Mythos & Marginalia

life notes; flaws and all

j.g. lewis

original content and images ©j.g. lewis

a daily breath...

A thought du jour, my daily breath includes collected and conceived observations, questions of life, fortune cookie philosophies, reminders, messages of peace and simplicity, unsolicited advice, inspirations, quotes and words that got me thinking. They may get you thinking too . . .

Mondays are just young Fridays

One year since. . . 

   The death toll rises each day in this certain uncertainty. A geopolitical conflict, its consequences spilling out across this planet and onto the streets of my city. Distanced from the direct atrocities of another war, it is more than tension we feel in the neighborhoods where we live.

   Every day the headlines speak to me. Every day there are more questions than answers.

   How many bombs?

   How many dead?

   How many prayers?

   How many times, in my lifetime, have I heard about the possibility of Middle East peace?

   I, still, can only try to understand.

   I too live with the fear, the grief, and the polarization of it all.

 

10/07/2024                                                                                                                j.g.l.

It’s not nothing

I would like to think it is nothing, at least I’d like to try. I know I can’t, but I will fool myself into believing it was less than what it is (I’m gullible that way).
   Still I know, deep down, it was more than what I was expecting. Certainly it was more than what I was prepared for.
   It’s always something; really, anything is.
   There is something in anything, worthwhile or not, that captures your imagination or sends your soul circling.
   Nothing matters then.
   It is always more than what you were counting on, even when there is nothing to compare it to.
   Always unlike anything else, you try to twist and turn it into something familiar, or something you can relate to, all the while knowing that nothing has been like that, or felt like this: ever.
   Yeah, it’s like that.
   It’s not nothing, but it can’t be everything. . . or maybe it is.

© 2017 j.g. lewis

a deeper conversation

Ever the questions, 

no response, until now. In the wake 

of all that happened all that time ago; 

even recently, as details were 

unearthed convincingly.

Negligently we accept responsibility 

for secrets and sins unacknowledged.

The government, the Church, 

the children. The shock of it all. 

Tears now stain history books. Truth.

A deeper conversation. 

We talked about it, yesterday.

Too long society, 

more specifically “we”, have turned

a blind eye to ways of a world 

we thought we never knew.

Lord knows what they were thinking 

and did nothing.

 

10/01/2024                                                                                                             j.g.l.

 

I'm like a pencil;
sometimes sharp,
most days
well-rounded,
other times
dull or
occasionally
broken.
Still I write.

j.g. lewis
is a writer/photographer in Toronto.

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Sing Of Your Presence

Posted on June 3, 2015 by j.g.lewis // 1 Comment

 

_MG_9773

 

Morning crow, reliable soul, dutiful beyond reproach,
an eagerness to greet daylight before fully formed. Nothing,
if not enthusiastic.
You, solitary and without conscience,
never fail to usher in the day. A voice recognizable, its volume
ever-present but, as usual, without tune.

Undeterred, you provide each of us a lesson, or
each of us who hear you calling out, perhaps to brethren
who just yesterday settled on power lines as jurors,
mocking,
passing judgment on those below. 

Searching, as you do, within your realm, for a crust
of bread, or carcass of a roadside squirrel. Deservedly,
you should well feast on the flesh of lesser creatures,
those without speed, or sense, to deal with vehicular traffic.
Scavenger thus, 
you welcome scraps few others would accept.

So you sing of your presence, a persistent craw
craw   craw        craw
a noise unlike birdsong of a thrush or swallow, or any 
of those pretty birds. 
Your song is more utilitarian, less than rhythmic,
and to nature’s great voices
what a parking ticket may be to a poetry.

Still you go on and on, and on,
and on.
I hear you. I empathize with you,
I know you. 
For I too may not have the voice, or the content,
others may possess, still I try.
I too 
have something to say and I continue trying.
For that, I appreciate you.

But morning crow, please know it is Sunday.
Perhaps you may not be a Biblical bird,
as the regal Dove may be, but you should know,
if only by observation, this day is one of rest.
It was my wholehearted intention, 
if only allowed, to let sleep remain 
for another hour. Or two.

So crow,
morning crow, proud crow,
please allow me this time, just for today.
Return tomorrow 
when your song will be appreciated, 
even if not understood.

©2014 j.g. lewis

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