"Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere."
--G.K. Chesterton
"The man's body is sacred and the woman's body is sacred.../Each belongs here or anywhere just as much as the well-off, just as much as you."
--Walt Whitman
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According to the Buddha, right speech is a statement that is timely, true, kind, helpful (connected to liberation), and spoken with a mind of good-will. Let us all try to observe this precept.
Advent is traditionally a time of quiet reflection and repentance, when we anticipate not only the birth of Christ but the Second Coming when God will bring justice and peace to the whole world. In America, where images of traditional families dominate the airwaves from Halloween until January, it can also be a sad time for those who are separated from their families by incarceration, war, abuse or estrangement. Advent gives us permission to mourn as well as rejoice, as in these new poems by my prison pen pal "Conway", which he sent inside a beautiful Christmas card.
The Miracle
Drones! Create unprecedented tones conjure tracings of a murmur (WHILE SITTING IN SOLITUDE)
Our breath turns into sounds as again I start these movements straining for an accurate use of words...
While air drifts along with its light, solitary steps untouchable noise dissolving the silence into spelled words manipulated, These fixed, yet faded fingers pointing at nothing but gestured dreams of an empty street a diffused vacant voice more fragile; Than Threads of Glass Eluding a Hurricane...
This song, even now flees from a distant tongue obsolete, in a stalled unforgiveness unsung...
The only contact allowed here are shadows crossing paths stretching to know each other They revel in the Sun's light off a wall, from left to right indifferent to any bickering speaking only their own language
a noiseless echo of everything following, watching from behind it belongs to man, bird and stone unaffected by the wind even.
Strange, that no one thinks to challenge that, that belongs to no one, yet everyone reaching for the horizon...
**** Everything is only for a day
Everything, is only for a day. Both that which Remembers, and that which is remembered.
As we observe this Holy Day in reference to one's perception, for this series is not a mere enumeration-- of disjointed things.
Time is like a river-- made up of events which happen and a violent stream; for as soon as a thing has been seen, it is carried away too.
Altogether the interval is small. Let the part of your soul which leads and governs-- be undisturbed, by The movements in the flesh.
We Remember our Dead. When they were born, when They passed. Either as beings of promise or; Beings of Achievement...
