Do not be afraid

As you are an ocean of tears, so are you a world of forgiveness. A haven of justice filtered through human imperfections that allows opportunity for love with each challenge to your comfort.

You possess free will enough to elect whether you embrace change or if you allow fear to petrify your heart into jaded segments. How can you gaze upon a child’s pain with no desire to make the world innocent for them; for yourself?

It is inevitable that your faithful trust in your brethren will be accosted with confusion or anger towards your generosity. But, the price you pay now, will be small compared to the cost of refusal should you deny your righteous compass.

Turn to your true north, even being different than your friends, to find what makes your spirit, your very essence scream with the ecstasy of rapturous delight. Give permission to yourself to be extraordinarily outstanding in a world that only allows what is nurtured to bloom and grow.

If you find yourself in the forest of darkness with bruised, bloodied, or damaged limbs falling from your own family tree, notice where they’re planted. See how shallow or how deeply those roots linger in the earth by releasing your primal self to its care.

Drink from the knowledge of the river bend that granted your ancestors life to flood your own flesh. Sing in the voice of your grandmother, your grandfather, and those back to the beginning of time’s pacing.

Decree your path without word because what you say can be erased, what you do is how you progress through your life unhindered; calling like-minded to your shores. The shores of the ocean of tears that surrounds your world of forgiveness are yours for the sake of personal redemption.

These Are My People: Ray and Coral Juras

I was scrolling my Facebook feed and I found a picture of Coral and Ray looking into each others eyes while they danced together. When I first met them, it was in the social hall at the old church building. They didn’t attend the service but had scooted in to “hang out.” They were so warm and kind that I instantly realized they were kindred spirits with one another. They were just content as clams to be nearby. I loved them warmly then as I do now. This is a poem inspired by that picture I found but can’t yet retrieve.

I barely knew the sea, ne’er touched the heated sands beneath my feet

I didn’t know the lighthouse song or the foggy waves clashing the beach

I didn’t taste the salty air or dream of it cleansing cool against my skin

I never watched the tides roll the beach, tossing shells as the waves washed in

But then I looked into your eyes with the warm smile of the sun a beacon…

I am intimately aware of the soul of the sea with the heated sands beneath my skin

I heed the beckoning of your loving heart and with the lighthouse of your love sing along

The fogs have lifted where once it was shady, but you and your love light my way again

I embrace the kiss of the salty air in the dream where I get to be your spousal song

We’ll dance like the tides ebbing and flowing, splashing playful at the shore,

As I return again and again to you, my beautiful, the one the ocean dictates I adore

Ms. Marble

Marbles

Marbles

If I could be a marble in a bag around a child’s waist

propounding challenge to my peers like an alchemist

whose recipe for destruction lay in my bulging satchel

filled with conquests found in the sandpit battlefield

of my childhood playground, dominated by concentrated

versions of precisely aimed shots using one inch of glass

and stick drawn circles of boundaries no other should cross.

If I were a marble in a sack around my childhood waist

I would be a peerie of blue green that made them lose

as they wondered at my ocean colors splashing their spirits free

through the distractions of the wildly colored cat’s eyes

that stared back at them with deadened stares emptied

of life, unlike me, who shined and waved like the open sea

And they would avoid hitting me with their knocker’s sin

because who doesn’t want Mother Ocean to win?