by David J. Young
Grandfather Stones
If I were a First Nation’s member
Sifting through my people’s embers…
the ugliness of history coursing through my veins..
I’d want to know what took so long,
money making “right” from wrong…
God’s freedom, mused, abused, turned into chains
A Christmas Take
Sparkling lights and haloed horizons
stealing eyes ahead of sense;
Young ones first, the others after…
nothing left of innocence.
Urgency for ecstasy
from something in the mist;
Trading everything you’ve got
to be what can’t exist.
You’ve fallen for it hard
And you don’t recognize what’s coming;
You think that what you see makes sense
It’s just your mind that’s numbing.
And the decibel addiction reigns,
Soaking seas of manic movement;
We’re making progress everyday
But is it an improvement?
Anger
The anger in this moment resonates with all the angers of the past
from which it was learned. Waiting in the distance to be reawakened,
reinforced, and reaffirmed, they rise in concert under the smoke of the present.
The speed and ease with which they surface betrays their many rehearsals and
their indifference to the relative severity of circumstance.
They feed on the familiar, to be interrupted only by the search for awareness and love.
Light
People are like prisms. You can see different colours when viewed from
different perspectives….and they are all beautiful. On the other hand, in looking
into the window of life’s opportunities, some people never get past their own
reflection. 🙂
Union
There are more people that have to let go of their dreams than those that
achieve them……however not all is lost since dreams can serve as stepping
stones, laid out to where we’re really going…to where we really belong.
Wish For You
Think of all the others that you love beyond your own concerns;
Imagine other hearts like yours whose love gives light from whence it burns.
Let’s take this light and hold it up that everyone may see
that when we’re at our best we’re not so different, you and me.
Though it may take the world some time to bring us to this place,
I hope your love’s returned to you in warmth and smiling face.
Dreamers Aboard!
We witness the promise of love and commitment and we smile,
look around the room and see the hopes and wishes in the faces of all
who understand that something holy can take place;
even those who have failed smile spontaneously, beyond their control.
We understand the idea of ultimate union…the ultimate communication, though few may find it.
Love…. the chance for complete acceptance, the place without fear,
the boundless expression of one to another without restraint….
in the glow of mutual regard.
Porridge
Sitting at the table as I watch him reach for her…
he wraps his arms around her, leaves her with a gentle kiss.
And in that moment glow two hearts contented…
knowing out of all life’s shortfalls there’d be this.
Then at the day’s end they’d seek the same embrace…
no matter what the day had stolen… all there was to face.
First in each other’s eyes, that’s all they’d need to see,
and that is how the love I’d have would be.
Greed
Four birds I owned, too few I thought
I’d wait to see what they would wrought.
I waited til the four were ten
And then I thought I’d wait again
The fox had spied what I had done
And turned my ten to five then one.
Now four seems lavish, oh such a treat,
For two from one will be a feat.
Hard Man
He’s a hard man,
That’s just what he was taught.
Never smile too wide, keep it all inside
Just being what he thought he should be.
He would reach for something soft with hands so rough he couldn’t feel
and pushed away the ones that reached for him that could have made him real.
And the tiny candle flickers …..
So he hides in the noise and the toys that jangle, sparkle, promise him that he’ll be more.
He works so hard at being someone else; he doesn’t know what for.
Then he comes home and the eyes that used to shine at him look down instead,
Long ago he traded light for the darkness in his head.
And the tiny candle smolders…..
The clock keeps going round reminding us we keep returning
To the places we’ve been burned before and they just keep on burning.
One foot stuck the other walking…. going round in circles
Is there a way to stop if he could still believe in miracles?
He’s a hard man; can he let go of the lie,
That says he can’t be strong unless he’s living eye for eye.
Hard man lifting stones to build his walls up higher…..more.
Never thinking that one day he’d want to leave…but there’s no door.
He’s a hard man but a narrow smile slips on his face,
Cracks in his wall, a beam of light, a waiting hand his saving grace
He stands atop his wall now… to see what he had feared…
Misty faces of the ones he’d sent away now disappeared.
But hard man grips the hand of fear because he doesn’t know
The way to overcome is not to fight, he must let go.
A candle cold with blackened wick it waits for his return.
When he’s tired of fighting who he is… again the flame will burn.
Reunion
I forgive myself,
I forgive myself for not being all the things I thought I’d be.
I forgive you too for all the things you said you’d do,
They didn’t all come true…. same for me.
We walked our path, eyes to the sky, but it changed beneath our feet,
And the destiny we chose to find was one we’d never meet.
Who were we to be so bold to take on life without being told
where we should go.
Well we did it just the same, inspired by passion not the things
we couldn’t know.
And miracles still happened; they used us as we came.
How tragic not to notice; all too lost in finding shame.
So, I pray that you are well, that you’ve still got a soul to sell
And you can stand up to the critic in the mirror.
When an angel brings you something new into your life
I hope that you won’t fear her.
Change is ever after us; it wants us to move on.
Though we try to stay with what we know, we grasp at what is gone.
So here’s to looking in your eyes for the first time again,
And maybe we will see some things we should have seen back then.
And I’ll forgive myself and please won’t you forgive yourself?
And maybe we can start again…I think that we could try…again.
Inspiration
The silent voice, it waits for you to listen for the truth.
Sit blankly and listen…
As words will peek around the edges of your awareness.
You feel the impending energy as it coalesces into
Emotionally laden phrases,
First cryptic, but with the promise of something more.
You keep looking…waiting.
It’s a pipeline,
a wormhole,
a place that sparkles with the possibility
of seeing something with greater clarity….
if not for the first time.
It’s a place,
a gift,
a connection with more than you have been.
It is what was always yours to share…
to be one with,
……and then it’s gone.
Running A Red In Your Head
When walking the streets we stop, look around, check what’s going on and get
our bearings before we move across an intersection, so as not to meet with
unhappy circumstances. We try to make sure we are in harmony with what is around us.
When we travel in our minds, which is most of what we do, we seldom stop to consider the traffic, how fast it is going.
Are we going the right way? Are we aware of where we are?
Are we well and safe in the rush hour that rules our thoughts?
In our minds we consistently step from “curbs” into “unsafe traffic” without a look. We spend so much time in the physical world we overlook the most important part of us. We’ve adapted to the physical world quite well but often survive poorly in the dangerous streets and alleys of our own minds.
Who Are You?
When you look at others and dream to be them, you miss the wonder of your own self.
Your path is distinct and given to you by life. No one else will travel it.
No one else will possess its significance. See the gift that it is!
