. Because we are not beast. But lot of our activity is as like as animal. We are same blood colored human. Whereas we need to bond strong […]
Filed under anthem, appeals, beauty, birth, civil rights, compassion, courage, development, dream, earth, enlightenment, eternity, evolution, forgiveness, good, heart, human beings, humanity, justice, kindness, law, love, manifesto, peace, soul, spirit, spring, transcendence, truth, universe, wish, world
Giant Redwoods
(Statements in italics taken from Ethics, by Baruch de Spinoza)
Look farther and farther toward thin blue sky, until the green feathery tops of the trees are like the northern pole on some dream planet. Put the anger back in its bottle. These trees are generous. Hatred can never be good.
Your carsickness from the ride up the mountain begins to fade, leaving behind a breathless, weepy echo not unlike your first religious fervor. Hatred is increased through return of hatred, but may be destroyed by love.
When have you not been afraid? The random can be scrutinized for meaning, the puzzle solved, when surveyed long & carefully enough. Anything may be accidentally the cause of either hope or fear.
These trees have plenty of time. As a child, you stared at Jesus’ sad face for hours, wishing you could marry him — wondering what it was that made him love you. Could you sacrifice yourself for the sins of the world, if it was that simple & necessary? Cathedrals turn us small and vulnerable again, for reasons both blessed & cursed. Devotion is love towards an object which astonishes us.
Vague, starry eyes like yours feel at home here; the air is weighty, burdensome & solemn. You’ve loved trees before; this is different. These trees have plenty of time – more time than you. If we love a thing which is like ourselves, we endeavor as much as possible to make it love us in return.
Your nerves are suddenly frozen, by the unaccustomed richness of perfect light. Your guide is tall & slender, hesitant to speak. Her mother has the tattooed forearm of a Polish Jew of a certain age. The knowledge of good and evil is nothing but an idea of joy or sorrow. Sorrow is [a hu]man’s passage from a greater to a less perfection.
These trees have plenty of time. She touches your wrist, and for a moment, you, too, want to grow taller, leaving the surface of the earth behind forever. Shyly, she picks up a tiny pinecone, smaller than a toy. You both laugh when she tells you this is their seed. Joy is [a hu]man’s passage from a less to a greater perfection.
These trees have plenty of time. And all around, their wise, fallen, hollow bodies litter the ground like the bones of saints. Childlike, you understand a wish to die here, never to leave this hush. They’re only trees – your neck bent back as far as it will go; only trees, yet wondering if the giants can hear your thoughts. Love is joy, with the accompanying idea of an external cause. Love and desire may be excessive. When the mind imagines its own weakness, it necessarily sorrows.
Is there anything we have less power over than our own tongues? These trees have plenty of time, growing wise as the Buddha, in their silence.
Filed under absent father, acceptance, addiction, adolescence, adult children of alcoholics, adultery, alcoholism, anthem, anthropology, apologia, apology, appeals, art, art history, baby, baha'i, beauty, bible, birth, black, blood, born again, boys, buddhist, Catholic, charity, child abuse, child neglect, childbirth, childhood, children of alcoholics, christian, civil rights, compassion, courage, death, development, dream, dreams, earth, enlightenment, eternal, eternity, everything, evolution, faith, family, father, fatherhood, fathers, flowers, for children, forgiveness, friendship, girls, god, good, graduation, grief, he, health, heart, hindu, history, hope, human beings, humanity, humor, jesus, jewish, justice, karma, kindness, law, life, logic, loss, love, mama, man, manhood, manifesto, maturity, men, mitochondria, mortality, mother, mothers, mourning, museums, muslim, mysterious, nature, parenting, paris, passion, peace, personal responsibility, personification, poetry, politics, pregnancy, prose poetry, rastafarian, redhead, regret, relationships, Saint Teresa, science, sex, sisters, soul, spirit, spiritual, spirituality, spring, transcendence, transitions, travel, tribute, truth, universe, warmth, wish, woman, women, wood, world, zoroastrian
DJI, the largest consumer drone manufacturer in the world, announced July 5 that it was releasing a new version of the software that controls its drones, which will allow operators to fly in areas that the company’s software previously did not. DJI said in a release that this could aid those who want to use…
I think this is probably a TERRIBLE IDEA.
Filed under 9/11, amerka, anger, appeals, assholes, civil rights, compassion, corporate states of amerka, development, drones, earth, empire, fear, forgiveness, grief, human beings, humanity, hypocrisy, identity, justice, karma, kindness, law, logic, loss, peace, personal responsibility, privacy, technology, Uncategorized
PRETZELS & CHOCOLATE
(rented room, cigarettes)
I am eating pretzels
and they are hard
but splinter into salty crumbs
with the merest bite
they only satisfy
part of my tongue
(rented room, cigarettes)
so I pick up the chocolate
greedy for it to melt
against my palate
sucking the firm square
feeling it mold to me
the way I imagine
my body molds to yours
(rented room, cigarettes)
retaining the character of sweetness
to complement the salt
to balance my mouth
I am eating chocolate
thinking of us
together
(rented room, cigarettes)
Filed under acceptance, adolescence, adult children of alcoholics, ancient history, apology, appeals, artistic failures, assholes, beauty, birth, black, blood, Catholic, child abuse, child neglect, childbirth, childhood, children of alcoholics, christian, compassion, con man, daughter, death, development, divorce, dream, dreams, enlightenment, eternal, eternity, faith, family, father, fatherhood, fathers, fear, fiction, for children, forgiveness, friendship, funeral, gay marriage, god, grief, he, health, Uncategorized
(originally published in Burning Word)
Doctor’s Report: Patient A, a short story
Patient A is a living museum of femininity, and serves as transitory evidence of extensive neo-geo-psycho-socio-eco-political movement. Designed and built in the second half of the twentieth century, she first gained philanthropic prominence with a cynical, witty, overeducated man eight years her senior, Charles F. She stayed faithful to Charles F. for six months, but the intriguing tales of his former romantic partners, then numbering in the several hundred, irretrievably seized her imagination. She left, and never looked back. She shops for new men the way other women shop for new shoes.
She invariably rejects both the too-easy conquest and the too-stubborn resistance. Every season countless men flock near to witness her fleeting, hormonally-induced states of passion, and observe for themselves her classic “XX” architecture.
If it seems that everything has already been said about Patient…
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How Art Thou Received? (a prayer for refugees)
Imagine: suddenly, without warning (because that is how war arrives) you are a war refugee! Simply running away from being murdered. And how are you received when you can finally stop running, when you are out of range of the guns, the bombs, the blood? No countries to take you. No one to feed you. You are a skeletal pawn in a skeletal game.
Embalmed corpses declare war on the living and fight for their “territory” against other embalmed corpses using armies of young people; embalmed corpses feeding on fresh, young blood.
I know something is very wrong, somewhere. It must be addressed, and addressed properly. Our prayer, our incantation, our spell to heal, must be more powerfully crafted, more distilled, more essential, than was the horrid spell we are trying to break: a tradition of might over right, strong but wrong, a spell of ignorance which has caused so much harm, and is trying to do more… powered by the love of power, the love of control over people.
The scarred parts of the heart can be replenished; the broken parts, glued; the weak parts, strengthened; the fear assuaged, the pain relieved. But the desire to change, to truly alchemize oneself, spin that straw into gold… the gold of the sun… the silver of the stars… the red planet… the North Star… primal navigation by looking not at the ground, but by looking up, to the sky… that kind of desire doesn’t visit often.
If you want to know where you are going, be sure your map is accurate, or at least doesn’t kill you. Migrating birds know this. Power & Liberation. Slave & free. Joy & Suffering. High & low.
Craving slaves, some are trying to roll us back to serfdom, only they can use our own science & technology to rape us! Serfdom: tied by birth to land. You are a pawn, a source of income; in thrall to your Lord and Master. Freeing serfs is always a struggle. Brute force arm-wrestles the human race, and brute force often pins people to the mat, but… you cannot keep people down for long. The oppressed will continue to spring up and defend their inalienable human rights. All people are created equal: including our ancestors, who existed long before the self-anointed first “private property” owners. Human beings are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, yes? The earth cannot belong to any one of us. Period. We own this planet. All of us.
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A banana tree is a metaphor for life, really… it dies after it bears fruit. It gives its life to produce the next generation. Banana leaves are so useful. Useful when they’re green, and useful when they’re brown. Generation upon generation. That really is a sacred word, generation. WE generate ideas, too. So can’t WE generate more peace, rather than more war? Can’t OUR fuel be love, not hate? Yes, just like the banana tree, sometimes destruction is necessary to create new life… recycling? Reincarnation?
One way of looking at things is to take a leap of faith – decide that when WE die, nothing will be lost; everything will be gained. WE leave behind US a legacy, all of US, shaping the reality of the UNIVERSE. The UNIVERSE is alive through US! The UNIVERSE writes songs and stories and mathematics and music through US! WE are engines! WE are alive! WE are organic! WE, human beings, are evolving right this second! LIFE doesn’t stand still! LIFE adapts, or ceases! LIFE IS EVOLUTION. Trying to cling too desperately to the past is to entomb the SELF in stone, alone, buried alive, dying. WE’RE alive until WE’RE dead.
Value this opportunity. Don’t throw it away. Take care of OUR home, planet Earth. Take care of OUR fellow travelers. Send not a sword, but an olive branch to OUR enemies as well as OUR friends. OUR bitterest enemy may turn out to be OUR best companion. Only time will tell. WE live within moments, WE exist within history, and WE are passionate within the spirit. Train that energy! Use passion to create, not to destroy! Destructive passion, combined with weapons of all kinds, might kill US all. Respond to life with logic AND emotion. Let US use OUR brains and OUR gut. Instead of the falling abyss of dread, the rising flutter of joy… and at the end of life, may WE all have truly, truly, truly found PEACE.
Cue Judy Garland, “Somewhere Over The Rainbow.”
Filed under acceptance, anthem, appeals, baha'i, beauty, born again, buddhist, charity, christian, civil rights, compassion, courage, death, dream, dreams, earth, enlightenment, essay, eternal, eternity, everything, evolution, faith, family, fish, flowers, forgiveness, friendship, god, good, heart, hindu, history, hope, human beings, humanity, jewish, justice, karma, kindness, life, logic, love, manifesto, marriage, maturity, muslim, mysterious, nature, passion, peace, personal responsibility, rastafarian, relationships, soul, spirit, spiritual, spirituality, transcendence, transitions, travel, tribute, truth, universe, warmth, wish, world, zoroastrian
Why I Like Being a Federal Judge, a poem
My absolute favorite thing to do is to make
rulings without enunciating any reasons at all.
Sure, I like the black robes, the high chair,
smacking the little wooden hammer. But mostly
my fiercest joy is mental. I’m not a flashy
creature: I wear the same glasses I’ve worn
for the past forty years on the bench.
The bulky style flatters my high forehead,
my firm jaw. It’s what I’m used to, and,
like any octogenarian, I like the things
I’m used to. So for the same reason I let
them sweat to figure out why I decided the case
the way I did. The lawyers really scramble
around then, falling over each other on the way
to appellate review like fat geese with
clipped wings being chased by a Rottweiler.
I am that Rottweiler — I still exercise
for an hour every other day. Both my parents
lived well into their nineties. I love it
when attorney-faces bulge red. It’s fun
to watch from my elevated perch. Being
reversed on appeal is considered a failure
to many, but not for me. I don’t care one bit
about that sort of consistency. Ask my wife.
My job, instead, is to highlight the glamour,
the magical, supple qualities of justice.
That pretty lady doesn’t wear a blindfold
for nothing, you know? Occasionally I wonder
if I’d feel as good about myself without having
gotten this appointment. You have no idea how
the power of life and death feels until you’ve
heard the slender moans of the duly convicted.
I remember years ago, before I was a judge —
the things I thought my clients were entitled to!
Now I know better. They get exactly what
I feel like doling out on a given day — and
God save us all if I’m coming down with the flu.
There is always a lesson to be learned
from making decisions, wrong or right.
The more mysterious my legal theory, the more
deference it gets. Why, sometimes I even
cite cases completely at random: keep them
guessing, it’s the surest way to get respect.
At least when they’re beginning, baby lawyers
think themselves just too dumb to understand;
that’s the way I want to keep it. Too many
findings of fact and conclusions of law
can drive a person batty. The better practice is
to decide how I’d like reality to be, then sweep
the slate clean and start over rewriting history.
It’s why I am never in a difficult position
deciding how to approach a case. But the very
best part of all is: saying nothing about
the innards of my rulings raises no impediment
to being obeyed. The U.S. marshals wear that badge
whether the parties want him to or not. Plain and
simple, everybody’s stuck with me, for life.
Filed under appeals, federal judge, judicial branch, judiciary, justice, law, legal system, logic, satire, truth
 | Mariam Weber on Passover |
 | edthlion on Notes From a Muddy Shore |
 | Anna Waldherr on Liturgy, a short story |
| Anna Waldherr on Latin Epidemics, a poem |
 | Von Ruder on Ashes — O at the Edges |
Kimberly Townsend Palmer 