Image via Wikipedia
Submitted to Leonnyes Z to A Challenge: http://leonnyes.wordpress.com/
Alien Clouds
You can understand why
Nevada has its stories.
Lenticular clouds
hover in the East—
horizontal orbs
ready to scoop you up
and carry you to places
unknown.
Image via Wikipedia
Submitted to Leonnyes Z to A Challenge: http://leonnyes.wordpress.com/ and to Jingle’s Poetry Rally (December 2, 2010): http://thursdaypoetsrallypoetry.wordpress.com/
I must confess to a bit of poetic burn-out this morning, so I’ve reverted to a poem I wrote last winter during our stay in Palm Desert. Bougainvillea don’t grow here in Reno and certainly not in the snowy cold weather we’re experiencing right now but they are abundant down in the desert.
Bougainvillea
Sometimes,
when you’re aware,
life hurls its beauty
in your face.
Nature you know
so well
comes of age in
her seduction.
Color mounts
surrounding walls,
invades the senses with
its brilliance,
fondles, tantalizes,
coaxes you till you
understand her message,
surrenders
her loveliness into
your hands
so you will
linger for awhile.
Image by nutmeg66 via Flickr
Submitted to Leonnyes Z to A Challenge: http://leonnyes.wordpress.com/
“C” is for Clarity
Large snowflakes, the size of nickels,
drift toward Earth Mother,
snuggle on her breast.
Each drop of frozen water
is unique, each one worthy
of consideration.
Accept and nurture them
in the darkness of winter.
When they melt you will see growth.
Spring brings clarity.
Tend that which bears fruit.
Weed out the rest.
Image via Wikipedia
Submitted to Leonnyes Z to A Challenge: http://leonnyes.wordpress.com/
Flawless Gem
a Cascade
You are like
a flawless gem
in pure gold.
I can’t find words
to aptly say what
you are like.
Not brilliant star
nor dancing flame nor yet
a flawless gem
describes the joy
that I would etch
in pure gold.
Image via Wikipedia
This is submitted to Leonnyes Z to A Challenge:
http://leonnyes.wordpress.com/
The anecdote related in this poem is derived from a story related by Rabbi Schlomo Carlebach. I read it in “The Oracle of Kabbalah” by Richard Seidman. This book deals with the hidden meaning underlying the Hebrew Aleph Beit.
“H” is for Homeless Man
Walking down the road I saw a man in tattered clothes.
I couldn’t help but wonder what had led to his defeat.
Tell me, if you would, about this life that you have chosen,
or did it choose you to live like this, upon the street?
I handed him a buck or two and said, “Here, take a seat.”
It was a rusted old park bench on which we hunkered in to meet.
You’re curious, my boy, he said, why do you want to know?
I want to understand you, sir, to see what makes you so.
That money that I gave to you, I know you’ll give to others.
I wonder, how do you survive while giving to your brothers?
A smile broke across the wrinkled landscape of his face,
the pain I’d seen inside his eyes seemed suddenly erased.
You may not really want to hear the story I will tell,
it happened many years ago in a place not far from hell.
The name you’ve heard—‘twas Auschwitz, a camp they took us Jews
the horrors that surrounded me tempted me to choose
to take my own life ere they could subject me to a death
without the grace of dignity. I was so eager to go.
But then some words came tumbling from the darkness of my mind
Words spoken by a holy man I heard in gone by.
The teacher’s voice was strong, it traveled straight into the core
of all I understand of God, of what we’re living for.
Do you know how much good can be done in Auschwitz late at night?
How hope can be a gift to those who tremble in their fright?
And what I learned back then—the truths that saved me from despair—
I carry them within my soul, there’s so much need to care.
So I refuse to see my life as a symbol of defeat.
Do you know how much good, my son, awaits me in that street?
The old man stood and shook my hand and left me with his smile
I sat, transfixed, upon that bench for quite a while.
Now I withhold my judgment when I see a homeless guy
and wonder still at wealth within that money cannot buy.
Image by JKönig via Flickr
Winter Wonder
Winter wonder—wet
leaves huddled in niches of rocks
wait to decompose.
Submitted to Leonnyes Z to A Challenge: http://leonnyes.wordpress.com/ a delayed entry for the letter “W”
Victoria C. Slotto, Author 