The tree frogs sing their memories
when kids ran freely in the street,
rode their bike to the nearest tree,
climbed up as far as they could see,
and went to Boy Scout meetings.
There were no gangs or gunshot wounds,
where kids are running from police,
riding bikes to the nearest tree
to hide behind it, or to flee,
so they won’t go to jail.
The tree frogs sing their memories
for you and I to clearly see,
and create something better.
cfblack 5-21-2014
My Dutch grandma,
who I dearly loved,
had bow-legged-legs
that curved outward,
a giggly laughter
that filled our days,
a love for my grandpa
that never stopped,
and a fear of brown-skinned people.
When I was a little girl of 3,
while tightly holding onto me,
she spoke to a neighbor
in a whispered voice,
“Be careful who she sold the house to.”
The neighbor nodded, she understood,
Their biggest fear being
a brown-skinned family
moving onto their street,
because that would mean
we’re all the same,
and take away the little bit of gain
that a poor, working-class immigrant family had.
My Dutch grandma
served me 7-Up,
and cookies shaped like windmills,
My grandpa sipped coffee from the saucer,
which came from the pot that perked on the stove,
and put ketchup on his potatoes.
During the Depression,
he built sidewalks downtown,
while Grandma ripped out seams
of hand-me-downs,
put them together again
to make clothes anew,
and somehow they made it through.
After all those years,
they couldn’t bear to see
people move in next door
to bring them down again,
Sometimes those closest to one another
are the farthest of all apart,
Afraid to look in the mirror and see
the face of her neighbor,
a tapestry,
the interwoven stories and lives
of all humanity.
cfblack 05-12-14
I always want to write something
for Mother’s Day,
some anecdote, or memory,
a bit of wisdom
gleaned through many years
of trial and error,
that was our relationship,
and I remember your smile
and your welcoming ways,
and so many other
kinds of days,
so in the end,
it cannot be expressed
or explained,
but I am thankful again
for you.
Trains whistle in the night,
Creating a longing
to go somewhere,
to be traveling from here
to there,
to anywhere ~~
Their whistle announces
their going by,
leaving us to wonder where,
and why,
My grandfather
had a Railroad job,
The bookkeeper,
he was keeping track
of expenses and paychecks,
things like that,
His notes on paper, with pencil were kept,
before the days of computers,
Generations later, we hear the call,
A train goes by
from here to there,
from the magic land of history,
to a future yet to come.
cfblack 05-07-2014
I have always had great respect for scientists, and oftentimes compared the vastness of never-ending space, to a belief in God. I have asked people who do not believe in a God, “Where does space end?” Not everything can be explained. Not everything can be contained by the human mind, and yet we believe. We believe in our existence, in finding our place, in finding our calling, in a world that is in actuality a speck of dust “suspended in a sunbeam”. We are humbled at our insignificance in pondering the stars and the heavens, whether literal or figurative. It shows us our absolute miniscule reality, and yet, our total joy at having consciousness and life. I wonder how my father, a scientist and agnostic, pondered this universe and its meaning. Below is a quote I stole from a page on Carl Sagan.
“From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest. But for us, it’s different. Consider again that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every ‘superstar,’ every ‘supreme leader,’ every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there — on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity — in all this vastness — there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. The Earth is the only world known, so far, to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment, the Earth is where we make our stand. It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.” — Carl Sagan.
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/12/10/pale-blue-dot-motion-graphics/
The truth is,
no one is perfect.
If we dissected every piece
of anyone’s life,
there would be discrepancies,
things they are not so good at,
areas where they do not excel.
And in that same person
there are areas where
no one comes close to what they do,
These are the areas in which they shine,
where they are superior, to you.
and if we go about
exaggerating
those places where they are not their best,
then we shouldn’t be surprised
next time we turn around,
that someone
is doing that
to us.
cfblack 05-03-2014
no.60 O SON OF MAN! Put thy hand into My bosom, that I may rise above thee, radiant and resplendent.
no.61 O SON OF MAN! Ascend unto My heaven, that thou mayest obtain the joy of reunion, and from the chalice of imperishable glory quaff the peerless wine.
no.62 O SON OF MAN! Many a day hath passed over thee whilst thou hast busied thyself with thy fancies and idle imaginings. How long art thou to slumber on thy bed? Lift up thy head from slumber, for the Sun hath risen to the zenith, haply it may shine upon thee with the light of beauty.
from Pinterest by LWrightG
My favorite character in “Toy Story” is Buzz Lightyear. I love him because he is so full of himself, but his heart is in the right place. He is trying to save the world and believes it is his mission to do so, and he is blind to his own frailty, blind to his being just a tiny speck amongst millions. In reality he has no super powers. In reality, he has no link to Mission Control. In reality, there is no Mission Control, there is only him, Buzz, trying to do his best in the midst of chaos. And in the end, that is what matters. And he does, in fact, make a huge difference in the lives of his friends. He is a true hero, not because he has super powers, not because he will save the world, but because he does the most with what he has, and he cares deeply more about his friends than they at first realize.
I always expect the best from people,
but sometimes it doesn’t work out.
I expect that truth will be recognized,
but some folks enjoy telling lies.
Bad things happen to good people,
not just once, but a thousand times,
a million and one acts of service
go totally unrecognized,
People get on a roll with their ignorance,
Instead of stopping themselves, surge ahead,
Bent on proving they were right all along,
they miss the truth before their eyes,
But all we can do is keep going,
Giving our best to the world,
There is only One worth knowing,
only One voice above all the rest,
so I sing because I’m happy,
I sing because I’m free,
For His eye is on the sparrow,
And I know He watches me.
cfblack 04-28-2014
I have held very few jobs in my life, actually. Here is a short poem about the first one~~
Hat Check Girl on Roller Skates
I was hat check girl on roller skates,
at age 15, Philadelphia,
Winters were cold,
People came inside, to play.
I took their coats, gave them a number,
asked what size of shoes they wore.
I skated, forwards, backwards,
crossed one foot over another, to turn,
It was roller, not ice,
the floors glossy wood.
Minimum wage,
$1.60/hour,
My boyfriend wanted me to quit,
didn’t like the way men looked at me,
but I felt free and beautiful
at age 15, on rollerskates.
Doctor Grandma 