Pick up what’s left of the shadow that has been trailing you for a week or three, the one you have noticed even when the sun hasn’t been shining as it should.

   Of course there have been distractions (there always is), even as your nerves are beginning to fray, and all those anxieties still follow you, surprisingly so, on any old day.

   Intermittent rain washes away hopes and plans dreamed on and diminished now. Still, you have the time and, more importantly, you have the mind to make it all happen. You’ve got something more important to say.

10/14/2023                                                                                                                               j.g.l.

Poetry is power, and poetry is
a weakness, as much cowardice
as courage. A delightful
contradiction, it sucks at your
soul, and, like a fussy infant,
cannot wait to be fed. More.
Not to be silenced until sated.
Nourished then,
it so slips into gentle slumber,
life’s rhythm allowing dreams and
sweet solace, only to wake soiled
and screaming. Comfort comes
with a soothing voice, gentle touch,
and reassurance. Flesh and blood,
innocent for only a while, it grows
alongside you, until it stands
on its own.
Poetry.
You give it life, then it to you.

© 2016 j.g. lewis
                                                   

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.