Respect | pictured words

UNITED

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I wish all had disembarked.
Teach United
the meaning of its name.

#seventeensyllablesfortwentyseventeen
#aprilpad

A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME …

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Irish roses bud and bloom

Side-by-side in mother’s womb.

Beautifully, they grew in grace;

Elegant as Irish lace.

Happy Birthday to Mom and Aunt Peg, with love and great respect.

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SONNET FOR MY DAD

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My father earned a living teaching youth.
He shared with them the music of his core.
He showed them how to honor life and truth,
And gave his time to all who graced his door.

My father is a man to emulate –
A man who holds to ethical ideals.
And even now, though years have slowed his gait,
They haven’t marred the crux of what he feels.

My father’s love is deep; allegiance strong.
His charity continues to abound.
He taught me well to judge what’s right and wrong,
To gather stars, while keeping feet aground.

And so it is I pen this gift through tears –
I thank my God for granting us these years.

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All I wanted was to give you a gift –
A pretty something you could wear
On your wrist,
Or around your neck.
Something having nothing to do
With construction paper,
scissors,
or crayons.
Something purchased with paper money
From a department store.
Something wrapped in ribbon.

Now all I want is to give you a gift –
Something having nothing to do
With purchases
With paper money.
I want to give you

Sunny smiles,
Smooth sailing,
Sweet solace.

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July 21, 2016

logs (a sonnetina tre)

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Photo credit: Wikimedia

“And why worry about a speck in your friend’s eye when you have a log in your own?” ~ Mat. 7:3

Another checkmark in our verdicts’ log –
Our record of the judgements we decree.
We haughtily embrace the demagogue
Whose words lynch those with whom we disagree.

Rose-colored glasses will not help our plight –
We need to clearly see our world “as is.”
God’s eyes spill love despite His perfect sight.
Oh, may He help us eye our world through His.

So quick to judge. To loathe. To vilify.
So blinded by the log in our own eye.

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July 5, 2016

Crayola and Me, 1958

Photo credit: Today I Found Out

I began as Flesh,
But only because it was 1958,
And they didn’t yet understand
A white baby may have a tint
Of Raw Sienna.

No understanding that changing Indian Red
To Chestnut is not only untrue,
But negates a child’s ability to learn
That Indian Red describes a pigment native
To India,
And not the skin of a Native American,

Or for that matter, the ability to learn what it meant to be
Prussian.
Was it easier to change Prussian to Midnight,
Than to teach us the blues of history?

And sixteen new colors were added that year, and
When I turned four I was no longer Flesh,
But Peach.
Peach with still no tint,
And no understanding that Peach is not white,
And I am not white, and I am not Peach.

But colors are sharp,
And when the summer sun shines
On sixty four colors left on Grandma’s porch,
They can run together
and
Permanently
Mingle.

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