Tag: Hope

When Trouble Came

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When the grass was short,
Knees were barked and
Giggles lasted through the day.


When the weeds grew wild,
Skirts were short and
Glasses magnified the world.

When the leaves fell,
Streams were colored,
Work was life endowed.


When the ice blew,
Snow drifts suffered,
Adult eyes grew jaded.

When trouble struck,
Murder most cruel,
Debts buried mountains.



When color drained,
Blood was forgotten, but
Genocide prevailed.


When liberty hid her head,
Shamed and lonely,
Safety became an illusion of the past.

When false men screamed in anger,
Children met death,
Streets rained red with blood.

When jealous greed drank a draught,
Slowly sip by sip, glad
Blindness filled our eyes.

When police dressed in shrouds,
Denying other’s truth,
Armed repressions stole freedom.

When children looked for justice,
Winter came early,
Paris was set aflame.


			
		

	
	



			
				



	
	

		
		
Now for Baseball

				

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We spent over 5 hours and 56 minutes watching the Minnesota Twins and the Washington Nationals spare on Sunday. In what Dusty Baker called the absolute weirdest game ever he ever managed, the Nationals managed to come out on top. Both teams were running low on players. The ninth inning save goes to Bryce Harper who said he’d hit a homer and tie the game, which he did. The first seven innings go to Steven Strasberg, for incredible pitching. Then Petit came into the game and held on for more pitches than he had pitched for many years. The out fielding was outstanding. Werth, denDecker, Heisey, Taylor all made significant catches. Add a glorious actor named Perez and and his acting and dancing ability, two catchers named Ramos and Lobaton, speed demon and shortstop Espinosa, Murphy, Drew, Papalbon, Rendon, Zimmerman, and a partridge in a pear tree and you have us sitting on the sofa. Yup, me the eternal optimist and my husband, king of gloom and doom. It’s good to believe in a team when they win. It’s good to believe in a team even if they lose. But it is priceless to have such a good competition between two tough teams and yours wins by a squeak. I was exhausted at the end.


There was some savvy decision making. I am pretty sure that Dusty didn’t know that Perez hadn’t hit a ball since 2010. I’m pretty sure he was afraid that he would have to use Trienen who had played two days before. He was wise to switch out the catchers. How do those guys keep from having knee cramps all night long after a game? Dusty picked and chose who did what carefully, and having put our all on the table, created a memory that will be on MASN TV all next winter. I won’t forget the game.


May I add that Dusty Baker’s philosophy of life is making baseball “fun again.”  His way of enthusiastically pumping up the players, of believing in them, and of keeping his word are new to Washington. I hope he stays for many years. We need someone like him. Oh, the keeping the word, in case you hadn’t heard, was telling Bryce that he could since hit, but because he had the day off, that was ALL he would be allowed to do. Barry Bond had gone into a game with 16 innings in the ninth, and he played until the win was secured. So much for his day off. Funny he had mentioned that to Bryce. I hope he buys a lottery ticket. His words, “If man can move a mountain, surely man can move a baseball.”


Oh, we saw you Ben Revere and your gnome outfit. You keep coming. You are our lucky gnome of the year. I can hardly wait to see you as a bobble head. The hat, the hoodie, the scarf, the hope that you kept going with your being willing to be silly and support your team even when injured. Nice going. Effort noted and best wishes to getting 100% well.


I was glad the Twins won their game by a squeak in the ninth last night. They deserved a good win too.


Fifty-eight years old, and somehow over the last four years, I changed my spots. I love baseball and I understand why we need it. We need something to believe in. We need the normalcy of a tradition that started somewhere around 1890. As long as we can step away from our problems and be part of a great effort, things have to get better.


Sports reporter, Ann White, heading back into the real world.



		
	

			
		

	
	



			
				



			

			
				
			
		

	
	

		
		
Finding

				

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I found a tree,


which flowered


even though the frost


was barely gone.


I sat, pondering how


I had leafed


When I thought all hope was gone.


I found a flower,


which leaved and


sent blue bells up


Skyward.


I stood,


rake in hand


admiring the traitor


Red bud, Judas tree,


that blooms before Easter.


I hoped,


foolish as I was,


That the day of fools


would enlighten me.


It lightened the burden


But not my weight.


I saw myself


mirrored in the water,


sky, ice, leaves


and was gladly able


to love myself.


			
		

	
	



			
				



	
	

		
		
The Ides of March

				

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The Ides of March are upon us and the fool waits around the corner.

Our bodies fight us, our minds turn and swirl with effort.

We are human, swirls of bright color in the dark of night,

Shadows to rest in where the cool soothes us.

My body betrayed me, my love of what I was lingers.

Hope is not hopeless, dreams reveal this body of compassion,

Shared hopes, shared anxiety, turbulent days, still moments

We are the storms of the lion, the still of the lamb.

All of us are the rays of the sun, even in the dark.


			
		

	
	



			
				



			

			
				
			
		

	
	

		
		
Thinking Green

				

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The world, a single landmine,

found in a solar system of beauty.

Ordered by nature to change,

the leaves fall, sprout, grow and dream

of what life would be like

if we danced with the rules of nature,

If we protected with our careful steps.

I saw a wave, long and sensual,

White caps spilling into sand

Loading lighthouses, lighting them.

If we tread carefully, perhaps,

just perhaps, someone will defuse our danger

and allow skipping to flourish.


			
		

	
	



			
				



	
	

		
		
Angry at the Lies of the Right

				

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Insolvent and angry, you promised.

You lied, and you stole our lives.

Confronting lies isn’t easy

In the face of the opposition,

the political correctness..

But the world froze and turned,

Turning and frozen, it thawed

And the heat blazed freely,

A cancer in the souls

Of the poor, simple, lifelike

Golden people. The masses lead easily.

The cancer, a mass of anger,

For those without medicine,

Without a doctor.

Your lies grew great.


You scoffed at the students.

Who were learning to learn.

Scoffed again at those

Without your reckless faith.

Scoffed at me, the poet,

Who knows you, Lucifer, man.

Not a fallen angel but a construct of

Bullies and armies.

Lucifer, you celebrate my bruises,

while I lick my wounds.

Your dreams are follicles of ignorance.

Come for you?

I shall. Burning the way to your truth,

To your service without serving,

Oh Lucifer, you should have died,

At your own lips posturing

.

I dream truths. Dreamt dreams of truths.

Your violent words are no God’s words.

Your simple outlook, fraud.

A detective would mock you,

Wait for you to try again,

To deceive again.

Then the police shall find your lair,

And if one honest officer

Appears with the truth,

Hold that officer as a hero.

I shall chase your hypocrisy

Around the Circle of Willis

Cleansing as I go.

Your globe a bathtub handle

While my globe holds mystery

and vindication.

Oh, Lucifer of man, your republic of

Small minds will melt from the heat.

Lesser humans will smirk, but the compassionate will

Watch you fill the world with lies.

They will ignore your fallacies, shake their heads and begin

The work of cleaning vegetables

for the poor who hunger.


			
		

	
	



			
				



	
	

		
		
Winter Warmth, Warm Dogs, Warm Hearts

				

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Blog #3 Learning to be Warm


This time of the year is hard on me. There are the usual reasons; family missed, short days, money, and Multiple Sclerosis. That’s my secret. I’m not alone either.  Yes, 400,000 of us try to adapt our schedules so that we can be with family, avoid viruses, and hide our secret thoughts. MS is that which causes me to write, to photograph the world, to try to remain as human and hopeful as I can and which causes me to fall off the precipice of who I was. MS is the lassitude which prohibits me in strange ways. It is the challenge I mentioned but did not clarify before. There is company, PatientsLikeMe.com is where I can go to feel normal and pass on what positives I can when others need to hear them. They made me an Ambassador this year, seeing in me something I can’t always find. What I find is that life lurks all around us. Hope is the most important link to being alive.


Hope is an astounding emotion. The wings it gives to you so that you can fly somewhere you had lost are astounding. It can lift you from the depths of despair and let you soar among the stars. I need that hope. I can find the dark moments with no trouble, but the light, that is what I find lifts me out of the house and into society again. Clouds are places to rest, marvelous palaces of cool vapor waiting for angels to sing their choruses and composers to write them down.


My dogs and silly cat keep me warm in the evenings when the alone monster comes to call. Foxy will “Yarf” at me; waiting attention, to play chase, to go outside, and to have dinner. We eat together. Tigerlily, the oldest pup at 14 1/2 carries my heart in her dancing. She doesn’t like to eat much anymore so I spoon feed her. She is so happy just to be with me, to sit on a sofa and nap. Frankenstein is a long haired tortoise shell cat who at ten pounds thinks she is the Queen of Quite A Lot . She bosses the dogs around, moving them out of their food bowls to check and see if they have something tastier than the fish in her bowl. She tells us to go out and in. The door needs no bell, it has a cat waiting. Leave your name and she will pass your message on. I can’t forget the dogs outside, because she waits at the window for them. She commands with a low growly voice and I obey. Eat, go to the bed, behave, she tells me all of these things and then drifts off into thoughts which only a cat can know. T.S.Eliot understood cats well.


I drift into my music: Barber’s Adagio, Fanfare for the Common Man, Stravinsky, Hindemith, Thomas, Bach. I find the tears on my face, the glow of harmonies, the waves of humanity and heaven filling me full. This is one of the secrets I have. My music, which should have been my life, has returned to greet me at the moment when I most wish to give up. When walking is stumbling, treasures dropped, and the company of man is gone, music fills that hollow space in my chest with memories and love. I remember my childhood, my father, uncles, grandfather, aunts. I remember my friends, mentors, and teachers. It’s okay to miss them, and even to talk to them still, as long as I have something worth saying. “A Place for Us” has begun to play. West Side Story balanced what I knew of the world and racial prejudice as a teen and resounds still in my mind. The stories of today are seen in vivid noise on the news, but I can still believe that somewhere and sometime society will fix its ills.


Now you know two of my secrets, the MS and my fear of not having done what I was born to do. Every one has regrets somewhere. Mine are no more special than anyone else’s. I have tidied my corner of the world as best I could. I have pride in having done at least that much.


The lights on the house and the Christmas tree are a gift from my children. They want me to remember when I gave them the miracle of the dark giving birth to the light. They have given the light to me this year. I want to embrace the shine, the purity of color, the smell of pine and cinnamon, and the feel of a family come together to laugh. It gathers around me, holds me, pokes me in silly places and it gives me shelter from being lonely. I am a lucky woman, many don’t have that support. The pillars are there so that I will never have to be totally alone. The lights on the tree will last me until April when growth becomes obvious.


Go and hug those who are dear to you. I can wait a bit for you to return.


Ann WJ White


			
		

	
	



			
				



			

			
				
			
		

	
	

		
		
Sister Nine Days

				

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Nine days ago, I met the sister of my heart.

Nine days ago the sun shone upon my hair

Warming me, protecting me,

Nine days ago, I had a friend

But when the storms began

When insanity ruled, when Judas

Of Florida laughed as he killed.

My heart was emptied of hope

That nine days ago was a beginning.


Sister of my heart, you didn’t leave

although the others rushed to the door

Pushing and shoving with delight

At the demise of the old man.

You didn’t dance on his grave,

You didn’t laugh at the freedom

Of chaos, of hopeless indignation.

You raged against the hopelessness.


Nine days ago, I believed in sanity.

Nine days ago warmed by the defense

I mounted against hypocrisy,

Thinking that I understood the writers

Thinking that peace should be upheld

Wanting to restore a dream, a wish,

Finding instead a man under the Judas tree,

Destroying by silvery lies, complicity with

Ignorance. I thought you gone, sister.


Somewhere in the woods, you saw me,

Tears in my eyes as I thought

That our sisterhood lay unbound

Beneath the hoof prints of Percheron.

I heard your voice call me back from

The enveloping darkness,

Calling me back from the fragile line

Between creativity and madness.

I will tread softly praying, to no God but hope,

That you will stay within the orbit of our meeting.


(for Carrie)