Weekly Poems: New Year's, Happy Holidays, Love, Sadness, Teens, Religion, and Animals

HOPE IS NOT A HARBINGER OF PEACE

Hope is not a harbinger of peace
As countless holocausts have made quite clear.
Perhaps the unsolved problem is that fear
Prevents the heart from seeking its release.
Years pass; we come no closer to the good,
Nor do we better understand why we
Each year have hope to live in harmony
While watering our fields with tears and blood.
Yet hope remains, and love, that hope revives.
Each knows well that hatred is insane,
And hates and fears and loves and hates again,
Resolving ever to keep hope alive.

HARD BY CELEBRATIONS THERE ARE TEARS

Hard by celebrations there are tears,
A lonely yearning for what cannot be.
Perhaps we let it enter foolishly,
Passionate to weep for vanished years.
Yet living in the moment we are free,
Having jettisoned regrets and fears,
Open to the grace of eyes and ears,
Losing self in silent ecstasy.
In holidays there is a flow of time
Deep beneath the ritual ballet,
A tide that takes the trite and the sublime,
Yielding to the descant of the day,
Sweeping through the shallows of the bay.

LOVE HAS OBSTACLES ENOUGH, THEY SAY

Love has obstacles enough, they say:
Why add to them the obstacle of race?
Two backgrounds so diverse can't share one space.
Love can't keep the world's harsh truths at bay.
Ah, love! Let such trite wisdom go its way!
All life is difficult yet full of grace.
All men and women share the same small place.
Nor should we out of fear our love betray.
Love is to daily life a vein of gold
Running through the rock like liquid fire,
Making ordinary moments glow.
May we treasure it as we grow old:
The breath that does our dreary clay inspire,
The touch that transforms everything we know.

MEMORIES OF LIFE AT HOME

Memories of life at home
Rarely reach the sea.
Beneath the bare swept surface muck
Lie dreams that turn us cold.

The best that we can do is try
To savor what is served,
Love the lust of a sinking sun
And make much of precision.

YOU THINK, PERHAPS, THAT YOU WILL LIVE FOREVER

You think, perhaps, that you will live forever,
For death, still out of sight, is out of mind.
Or pain, perhaps, is destined for another,
And anything that's broken soon will mend.

You seek the ecstasy in every moment,
Not caring what the consequence may be,
Yearning for the black, tormented torrent
That twists beneath the border of your day.

You plunge and plunge again, and still don't drown,
Belying all the warnings that you've heard.
Joy fills you to the marrow of your bones,
And all but what you hunger for seems dead.

But all things have a price, as you will learn
Too late, when life presents you with the bill;
And you will die too early, or in pain
Live on with wounds that never wholly heal.

Oh, children full of passion and desire,
Unwilling to mature before you choose!
Remember there is wisdom in your fear,
And reason to think well what you may lose.

ZECHARIAH

Zechariah wanders in his longing
Even as he cherishes his state.
Choosing reason rather than belonging,
He feels the pathos of his complex fate.
A modern prophet must be only human,
Relinquishing the myths of god and tribe.
In visions passionate, he must illumine
A glory that needs neither faith nor bribe,
Having a domain he can describe.

PETS ARE FOR LIFE, NOT JUST FOR CHRISTMAS

Pets are for life, not just for Christmas.
Each of us waits for the joy of a home.
Take one of us in and you'll never go kissless,
So long as you treat us as one of your own.