Carpe Diem

So many times we put off doing the very thing we would do as if our days were countless.
Recently, I left behind a position driving metro mobility customers around the Twin Cities here in Minnesota for First Transit. It was not just a job as I really enjoyed my utilitarian role as driver for our seniors and differently enabled. They were just people with limited transportation options and good, bad, and indifferent days and dispositions.
The poem below is a gift of insight from one of my passengers who was not even laboring to look at the bright side, but moving on with life with a matter of fact and can do attitude. He was the flip side of the broken record titled "The only handicap is a bad attitude." This poem is the first in a series of poems I've begun to write on my experience driving for Metro Mobility.


Admiration, Poem 1.

Amputee plans his escape
From the nursing home
On the street that expires
(Disappears on the map too).

Asks me not to tell
Of his new digs:
Garden level with sidewalk
Slightly declining to the driveway.

He is hopeful he can travel,
See places he’s meant to see
Before now, before the saw
Saved his life, such as it is.

We plan our escape from life
To places we meant to visit
Before the saw saves our life
Such as it is, such as it has become.

Gift of Celebrating Life as Lived

Poetry is my way of celebrating as I live it, life. Below is a poem in tribute to English language (or any human language really).

Two houses

There are two houses of this tongue I speak,
The upper house chock full of deals and ideals,
The lower one is not, but contrary and riven.

We love to think our speech a remedy
Consulting first the conditioning of one
And then the reconditioning of the other.

The higher order would have its verse
In chapters of iambic pentameter and
The lower rabel would have it course.

Folly it is to hold though that words
To no chapter in no system of worth
Will ever be so constrained or chained.

But admit as well the presence in our midst
Of broken speech and the newly born jibe,
Those who sing out phrases heard but not.

Let's remember this our language
Has no nobility if it be not live
And lift us off our arses one and all.

Sixty Years Young

Yesterday, I had a perfectly normal Wednesday. Up early for breakfast and early morning birthday greetings from loved ones and out the door to Caribou for newspaper and coffee (thanks to a birthday gift from my dear sister, Theresa) and then on to Metro Mobility for a great day driving in the ice and snow ruts of undermaintained city streets, then made it early to church choir, and a late night hot chocolate stop at Starbucks with Rev. Rich Johnson, who was so thoughtful to invite me out to mark my birthday. He's a sweet guy and let me talk about myself. Today I had time for facebook and hotmail exchanges with friends and family who celebrated my birthday with me and to reflect on yesterday's events. I am so grateful for life and hope to keep that positive attitude even as going gets rougher with age.

In Memoriam - Bernice Alfson

A recent trip back to North Dakota for a family funeral for a favorite Aunt, Bernice Alfson, was a special time for me to see her grandchildren grown and her great grandchildren who were new to me. I had written a poem in remembrance at 2 AM before the one day trip, but the tributes at the funeral by her grandchildren were more apt and a pleasant reminder of the wonderful person that so many of us called "Barney" or "Aunt Barney." She was a person of great warmth and kindness. Here is a late draft of the poem I wrote in remembrance of her.

Drifting over the drumlin

Tonight the stream is up blowing crystals
Desert dry o'r the ridge onto the lee.

This ridge of mounds scoured by polar winds
Was once the debris wall of an empire of ice.

Was it the burden's mass pushed ahead
By the invading ice (tiring of onslaught)?

Or did sun shine warmly on day of rest,
Leaving debris a sign of far enough?

From here the First People signaled with smoke
The bison's direction in the sea of grass.

Later emigrant scouts atop these mounds
Scanned to the horizon for fields of promise.

Below in the ridge's lee a finger lake
Collects the snow's runoff and hosts the flocks.

I hear here a loved one with wisdom blessed
Who stops eternity from such a spot.

She places her foot out, remembers
That time long ago on a sylvan shore.

Now she pushes at air as once she pushed
At waves washing ashore with her prospects.

A moment shoeless girl sudden bounded
Start and raise family, so soon to leave.

Winds speed, spirits journey, from this bleak ridge.
Give her wish its flight, resounding air.

I beg you feel this ocean of air here
At this place; leap off with a lighter heart.

Thanksgiving, a double blessing.

I was so pleased to see families on Thanksgiving coming to the shelter for homeless men to serve Thanksgiving dinner. One family was hard at it all day in the various phases of food preparation, service, and clean up.

I was there briefly at the Simpson Shelter in Minneapolis just to serve and to do some clean up. The men who came to feast seemed so glad of the food. I poured milk and replenished water glasses and everyone seemed gracious. I encouraged folks to pass condiments and butter around to others.

I believe that the blessings and thanks of these men made the evening a two way street. Kindness and goodness are each their own reward and we need look no further for reward. I know my own fears of economic hardship seemed so much lighter after this particular meal.

I am especially thankful for time with my children and grandchild at the home of my former wife who put on a marvelous dinner yesterday afternoon.

A Poem of Gratitude for my Readers

Prairie rose volunteers

Be glad of your wants, each of you.
Do not be anxious for your life.
If you can, you shall not want.
Be still, be comforted, feel blessed.

When we did without all those years
And sacrificed for naught, then
I say we have known want:
Spiritual or material want or both!

The psalmist trusts, “I shall not want,”
But we struggle to get it right.
Unless we stand with who dare say:
“God loves me as you can see by my plenty.”

We can keep a prairie rose volunteer
In a clay or silver cup;
We can complete each sunrise or sunset
With a celebration in song of yet another day.

Somehow it’s the half empty cup
That’s filled with what is unseen:
The sense of contentment and acceptance
Of the unfinished business of life.

Peace Now Grows Ever Remoter a Possibility

My sympathies are with the victims and their families of victims of the shootings yesterday, Monday, November 5, 2009, at Fort Leonard Wood, Texas. President Obama has declared a national mourning period from today forward thru Veterans Day.

The Muslim world is living and dying each day in a world dominated by the United States and its allies. Many in the Muslim world believe that their world is under attack by and is victimized by Western values and Western powers. The proponents of terrorism and suicide bombings in wrecking Muslim vengeance on the Western world and their own Muslim populations are into a victim mentality and justify the evil they do as necessary for the ultimate triumph of the Muslim world over the Western world.

The American people are led to believe that they are safe in their beds because of wars, occupations of foreign lands, and drone attacks. As a United States citizen, I do not believe I am made safer by the killing done in my behalf. On the other hand, I can not wash my hands of what my country is doing because I live in a republic of laws and elected representatives. The blood of innocents is on my hands.

I do not see my government's current efforts as helpful nor ultimately productive. Drones with pin point accuracy launched by the United States are fired at targets in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. The target selection is often done in haste with personnel of the enemy often in transit and using the screen of villagers for protection. Innocent men, women, and children are killed in these attacks which presumably have a degree of success in killing actual terrorists who are at war with the United States and its allies. Technology permits my government and enemies of my government to kill indiscriminately. I know technology is not the enemy, but the servant of those who would do war on one another.

When civilians died on September 11, 2001, in the World Trade Center attacks,it confirmed that we are all combatants and are asked to take sides. Where is the end of war to be found in a world gone mad?

I find myself asking for spiritual leaders for the Muslim world who could help Muslims embrace peace instead of revenge. I find myself asking for spiritual leaders for the Western world who could help non-Muslims embrace peace instead of revenge.

I advocate for restorative justice in how the Muslim and Western worlds interact. We need to step back from the ledge of pursuing solutions to relationship ills between people by resort to violence.