Tag: Life

Something’s Broken

On By dorahakIn Poems16 Comments

A babe sat in the green grass bright
Fast held in a predator’s sight.
Is it that of a man or that of a beast?
One’s intent is murder, the other’s a feast.

In what universe would a mother bereft
Of her bonnie babe by its sudden theft
Feel her piercing grief constrained the less
Were it a man for its death to so confess?

Something’s broken, someone’s dead
Something’s taken, innocence fled.

Then is there no evil, no good to pursue
Just the surreal, “to thine own self be true”?
Don’t lose the story, oh, don’t lose the plot
It’s death that’s the enemy, one thing we’ve all got.

Nature or nurture, priest, pagan, or not
Don’t you see we all share the same rot?
In a cave or in a palace, the calling card’s the same
One way or another, we’ve lost the grand game.

Something’s broken, someone’s gone
Something’s twisted, death has won

Death robs us of meaning, or would were it the end
Since deep within we sense something round the bend;
Death is still the crucible, our evil we can’t mend
Till upside down is right side up and earth made new again.

Continue reading “Something’s Broken” →

Cold Fusion

On By dorahakIn Poems, Prompts22 Comments

The stairway is not
the woman
nor the stairway
the bird

The bird sees the woman
but the woman does not see
the light

The light descends
over the flight of the blackbird
over the black form of
the woman

The woman is not resting
nor sleeping nor dreaming
curled weary on
the limestone

The limestone does not know
the hardness of
each step

Each step
is blind to
the descent and
the ascent

The ascent is known
only by the light
and the bird
and the woman

singing
singing
singing

Photograph by Gregory Colbert shared by Carrie Burtt for her Sunday Muse #229 ekphrastic prompt. (Thank you, Carrie.) Click here to join in.

Review of “Poems from the Heart” by Dwight Roth

On By dorahakIn Poetry24 Comments

Whether Mr. Roth’s Poems from the Heart are read over the course of a week or a day, you will feel each time that you’ve just had a heartfelt talk with a friend: a friend with a way with words in all the particulars that touch you to the core. You’ll come away as if you’d been on a companionable walk, finding more in common than not with the poet, and knowing that it was time well-spent for the sentiments shared.

So it’s altogether fitting that the first poem is “Famous Only Among Friends”; after all only such fame is real and meaningful, with time spent and hearts open. And Roth invites us into his thoughts with his signature openheartedness, a style that is thankfully short on obscurities and long on frank and unabashed clarity so that its poetic beauty penetrates the heart.

Throughout this collection of poems, you will be charmed as I was with the poet’s unerring descriptions, the imagery of the woods (“To Be a Leaf”) and hearth-side (“Blackberry Pie”) mingling effortlessly with the deeper truths of life and spirituality.

Continue reading “Review of “Poems from the Heart” by Dwight Roth” →

Journey (2)

On By dorahakIn Poems, Prompts16 Comments
Image credit; Evan Clark@ Unsplash

Journey

water still
log submerged
balanced feet
journey of the mind

what do you see,
what do you understand?
“to reach the shore
keep your eyes on land”

feet submerged
the sky above
you whisper, what now
as your heart gives out

from misty shore
a Voice calls out
“to walk on water
you can’t look down”

can faith hold firm
Who do you trust?
what your eyes can’t see
is what bears you up

The Light that Passed and Shone Forever

On By dorahakIn WritingLeave a comment

In the midst of suffering, grief, pain, and loss, the hope of glory we have through Christ Jesus is our sustaining grace. One day we shall see with our own eyes our Redeemer, when with the beloved ones we are reunited with, we shall hear “every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying,

‘To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb
be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!'” (Rev. 5:13, ESV)

What a glorious day that will be!

WALLIE'S WENTLETRAP

dragon_guard.jpg

The Light that Passed and Shone Forever (348 Words)

Some people will tell you that when you lose someone, you grieve and move on. They tell you, and rightfully so, that the loved one who passed would not want to see you sad. They would want to see you as they knew you, living and alive. But if you have ever truly loved, and if you have lost, how can you not miss the one you will never see in this world again? How can your soul not be shaken by a separation so sudden, so wrong?

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Dickens Considered In Media Res

On By dorahakIn Poems37 Comments

It’s a rickety, rollicking ride I’m on
Reading Uncle’s “Our Mutual Friend”
On the tide of the Thames as it rolls along
Dragging me in its mysterious wake
With Veneerings and Rimtys and inspectors
That lurk behind the John Harmons, who as easily
Could be: the Annikovs or Huangs, or Pillais
Or Chandras hawking rumors by the Ganges
In the myriad scenario of humanity’s flow
From the pen of a master storyteller, caught
In the blood-spun net of familiar lives
Of desperation, pathos, or tartuffery
Spent on the banks of labyrinthian rivers
That wend to shores around the world
And stay to balance on my fingertips.

An illustration from Charles Dickens, Our Mutual Friend (1864–65)

Death’s Shadow

On By dorahakIn Church, Theology8 Comments

A friend told me once that she was most afraid of failing to die well. It was a glorious warm and sunny day and in the middle of it, just out of the blue, she says she’s worried about death.

We live in the shadow of death. Like winter, we know it is coming. We must be ready. An ominous chill, the harbinger of death, the first frost settles on the green leaves of summer, stealing life, sapping strength, leaves turning, withering, falling in the autumn rain. No power on earth can turn back the hands of time. A casket stands by an open grave.

It’s not simply that life has an end, that death has the last word. It’s not simply that death brings us to the end of ourselves as well.

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Why Are You?

On By dorahakIn Poems3 Comments

I want to start my journey here, while the tide is in, where
the sun’s light glances off the crest of little waves
so that a thousand little lights sparkle
like stars just off the surface where the winds swirl
and I wonder as I gasp at the beauty given to me, Why am I?
Why are you? Why do we breathe in and out in these shells
of our being looking out through blue, green, brown, black,
grey eyes to find stars afloat on spindling breezes
and babies in our arms and lovers to melt into?
Was it for this moment? Or that: when flesh tore or the heart
burst like an open wound and no one knew but you
where the blood was spilt and how it continues to run?
Why this consciousness of jumbled desires and conflicting needs
treading time past, present, and future like a traveller
with a destination, a place to get to from God-knows-where?
“Where are you going, and where do you come from?”
The grave. The womb. The zygote and the worm. Understand?
Now ask me the real question that burns at the root and spit
of me: Why am I? This me that recognizes me like a stranger
in a mirror. Was I really a twinkle in an astrologer’s eye that fell out
by the force of gravity in a mother’s bed-time tale?
But when I look at the stars on the lake and in the night sky,
I don’t think of meiosis and compost, just eternity
as if I were born with it like a note left on a child
swaddled on the doorstep of life here and now, but a note all the same,
written by an infinite Being who alone had the power to birth my being,
to delight or grieve over me, to find and save me, to give me life,
to know Him through sparkling stars and bursting hearts
and love that never ends.

poem and audio reading of “Why Am I?” ℗©2020 Dora A.K

Ecclesiates 3: 11: He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.

 

Don’t Be Weary

On By dorahakIn Church, WorldLeave a comment

And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith. (Galatians 6:9-10)

Have you seen the “Unsung Hero” commercials of Thai Life? They’re not the usual “roll your eyes” fare. I can’t say many commercials have really reached out and touched me but these did, and especially this one: three minutes long and worth every second. Hats off to the folks who made it. It’s got heart. Take a look:

Continue reading “Don’t Be Weary” →

Her Mother

On By dorahakIn Poems2 Comments

354px-Venus_de_Brassempouy

She was mute all her life.
Though she spoke words
In dumb agony of reproach
Rage-built torment of unredeemed
Days past when deeds were done wrong
And wounds like serpent bites
Had devoured her tongue
Leaving voiceless fury, unsung tears
Among goaded offspring
Of jealous hate
Where a child of flesh
Fed on milky vinegar
Beneath her ravaged gaze
Hears mute anger
In jagged commands
And runs joylessly to the sound
Of her voice.

Winter’s Wife

On By dorahakIn PoemsLeave a comment

Winter-wedding-20120203-001

He had married her on a dark winter’s morning when hope burned low

And his prospects were dim. Yet her piety to him like the gold of Araby

Shone in a heart ablaze with fire by which to warm cold thoughts

As in the grey light of day the months rolled past, then years,

And the bottom line translated meager rewards

And more mouths to feed though she sang what light was given her

Into a wondrous fount from which he drank greedily,

Shunning all but his own despairing gaze.

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Renoir and Dickens: Two Quotes

On By dorahakIn Isaiah, Life in the ScripturesLeave a comment

 

556px-Charles_Dickens-_A_Tale_of_Two_Cities-With_Illustrations_by_H_K_Browne,_1859

Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities (1859):

 It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair …

 

 

363px-Auguste_Renoir_-_Young_Girls_at_the_Piano_-_Google_Art_ProjectThe great French artist, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, suffered so much from rheumatoid arthritis that it was difficult for him to paint due to progressive deformities in his hands and shoulders. The painting on the left, “Young Girls at the Piano” (1892), was done when he first developed the disease.

Yet when a friend said, “You have done enough. Why do you torture yourself?” Renoir replied, “The pain passes, but the beauty remains.”

 

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Our God Is Mighty To Save

On By dorahakIn WorldLeave a comment

Dr. Meriam Ibrahim with her son, Martin, and her newborn daughter, MayaI don’t know what thoughts of elation crossed your mind on hearing the news this morning that Dr. Meriam Ibrahim arrived in Italy today a free woman at last after she and her two children had been held in captivity in a Sudanese prison for her Christian faith. She had given birth to her daughter, Maya, while shackled after having been given a reprieve from a death sentence. Yet during her entire almost year-long ordeal she refused to renounce Christ and held fast to her God. Now she and her children, having already been reunited with her husband at the American embassy in Sudan, will soon be in his New Hampshire home.

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January’s Dream

On By dorahakIn PoemsLeave a comment

To January, Spring is a mocking dream
To Death, Life is an idiot’s tale
To the Blind, the Sun is a solar heater
To the Heartless, Love is a fool’s game
So once was I
Interred
Cruel, sightless
Winter’s daughter
Grave-clothed
Stumbling into the Light
Glorious
Who called my name
And it was no dream
It was Life.