Tom Walking to Mission San Xavier del Bac in Tucson — Image by kenne
My hiking buddy, Tom Markey, has been home from the hospital and rehab for about ten days. This past Sunday, I took him for a short walk in the Sweetwater Wetlands Park, and yesterday he called me to see if I would go with him and Pat to Mission San Xavier del Bac — he wanted to light some candles ahead of his third chemo session today.
Tom is a Quaker, so I couldn’t pass up an opportunity to ask him, “What’s a Quaker doing lighting candles in a Catholic Church?” He replied, “I’ll take whatever help I can get — what have I got to lose.” Tom is a very spiritual man.
While at the mission, I also lit some candles for Joy’s younger sister, Janna, who passed away yesterday from a cardiac arrest. May she rest in peace.
“Hello darkness my old friend, I’ve come to talk to you again,” is a line from the Simon and Garfunkel song that frequently streams
through my mind. It is in those moments of darkness that I ponder what it is that continues to
influence the way I think, the way I perceive the world in which we live.
“Because a vision softly creeping left its seed, while I was sleeping,” that I look back on the early formative days of my life, a time now
that seems as if I was sleeping. But the vision, which became the moral
fabric of my spirit and guiding light, was formed.
“And the vision that was planted in my brain still remains within the sound of silence.” A vision built on principles and truths that guide me, which today are preached,
only to become somebody else’s lies in the name of freedom. How can we believe in freedom, let support systems that enslave some for the
freedom of others? – No one is truly free unless all are free.
“In restless dreams, I walk alone, narrow streets of cobblestone” yet I remain restless as I walk through this land of dreams, with its narrow
streams of conciseness and watchful eyes.
“I turned my collar to the cold and damp when my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light,” serving to numb the spirit, only to
“…split the night and touch the sound of silence.”
“And in the naked light, I saw ten thousand people, maybe more,” none together, separated by their own silence, giving rise to more lies,
cultivated by and for fear.
“People talking without speaking, people hearing without listening,” as the silence only serves to drown the anguish of the suffering to be replaced
by corporate voices. Let, many continue to
“…write songs that voices never shared, and no one dared disturb the sound of silence,”
in a propaganda system intended to cause people to feel helpless.
“ ’Fools!’ said I, ‘you do not know, silence like a cancer grows,” in a terminal phase of human existence, where the only cure is
democracy and freedom. But for this cure to work, our basic institutions must be
under popular control, not that of a privileged controlling class.
“Hear my words that I might teach you, take my arms that I might reach you,” for it is only the people who can impose moral principles on the gods of fear. “But my words like silent raindrops fell… and echoed in the wells of silence. And
the people bowed and prayed to the neon gods they make,” to show commitment to their gladiators, the gods of war.
“And the sign flashed out it’s warning,
In the words that it was forming,
And the sign said,
‘The words of the prophets are written
On the subway walls
And tenement halls.’
And whispered in the sound of silence.”
I apologize for any perceived misuse of the great lyrics from the
Simon and Garfunkel song, “Sounds of Silence.”
(First posted January 27, 2007 — Still pondering after all these years.)
A Rock, A River, A Tree Hosts to species long since departed, Mark the mastodon. The dinosaur, who left dry tokens Of their sojourn here On our planet floor, Any broad alarm of their of their hastening doom Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages. But today, the Rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully, Come, you may stand upon my Back and face your distant destiny, But seek no haven in my shadow. I will give you no hiding place down here. You, created only a little lower than The angels, have crouched too long in The bruising darkness, Have lain too long Face down in ignorance. Your mouths spelling words Armed for slaughter. The rock cries out today, you may stand on me, But do not hide your face. Across the wall of the world, A river sings a beautiful song, Come rest here by my side. Each of you a bordered country, Delicate and strangely made proud, Yet thrusting perpetually under siege. Your armed struggles for profit Have left collars of waste upon My shore, currents of debris upon my breast. Yet, today I call you to my riverside, If you will study war no more. Come, clad in peace and I will sing the songs The Creator gave to me when I And the tree and stone were one. Before cynicism was a bloody sear across your brow And when you yet knew you still knew nothing. The river sings and sings on. There is a true yearning to respond to The singing river and the wise rock. So say the Asian, the Hispanic, the Jew, The African and Native American, the Sioux, The Catholic, the Muslim, the French, the Greek, The Irish, the Rabbi, the Priest, the Sheikh, The Gay, the Straight, the Preacher, The privileged, the homeless, the teacher. They hear. They all hear The speaking of the tree. Today, the first and last of every tree Speaks to humankind. Come to me, here beside the river. Plant yourself beside me, here beside the river. Each of you, descendant of some passed on Traveller, has been paid for. You, who gave me my first name, You Pawnee, Apache and Seneca, You Cherokee Nation, who rested with me, Then forced on bloody feet, Left me to the employment of other seekers– Desperate for gain, starving for gold. You, the Turk, the Swede, the German, the Scot… You the Ashanti, the Yoruba, the Kru, Bought, sold, stolen, arriving on a nightmare Praying for a dream. Here, root yourselves beside me. I am the tree planted by the river, Which will not be moved. I, the rock, I the river, I the tree I am yours–your passages have been paid. Lift up your faces, you have a piercing need For this bright morning dawning for you. History, despite its wrenching pain, Cannot be unlived, and if faced with courage, Need not be lived again. Lift up your eyes upon The day breaking for you. Give birth again To the dream. Women, children, men, Take it into the palms of your hands. Mold it into the shape of your most Private need. Sculpt it into The image of your most public self. Lift up your hearts. Each new hour holds new chances For new beginnings. Do not be wedded forever To fear, yoked eternally To brutishness. The horizon leans forward, Offering you space to place new steps of change. Here, on the pulse of this fine day You may have the courage To look up and out upon me, The rock, the river, the tree, your country. No less to Midas than the mendicant. No less to you now than the mastodon then. Here on the pulse of this new day You may have the grace to look up and out And into your sister’s eyes, Into your brother’s face, your country And say simply Very simply With hope Good morning.
When with a serious musing I behold
The grateful and obsequious marigold,
How duly, ev’ry morning, she displays
Her open breast, when Titan spreads his rays; How she observes him in his daily walk, Still bending towards him her tender stalk; How, when he down declines, she droops and mourns, Bedew’d, as ’twere, with tears, till he returns; And how she veils her flow’rs when he is gone, As if she scorned to be looked on By an inferior eye, or did contemn To wait upon a meaner light than him; When this I meditate, methinks the flowers Have spirits far more generous than ours, And give us fair examples to despise The servile fawnings and idolatries Wherewith we court these earthly things below, Which merit not the service we bestow.
Sometimes life is unpredictable. It dictates things that you do not want to pursue, nor do you wish to listen to. But no matter how we resist life, it won’t allow itself to lay unappreciated and devaluedfor a long time.
For each day we live on this planet, each breath we took when were awake and each silent breath when we are asleep, life is already in its existence.
For life is within us, it envelops us in everything that we do. It is there, silent and yet overbearing, when we took our own paths, when we mold our own destiny, and when we choose wise and unwise decisions.
Decisions that might or might not affect the way our life will be. For no matter what path we choose, life is always there.
Life is the essence of life. Life is a God-given gift bestowed upon humankind. Life is our life. Without life, humanity would not have existed, I would not have existed.
Life gives us the freedom to choose, to see things in its pure goodness, but above all, life gives us the ability to live on this planet. For it is life that we found each other. For it is in life that we are one.
We are not only citizens in our own countries but we are citizens of the world. We are here because of life, and we are here because we have life. Live life to its fullest form. Thank God for bestowing upon us life. Life is life.
“Hello Darkness My Old Friend — Image by kenne
Becoming is Superior to Being 
Existing In Absurdity
Born linked
to the ancient ones
Channeled to a past spirit
Licking insight into the now
Instinctively being observant
Creating a discrete perception
Accepting things as they are
Not to question why
In a world of the ordinary
While seeking answers
Only to redefine normality
Follower of mother’s guidance
Learning right from wrong
In an air of tolerance
Avoiding strange charmers
Delivers of woe and fear
Fostering a mama’s boy
Not by design,
but by nature
Existing forever connected
To her very being
Desiring to mend her hurt
Nurtured in grandmother’s church
Hearing a calling without voices
Imparting salvation
Becoming blinded by faith
Only to be baptized in a tank
Receiving life’s real baptism
In the old swimming hole
Swinging from a rope
Sinking down with an arm
Pointing up to the light above
A curiosity of girls
Given timid tutelage
Knowing only of
Their exclusive nature
Without objective scrutiny
Lacking any evidence
Querying a gentle lass
Show me yours
Will show you mine
Not yet understanding
The growth in the hand
Lying down by her side
Lost in original sin
Not resisting the call
Buried deep in the heart
Falling for her desire
Thinking of girl as a woman
Wondering at what age
A woman becomes a woman
And when woman
Stops being woman
Fancied by little girls
Fashioned by big girls
Becoming powerful as consort
Only to be lost in false piety
A spectacle of elevated humbug
The girl as a woman
A myth dreamed by boys
Loving the art of deception
Conceived by man loving woman
Only to become a ploy
Now questing a cure
For this curse of eve
Loathing the deception
In quest of a solution
Only to be lost in dark air
Searching a way out
Of this affliction
Can’t live with
Can’t live without
Existing in absurdity
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