To the Irish Lads
Bless you and keep you in God’s care
safe in his arms in the Great Somewhere.
Bless you and keep you every one
Fresh in our hearts, so valiantly done.
The Irish heart so wild and free
left at the altar for all to see
the flame of their soul’s intensity.
Never mind that they didn’t hear
for around the world was a silent cheer
understood by all and crystal clear.
And the flame in our hearts did leap to hear
of the brave and courageous lads so clear
who gave their lives at the call of the free
burning within so intensively.
We heard your call across the sea
but could not reach and set you free,
calling out so endlessly
with that passion to be free.
“If thine eye be single, thy whole body be full of light.”
To the Irish lads who fasted unto death one by one
so that their country could be free,
but England didn’t hear.
Back to top
Back to Reflections I
Race
Life goes at far too fast a pace,
in this unleashed, incessant race.
Noise and crowds and lights and speed –
conditions that we daily feed.
Tension, heartburn, headache, pills
to try to stem unending ills.
It causes much unhappiness,
this bleak compulsion to progress;
with fitful days and fitful rest,
that cause us much uneasiness.
A whirlpool has a given course,
which channels all its varied force;
We scatter motion here and there –
fragmented pieces past repair.
If we could only step aside,
and let the frenzied world rush by,
and find a peaceful moment there,
close to God, and far from care.
Food for thought: If an impersonal witness watched our daily life in this country (the rat race we call it), & all the crime on TV & in the papers, & corruption in high places, would he say we were civilized?
America is not a melting pot—it is indigestion.
Freedom of Speech—You can say anything you want to, but you may have to take the consequences.
Reagan—after winning the election. ‘I got the part, now where’s the script?’
They gave him lots to say.
Back to top
Back to Reflections I
Awake
Awake to the noise of the world:
Awake to the clash and the roar
of the fountains of big business,
from which money pours.
Awake to the nerves of man,
whose nerves are frayed and worn,
awaiting the next blow
to his heart which is raw and torn,
Awake to pressure and tension--
daily is our fare--
a current kind of torture--
It’s a big world out there.
Quandary
How did I get in this sorry state,
Caught in a never-ending race?
Hastening anxiously ever on,
ever to the goal beyond.
Tension is my shadow--
Anxiety my fare--
Confusion is my outlook--
Will I get there?
Don’t bet on shaky premises:
uncertain, hold your fire.
Are we going somewhere?
Where can I inquire?
Back to top
Back to Reflections I
Eggs
They say an egg is dangerous,
a modern point of view,
but compared to nerve gas
which one would you choose.
It gets so silly sometimes
to worry over views
that try to pick an egg apart,
research paid by you.
And all the time the government
makes napalm and nerve gas
and of their dangerous qualities
we must decide, alas.
Will there be children left when the war is done,
or will it be that an empty sun
vacant o’er the fields shines,
on what were once those different lives?
Will it be that an emptiness
permeates the land that is left,
and life seem hollow, and ill begun--
when the war is done,
Like the bird flies
in the night sky
our freedoms fly away.
Darkness looms
all too soon
on a people led astray.
What will be their fate
as the burdens pile on?
Remants of a shadow
their faith was built upon.
Back to top
Back to Reflections I
What Women's Lib is all About
What women’s lib is all about
is mentioned not at all.
The real force behind it
is not hard to recall.
The women are quite tired
of always being last,
and sort the Sunday paper out,
exasperating task.
That women really want,
and want most of all,
is read a paper fresh and new,
and not preread at all.
Anomoly
When we came to Oregon
the people loved their state
and had Keep 0egon Green
upon their license plate.
They told us of the wonders
of ocean, lake and stream
and of the pines and forest
but hated it to rain.
And so I came to wonder
as the years did pass
why they hated all the rain,
against it first to last.
The radio condemned it
up and down the dial
and never had a word to say
of anything worthwhile.
Each and every tine it poured
people hated it the more
and never gave a slight reprieve
to what they seemed to hate to see.
Now if you're from a farming state
you early know quite well
the crops are never going to grow
if no rain is felt.
In spring and in the summer
they anxiously await
a falling of the rain
near a certain date.
The farmer would be ruined
and the crop as well
if expected rain held back
or no rain did foretell.
But here they're unconnected
with any kind of growth
and their feelings of the rain
are that they hate it most.
If God gave them their way
and ceased the rain to fall
it would be little time
till they would want them all.
His mercy's inexplicable
that he allows to fall
a rain that's not appreciated
and condemned by all.
In ages of mankind
and in people all
players and sacrifice
have begged the rain to fall.
People died of famine, thirst
and tears they couldn't weep
because there was no rain
and joined eternal sleep.
It really takes no brains to see
that if there were no rain
the state a desert would become
and what would be our gain.
Of all the people in the world
that go their different ways
they're the only ones I know
that speak against the rain.
Back to top
Back to Reflections I
Who Starts the Forest Fires?
Smoky Bear may be a ruse
to lure the mind away
from the real culprits
in the forest today.
Often logging companies
and forest service too
set afire a slash burn
and a huge one too.
In summer and in August
when it's hot and dry
they set afire the slash burns
and no one stays nearby.
Soon they have a roaring flame
and acres burning too,
so never let them fool you
and say the culprit's you.
While matches may start forest fires
it is often they
who insist to slash burn
in a monstrous way.
Back to top
Back to Reflections I
Greenpeace
Greenpeace goes to foreign shores
that they never knew before
and tells them how to run their land
as brash and brazen upstarts can.
They say to leave the whales alone,
never thinking that back home
atomic waste pours in the sea,
tons to date so endlessly.
Where all life may be in doubt,
fish and water, life itself.
A crime more horrid here at home
which only is our very own.
The lesson here is plain to see –
first clean up our own country.
The Mt.
The sky clouded and darkened,
and a train rumbled by.
“Those are the bodies,” he said,
“When it blew sky high.”
“Of course they are only a few.
Most are beneath the mud and the dew,
to return to the dust
that ever they knew.”
We are not greater
than earth and the sky,
and at last rest
wherever we die.
Back to top
Back to Reflections I
Vulgar and Arrogant
Vulgar and arrogant
my country has become,
Shaking her fist
at almost everyone.
Boots of steel coming down,
on almost everyone around.
And greed for power thirsting more,
threatens all of us with war.
This is the Bread I Baked Myself
This is the bread I baked myself.
Did you get the flour from the grocer’s shelf?
Did you plant the oats or wheat or rye
or sweat in the fields by day or night?
Did you bring the seed from many lands
that over centuries did span?
Did you cause the grain to live and grow
or did the sun and rain do so..
And who gave the dark and rich black soil
laid in ocean beds a while
or made it to appear again
ready for use and new and fresh
or tempered it with winter cold,
resting as in days of old.
Or made the rain to fall once more
on dry and thirsty soil reborn
or made a yield upon the land
as for centuries always has.
And of the yeast and of the pan
ready, lying at your hand.
And salt that has a history
very cruel as you would see.
So very small a part are we
of life and earth and energy,
a tiny speck beneath the sun
living till our days are done.
Back to top
Back to Reflections I
Be Yourself
Be yourself a saying
all of us have heard,
that naturalness and wholeness
are the values first.
And to be your best self
really is the way,
improving and in growing
better every day.
But if you’re a woman
with a domineering man
he twists you all around
and be yourself you can’t.
Life becomes more difficult
and every day increase
the tension and the difficulties
which may never cease.
The church condones this practice
with vows set to obey
but in a better marriage
you might anyway.
But women get all turned around
and twisted in their life
if their husband rule them
and think they’re always right.
(Be yourself and other maxims
really don’t apply
when another person has
the right to run your life.)
In cases which are quite extreme
it is a persecution:
anything he says
an order and confusion.
It becomes a torment
which never does appease
if he changes you
and kept up endlessly.
Things that once ere innocent
and simple then to do
are rejected out of hand
and furthermore refused.
As the years keep on
she becomes more skewed
from her natural self
with which she was endued.
(The impression that she gives
is really not her own,
not honest and not open
and not to be condoned.)
Nothing turns out right
and everything is wrong
on account of his commands
which really don’t belong.
She may feel desperate
and quite beside herself
and as the years go on
there’s nothing that can help.
To someone who was natural
and simple in their ways
there may have been no meaning in
the things that he did say.
Her life and her beliefs
must go on separate ways,
no longer living as she thinks
but turned-torn and frayed.
Convictions that she always had
of the way to go
torn asunder by the man
who may not care or know.
Religion broken also,
to live the way you think
and the soul is shredded
and broken every link.
The precepts of the church
then cannot apply
when another person has
the right to run your life.
So for a woman walked on
life is misery
if her husband carries it
to an extremity.
Back to top
Back to Reflections I
Shooting on Wildlife Refuges
They took our trust and money
to make a paradise
to help endangered species
in nesting and in flight.
When everything was done
we thought that it was right,
made only for the birds
to preserve their life.
It seems they have some shooting
on wildlife reserves
and amidst important flight
a gun will shoot a bird.
We cannot ever seem to stop
but still shoot geese and ducks,
a real crime it seems
because they trusted us.
We thought that wildlife refuges
a place for them to stay
but they took our money
and let guns have their day.
We cannot ever seem to stop
our predatory urge
and are not satisfied
until a gun does burst.
Of any place they should be safe
a refuge is the one
but we can’t spare them any place,
no not even one.
How startled they must be
after months so free
to feel the bullets in the air
attack so savagely.
And we betrayed their trust,
it’s always only us
and cannot lay our weapons down
however cruel, unjust.
We must shoot the beautiful
and we’re never thru:
life is not for us alone,
it is their world too.
Back to top
Back to Reflections I
Rain Forest Trees
(Burnt to make room for crops)
Grieve for the creatures
caught in the fire
of rain forest trees
burning higher and higher.
The beautiful creatures
tormented by fire
with nowhere to go
and nowhere to hide.
Let your heart be a flame,
let your heart by a prayer
for the innocent wildlife
caught in there.
Their home is in flames
and all that they knew,
escape is nowhere
and what shall they do.
Panthers and deer
and birds on their nest
and trees and the animals
that we love best.
But the rain forest trees
burn higher and higher
destroying the home
of the creatures and tiger.
For nowhere on earth
another home
or any place lovely
to call their own.
And the forest of God
and the animals too
die in the fire
as man pursues.
Oh please shower down
they mercy and love
and bless all of them
from heaven above.
The trees and the creatures
thou made with thy care.
Please take them to heaven
to live with thee there.
Back to top
Back to Reflections I
Travel
Understanding people
from many different lands
is a special gift
some people seem to have.
But travelers from this country
usually are not liked
by others in the world
tho the price is right.
It seems that we exemplify
all that others hate,
boorishness and snobbishness
and largely in poor taste.
Many hate Americans
and would not want to know
a single person that they serve
or sits on the front row.
Our reputation elsewhere
is known as very poor
for we don’t have the values
that bring forth an allure.
In the poorest of the lands
we often may find there
a sensitivity of soul
and beauty lingering there.
It’s not the same as something learned
tho it may be a part,
but rather it’s a quality
that’s found within the heart.
And in this language we may speak
and each may understand
the heart within the other as not other can.
Back to top
Back to Reflections I
DRAMA
(a lost cause)
One night not long ago
as freedom’s light was low,
I saw a scene below –
enacted very slow.
The Statue of Liberty released and let go
of her torch and it fell in the water below,
of a harbor no longer a refuge we know,
and a darkness extinguished the flame weary so.
And 3 little children
of France’s own lore,
came to take home
the torch in a cart –
away from a land
no longer free,
and a menace
to the refugees.
And darkness enveloped the vastness of land
lost under tyranny’s heavy hand.
Weary of taxes and weary of law,
where the poor and downtrodden, oppression they saw, and gave up freedom as a lost cause.
A Prayer for our Country
We pray oh Heavenly Father
that hatred will subside
and all the many forces
that people do divide.
Not only in the streets
but also in the home
we pray that goodwill does prevail
that will be our own.
We pray that it will end
to tear each other down,
snarling and malicious,
violence renowned.
This country is fragmented
and lies in little bits.
Only thy great care
will ever heal it.
Make our country as it’s been.
stable, sturdy, strong within.
Pull together as if one,
working underneath thy sun.
We ask thy mercy on us too
for there are still oh just a few
that always live upright with you
and thy will they ever do.
Bless us with thy kindly face
and endue with every grace.
let us follow now with thee
unto thy eternity.
Back to top
Back to Reflections I
