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Christmas

Christmas

Christmas
the mass of Christ
mass means together

we value peace on this day
many in a non-sectarian way;
silence prevails
though there will be those
who’ll try to ruin it

what can we say?
Christians might say
that Christ came down to earth
or came up
or came from all around

to buy peace, yes, and offer
of salvation, a ransom for the
sins of all—this is how our
lesson goes

must we enjoy belief in this
to have peace at this time?
I think we know the answer’s no

Preferred, maybe, by the sect
though God’s peace
is offered up as God’s preference
everywhere, for all

if you know John three-sixteen,
please read through seventeen—
and all have a glorious, peace-filled
Christmas day

December 24, 2015 2

RULES:
1. Display the award on your blog
2. Announce your win with a post and link the blogger who awarded you
3. Present 6 deserving bloggers with the award
4. Link your awardees in the post and let them know of their being awarded
5. Write seven interesting things about you.

DRAGON’S LOYALTY AWARD!
Nominated by Megan of Invisible World!–Thank you! (at) https://invisibleworldd.wordpress.com/author/invisibleworldd/

(My) Following the rules:
Display the award. Here’s the Award (image above)
Six (other) bloggers for the award (below). Link the awardees in the post (if I can).
Seven interesting things about me (if there are seven):
1. I am left-handed, like ten percent of the population. It might be more but, you know, we are an oppressed kind. Actually, I heard a talk once about why we live less years than the right-handed. The world is oriented for the right hand, and we thus live in a more dangerous place.
2. I’m freckled. I have come to understand that having freckles is a trend—sometimes good, sometimes bad. I’m stuck with mine. I’m fine with that.
3. I have thought for years, without saying so, that the lead characters in classic Star Trek are allegories of the self. Kirk is energy and command. Spock is mind and strength. McCoy is feeling and creative talent. Put them together, you have the self, pretty much an entire self. Sorry they’re all men.
4. I wrote an article about The Hobbit and medieval literary tradition, which I have only recently found out is cited in books of scholarship. Heavy, expensive, comprehensive books (that probably only a few will buy and fewer will read). Some are older; some are new. But my, oh, my. Surprise me.
5. I like to act. I like to sing. I like to conduct singing.
6. Affirming what others have said, and maybe I have said elsewhere, I write to stay sane.
7. Dragons? An award with a dragon? That’s so cool! Well, fiery cool!
Other dragon-loyalty bloggers? Only six? Okay (and in no particular order–from going through messages in my G-mail):
What the Woman Wrote, https://whatthewomanwrote.wordpress.com/author/anniescribes/
AngieInspired, https://angieinspired.wordpress.com/author/angieinspired/
InvisibleWorld (wait, this nomination came from here), https://invisibleworldd.wordpress.com/author/invisibleworldd/
A Reading Writer, https://areadingwritr.wordpress.com/author/rosemawrites/
MY OWN PRIVATE IDAHO, https://impossiblebebong.wordpress.com/author/impossiblebebong/
Jacki Kellum Juxtapositions, https://jackikellum.wordpress.com/author/jackikellum/
mandibelle16, https://mandibelle16.wordpress.com/author/mandibelle16/
An Offbeat Blue Stocking, https://anoffbeatbluestocking.wordpress.com/author/clairegarcia07/
(Only 100 Words, https://sonyca.wordpress.com/author/sonyca/, has earned the dragon’s loyalty and mine and has been nominated elsewhere.)

Okay, I think I’ve followed the rules or hopefully near enough. Thanks, all, for such good—and, yes, loyal—work! In ancient lore from various places on the earth, the dragon’s loyalty is powerful and unfaltering. Wow! We have dragons on our side!

Solstice

Solstice
(in the North)

Susserating word
Whispering in frost and crystalline
Syllables, telling us
That the time is changing

Fall is done, and winter’s here
Time for nature’s rest
Sleeping, fallow
Nurtured under blankets
Of the cold

Awaiting what’s to come anew

And those of us in candlelight
With wood fires and electric lamps
LED and Cadmium
We control light and heat
No longer are we partial
To this pace

We plant and reap in this time, too
Instinctively, we have evolved

We figure out our stride, for
Good or ill, while most
Of nature hides

December 22, 2015 7

Try Measuring Our Treasuring

Try Measuring Our Treasuring

It’s all right; I don’t mind
If what I seek is what you find

A treasure, wrap it up in stone
For me to find with sharpened bone

Then I’ll take a turn for you
To lead you into something new

Anticipating when it’s real
Ancient maps that we unseal

Seeking exotic gold
Keeping us, ‘til time unfold

Bringing us to homely rest
Normal calibrated nest

‘Til we hear the siren call
To sail out, maybe once for all

Who knows what’s in store
As we adventure and explore

As we go on, forevermore

December 21, 2015 0

Celtic Understanding

I have little words of life, posted below and next. The Celtic circle is from my ethnic heritage. No doubt the circle has meaning, aged and new, from many other people and places. (Places have age; people are always new.) What does the circle mean from you and yours? Treasuring, the next poem-post, is about small glories we might live.

Celtic Understanding
(say it like hard K)

The circle tells us always
That all things are one
That we are one

Cut it into wood
Grind it into stone
Ring it round a fire
The fire is one, too

And part of us
And we with it

Sacred, secular
Reality is this
Circle ever moving
Without end

We do not end

December 21, 2015 0

Second Freedom USA Suggestion

Second Freedom USA Suggestion

We don’t have our guns taken
(if I said that before, I was wrong)
Rather
We give them up

To those who duly need them
And are rightly trained to use them
To use against those who
Mis-use guns and seek to
Mis-use us

Loving our freedoms
Among them, consciousness toward peace
We send the message
We don’t need them day by day
The guns are a measure we
Truly can live without

No coercion though
But a plea
And a moderating suggestion

December 18, 2015 2

Long Good Bye Tomorrow

Long Good Bye Tomorrow

Did you know that in Malawi,
you go to jail for being gay
or lesbian? It’s not a fine
or manageable penalty, if
severe;

it’s in supermax for life. The
nation of Malawi did not
invent this punishment. It
happens elsewhere. A crime
like this—classed with arson, theft,
or witchcraft—still earns time
away from real life forever.

An indictment for being homosexual
that promises permanent
captivity. You know, I have an
opinion, a feeling, a value about
homosexuality: about heterosexuality,
too. My feeling’s firm enough, rather
set. And, day by
day, it is about

the most useless thing I own. You
see, behind the issues there are
people. And love transcends
issues and viewpoints. Love
overwhelms other human
convictions.

December 16, 2015 5

Reading The Guardian

Reading The Guardian

I like to read The Guardian
for an outside-USA perspective. (I
like the name, too.) But
today’s Monday-morning headlines
were, I swear, all grim. Even the global
climate accord received political, not
environmental, comment. The only
good news I read about was a promise
from a person not to litigate, not
to sue against unlawful (long and
tortuous) detention at Guantanamo.

I applaud, truly, this one’s
forgiving purpose. But that’s as good
as it got. A withholding of returning
punishment: the avoidance of bad
news from someone being better
than. And so

nothing more?
Why not?

It’s my fault. It’s yours. We must
do good, then do better than to allow
it to become good news. Then (others,
us) we must report the good
that happens, too. As an alternative,
a celebration, and exemplar for all.

I visited my friend in the hospital
just in time to take him home. My
neighbors have launched a mission
website to help the children with
Down’s Syndrome and those who
want the children to have
a child’s life.

There’s some good, becomes good
news. It’s small. Good news is often
small.

My small part as an example’s done.
So now,

December 16, 2015 6

Equinoxing

Equinoxing

It’s so weird
Weirding
To watch the sun pass over
In front of the house
On its way west
So early in the day

But that’s how it is
This side of the planet
With the way we keep
Time and the pereceptions
Realized this way

What if we measured differently
What if we went by lunar time
As many do
Or simply measured seasons
As they felt

Would this day seem so strange
Knowing, as it is, that by three
This afternoon, it will look like
Early evening

Without standard time and
Saving time without the skill
To measure nanoseconds
Would passing moments feel
Differently feel righter
As we might know the
Passing and the tilting
Of our earth

December 12, 2015 2