Sunday in September

Today is a Sunday in September, so today I’d like to share a poem entitled ‘Sunday in September’ with you. It’s a poem written by a very dear friend of mine from way back in high school – Maggie Belisle. Maggie is a very talented lady and writes beautiful poetry. This is just one example.

Sunday in September

Sunday in September, the 26th after the full moon.
First chance I’d had to sit alone and scribble some…
I wander through the crowds. The random remarks drift past.
Older women complaining to husbands
“I shoulda just stayed the Hell Home…”
“now WAITa minute.” the men counter “ I ASKED you if ….”
I walk on..voices fading…
the smells of body sweat, hot dogs,
and powdered sugar on hot grease, oil soaked dough from
“the ever popular Funnel Cakes”
see the proudly strutting males and females
so desperately presenting so much of their bodies..
“Please notice me” they shout silently
Here, among the masses there are magnificent ancient faces
a thousand years in replication farmers,
shepherds, warriors and ladies
They have the strength of endurance, determination…
this wonderful heritage of pride
etched in their faces
their hearts
their eyes.
Something responds.
Something remembered
By firesides and starfilled nights
stone hearths and dirt floors
and blood bonds
of blood feuds…
here together again
after the separation of so many centuries.
We clamor to praise one another
ourselves, our heritage.
We seek to affirm in one another that we are kin
by centuries of survival
the faces of strangers seem familiar.
The sights and sounds all spilling over a multitude
of collective memory…
And when the music plays a thousand hands keep time
a thousand heels stamp out the
pounding of the familiar rhythms.
We know these all by rote by blood by heart
even if we’ve never heard the tune before…
And between the frolic of jigs and reels
there is the squeezbox and the pipes, the whistles
all recalling our tears
a thousand years old
a thousand times shed
a thousand times remembered.
Something survives. Something Endures.
It is Ourselves
Still a People
for heartbreaks of losses and countless struggles borne
Still a nation of wanderers
laughing and singing
while dancing down the days
of too much time
apart

Comments are welcome.

Happy Friendship Day

Here’s wishing all my readers a Happy Friendship Day.

Today I’d like to share a beautiful poem,  entitiled Friendship, written by the famous poet and writer, Khalil Gibran:

 

Friendship

 

And a youth said, “Speak to us of Friendship.”

Your friend is your needs answered.

He is your field which you sow with love and reap with thanksgiving.

And he is your board and your fireside.

For you come to him with your hunger, and you seek him for peace.

When your friend speaks his mind you fear not the “nay” in your own mind, nor do you withhold the “ay.”

And when he is silent your heart ceases not to listen to his heart;

For without words, in friendship, all thoughts, all desires, all expectations are born and shared, with joy that is unacclaimed.

When you part from your friend, you grieve not;

For that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence, as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain.

And let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit.

For love that seeks aught but the disclosure of its own mystery is not love but a net cast forth: and only the unprofitable is caught.

And let your best be for your friend.

If he must know the ebb of your tide, let him know its flood also.

For what is your friend that you should seek him with hours to kill?

Seek him always with hours to live.

For it is his to fill your need, but not your emptiness.

And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures.

For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.

 

Happy Mother’s Day

Today is Mother’s Day – the day we honor mothers and motherhood. Mothers toil, sacrifice, and give more than anyone can ever imagine. Mothers can never be thanked enough, but on Mother’s Day we try and appreciate their contributions in our lives.

Wishing all you wonderful mothers out there – Happy Mother’s Day!

 

Here’s a poem by well-known author Jeanette Cooper, which beautifully pays tribute to a mother.

 

                            Ode To Mother

 

Dear Mama, in your eyes I saw beauty
When you held me in your warm embrace.
There I saw the greatest peace
Written on your lovely face.

I saw love and felt joy;
I saw kindness and felt peace;
I saw warmth and felt comfort;
I saw friendship and felt my life richly nourished;
I saw gentleness and felt strength;
I saw patience and felt understanding;

Mama, your look was like an open-faced book;
I saw long-suffering on your gentle face and knew
Behind those wonderful clear green eyes
Was a saintly mortal who was my mother,
A woman who learned from pain and joy
How to love.

If you could hug me in your protective arms
The way you once held me back then,
If I could see that loving gentle face
That told me I would forever have a friend,

What sublime joy and  wonder it would be
To know God’s blessings through you of yesterday;
What a miracle from God our Savior above
To hear your sweet lips say,
“I love you.”