Prayers and Borders

Prayers and Borders

Borders and prayers we can do without.

Pray? To whom? For what?

A hurricane hit the coast of Mexico and spared Puerto Vallarta because people prayed? Methinks the people in the mountains, the small villages who were entirely wiped out or severely damaged, prayed fervently and feverishly. I suspect their knees were more solidly affixed in front of altars than those of the tourist town, busily boarding up windows and gathering sandbags, where the storm passed over the target.

How many prayers have been said to bring back the 43? How many parents, grandparents, sisters and brothers, in Iguala and all around the world, have prayed for a return… or even an answer?

You think there haven’t been prayers to bring the boats ashore from Syria where dead babies wash up on beaches? Prayers for buried miners, lost hikers, boats vanished at sea, newborns in NICU bassinets, Beirut, Israel, Russia, Mumbai, the US, polar bears, orangutans, baby seals, confined whales? Make your own list.

In Paris, bullets killed dozens while prayers of all kinds were cried out. All kinds of prayers. Loud prayers. Silent prayers. Many, many prayers. Prayers for God; prayers for Allah.

François Hollande ordered borders closed.

Isn’t it a little late for that?

What we need to do is abolish borders. All borders. All kinds of borders.

Fences maybe, because fences make good neighbors, but fences with gates, fences one can leap over with heart in hand. Welcome mats. Bells at the door and flowers on the table. Fences to keep rabbits out, saving carrots and young spring lettuce.

But no…

No Borders.

We can do without prayers and borders.

These are only words (as are prayers) and will be read by few, but spread the feeling of no borders, if you will, of hearts in hands, without prayers.

Thank you for reading.

.

I know how the flowers felt

“The rain to the wind said,
You push and I'll pelt.'
They so smote the garden bed
That the flowers actually knelt,
And lay lodged--though not dead.
I know how the flowers felt.”
― Robert Frost

I've had times in my life that this poem suited me so well that the words would ring in my head, day after day.
Towards the end of this day, as I picked my grandson up at preschool and we raced through the garden to the parking lot above, I stopped to look at these daffodils and take a photo. We've always joked, they are the family flower...the Daffy-Dills. What I have learned to realize is the flowers are not dead. They manage to rise again to another day and recognize that this too shall pass.

APRIL 15, 2010 Winter’s Appearance Failed This Year

In honor of tax day, Robert has given the prompt to write a poem about a deadline. Somewhat inspired by the mild NW winter and early spring, I leave the interpretation up to the reader. “Winter’s Appearance Failed This Year” is written in iambic tetrameter in homage to Frost.






Winter’s Appearance Failed This Year

Winter’s appearance failed this year.
Before we knew it, spring was here.
Most of us were caught by surprise,
Deadlines for planting weren’t clear.

We’ll be plagued this summer by flies
Whose larvae we can theorize
Survive as malevolence can
When wearing seasonal disguise.

I think of a child lost to man,
Believes he’s done all that he can,
But loses what he holds most dear,
Circles back to where he began.

He puts the seed, he sheds a tear,
Will not give in, will feign good cheer,
And resurrect his hope sincere,
And resurrect his hope sincere.