THE PRESENCE OF LIGHT

"We are not saints; we are not heroes.
Our lives are lived in the quiet corners of the ordinary.
We build tiny hearth fires,
sometimes barely strong enough to give off warmth.

But to the person lost in the darkness,
our tiny flame may be the road to safety,
the path to salvation.

It is not given to us to know
who is lost in the darkness that surrounds us
or even if our light is seen.
We can only know that
against even the smallest of lights,
darkness cannot stand.

A sailor lost at sea
can be guided home by a single candle.
A person lost in a wood
can be led to safety by a flickering flame.
It is not an issue of quality or intensity or purity.
It is simply an issue of the presence of light."

~Kent Nerburn

Source: "Make Me an Instrument of Your Peace."

I AM FILIPINO

By Caloy Bueno

I am Filipino:

Descended from the noble and fiercely freedom-loving Maharlika race ~

From the forgotten ancient lands lost to the mists of time ~

Migrated to the place that formed a jade archipelago, the “Pearl of the Orient Seas”...


I am Filipino:

Molded independently through the crucible of past events down the ages ~

Becoming disparate tribes, according to where we settled in these islands ~

Our brown ancestry the only common bond across the inter-island seas...


I am Filipino:

Our common ancestry scattered over this archipelago runs through my blood ~

My brown skin the only living proof of our ancestral line, and our heritage ~

But intermingled now with the histories of other peoples that came to our jade isles...


I am Filipino:

A complex modern inhabitant of this our beloved Philippine Republic ~

While conflicted internally by many historical influences and debacles ~

We stand outwardly proud of our ancestral heritage, the Filipino identity of our brown unity…


I am Filipino:

Our quarrelsome character with each other grew from our separate development ~

But when we stand as one, we can dream as one, none can stand against us ~

We win as one, standing for one another as much as we rise together…


I am Filipino:

We are all related through our citizenry, our nationality joined in sovereignty ~

To forge our own destiny by the power that we wield with responsibility ~

Redefining ourselves constantly, by refining our aspirations ever closer to each other’s…


I am Filipino:

Realizing that we can only be as strong as we are able to mask our weakest point ~

We recognize that at long last, we now have real leadership strengthening our greatest weakness ~

Our incapacity to cooperate fully, by making the majesty of law finally work in our favor…


I am Filipino:

Each of us are born not with nobility of purpose but the ability to pursue a noble vision ~

Our keenest struggles as men are fought with our minds, hearts and souls ~

Because we believe fate isn’t decreed by predestination, but mainly determined by our character…


I am Filipino:

The hardest virtue we struggle to learn is earning the tranquility of patience ~

The serenity of calm acceptance and tolerance, and the dignity of quiet surrender ~

The surrender to life’s inscrutable wisdom and natural justice, measuring our individual worth and merit…


I am Filipino:

To the mute but clear challenge of our tomorrows, in the house of the future we cannot go ~

Only our children and their children, as the world constantly spins throughout time ~

Our future is our whole country, our individual destinies intertwined, reinforced by our still being…


FILIPINO!


~ 'pag may time 👊🇵🇭
May 27, 2020

WHERE DO YOU GO?

By Shadowlands

Where do you go?

When you lay down your head,

The eyes have drawn their curtains,

And your lights have been turned off.

You're all cocooned in linen 

And silence reigns supreme.

When the ghosts of memories past

Play hopscotch with your senses?

"Where do you go?

When reality has gone on vacation 

And your visions are a collection of moments,

Lost through time and space.
When fatigue is like a lead blanket,

The body attempts to heal it's wounds

And the mind tries to tranquilize

The events of the day?"

Where do you go?

When the lights shine on faint recollections

And private thoughts gently cascade

From an overflowing fountain

Of a vivid imagination.

Do you know the path you take.

Or is the destination just as whimsical

As the journey you create

Through your mind's deepest catacombs?

Where do you go indeed?

Source: FB, May 24 2016

GRIEF AND SORROW

"If you're ever going to love me, love me now while I can know.
All the sweet and tender feelings which from real affection flow.
Love me now, while I'm living; do not wait 'til I am gone.
And then chisel it on marble - words on ice, cold stone.
If you have dear sweet thoughts about me.
Why not whisper them to me?
Don't you know it would make me happy and as glad as glad could be?
If you wait until I'm sleeping, never to awaken here again,
there will be walls of earth between us and couldn't hear you then.
I won't need your kind caresses when the grass grows over my face.
I won't crave your love or kisses in my last low resting place.
So then, if you love me any, if it's but a little bit.
Let me know while I am living, so I can own it treasure it."

~Anon

DELIGHTING POETRY

How much I find delight in poetry
With verses not long; one liners are best.
Stanzas are trimmed and cut to simpleness
Devoid of pageantry and pompous words.

I love the ones with landscape thoughts;
A portrait only minds can draw or paint.
Instead of pictures, words are inscribed
Designed to amaze, awe and inspire.

I walk along the trail that poets leave
Their stories, like my own, are found on the road of life.
Some are epics of better and mis-spent days
They give lessons to ponder under this covid mess.

Somewhere in between the lines I'm caught
In a trance lost to a forest of all that I believe
Forgetting the time that passes by
I'm soaked, immersed in words of the poets' fare.

Leah C. Dancel
Copyright@2020
All rights reserved
May 10, 2020
Australia

MOTHER

In dedication to my Late Mother and AUNTIE MARY, who recently passed away and by coincidence was buried on my mother's 39th Death Anniversary. May 16th 2020. Auntie is the wife of Uncle Alex who went ahead of time, but years later after my mother was gone. She's 91 years old when she was called to the Eternal Home. My mother died too young just as she had crossed over the bridge of her critical years.

~•✿•~ ~•✿•~

For those lucky to still be blessed with your Mom, this is beautiful.
For those of us who aren't, this is even more beautiful.
For those who are moms, you'll love this:

♥*✿*•♥

"The young mother set her foot on the path of life.
'Is this the long way?' she asked.

And the guide said:

'Yes, and the way is hard
And you will be old before you reach the end of it..
But the end will be better than the beginning.'

But the young mother was happy,
And she would not believe
That anything could be better than these years.

So she played with her children,
And gathered flowers for them along the way,
And bathed them in the clear streams;
And the sun shone on them,

And the young Mother cried,
'Nothing will ever be lovelier than this.'

Then the night came, and the storm, and the path was dark,
And the children shook with fear and cold,
And the mother drew them close and covered them with her mantle,

And the children said,
'Mother, we are not afraid, for you are near, and no harm can come.'

And the morning came, and there was a hill ahead,
And the children climbed and grew weary,
And the mother was weary.

But at all times she said to the children,
'A little patience and we are there.'

So the children climbed,
and when they reached the top they said,
'Mother, we would not have done it without you.'

And the mother, when she lay down at night
Looked up at the stars and said,

'This is a better day than the last,
For my children have learned fortitude
in the face of hardness.

Yesterday I gave them courage.
Today, I've given them strength.'

And the next day came strange clouds which darkened the earth,
Clouds of war and hate and evil,
And the children groped and stumbled,

And the mother said:
'Look up.
Lift your eyes to the light.'

And it guided them beyond the darkness.
And the days went on, and the weeks and the months and the years,
And the mother grew old and she was little and bent.

But her children were tall and strong, and walked with courage.
And when the way was rough, they lifted her,
For she was as light as a feather;
And at last they came to a hill,

And mother said,
'I have reached the end of my journey.
And now I know the end is better than the beginning,
For my children can walk alone, and their children after them.'

And the children said,
'You will always walk with us,

She went on alone,
and the gates closed after her.

And they said:
'We cannot see her but she is with us still. '

Author Anon

FRIENDSHIP WITHOUT ENVY

Where in this wide world can man
find nobility without pride,

Friendship without envy,
Or beauty without vanity?

Here, where grace is served
with muscle..
And strength by gentleness
confined …

By Ronald Duncan

THE LAST TWIST OF KNIFE

‪The memory throws up high and dry‬
‪A crowd of twisted things;‬
‪A twisted branch upon the beach‬
‪Eaten smooth, and polished‬
‪As if the world gave up‬
‪The secret of its skeleton,‬
‪Stiff and white.‬
‪A broken spring in a factory yard,‬
‪Rust that clings to the form that the strength has left‬
‪Hard and curled and ready to snap.‬

‪Be ready for life‬
‪the last twist of the knife‬


By YESU BEN

A MEDITATION OF A TRAVELER (Part II)

by Rado Gatchalian

With all the searching and looking —
What shall I find?
Everything and nothing.
Alone in the dark yet accompanied by the light.
Of all the luminous things:
How shall I measure wisdom?

As I move from low to high
And from known to unknown —

Shall I remain like an empty cup?
Will I endure this test of life

And become a child forever?
Shall I embrace silence like a brother to me?
How shall I step toward that peaceful beauty

If what is spoken cannot be heard?

Like a star in a quiet night:

Soon, we shall all shine so bright.

Source: Poem and Photography

SHE WHO LOVES THE BEACH

By Suzy Toronto

No words can express,
The depth of her contentment,
As she walks along the beach.

As the waves lap against the shores,
They create the rhythm of her life,
Balmy breezes kiss,

Her sun-bronzed skin,
And she wonders …
Could there ever be a greater destiny,

Than to be born with a love,
For the treasures of the sea?
Here, she is home.

Source: Journey to Peace

A PSALM OF LIFE

By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
(1807-1882)

What the Heart of the Young Man Said to the Psalmist

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
   "Life is but an empty dream!"
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
   And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!
   And the grave is not its goal;
"Dust thou art, to dust returnest,"
   Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
   Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
   Finds us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
   And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
   Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world's broad field of battle,
   In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
   Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!
   Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act,--act in the living Present!
   Heart within, and God o'erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us
   We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
   Footprints on the sands of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another,
   Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
   Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,
   With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing
   Learn to labor and to wait.

Source: Poets dot org

TO FEEL ALIVE

From the Lessons Learned In Life

I want to go on a road trip someday.
Alone or with someone I love.
I want to get away.
Explore places.
Stop a lot just to admire the view.
Visit museums and try out coffee shops.
Listen to my favourite music while driving.
Have a camera.
Take pretty pictures of the sunrise.
Take pictures of myself.
Run through a forest.
Chase fog.
Chase the sun.
Spend hours on a field making flower crowns.
Feel the wind in my hair.
Buy souvenirs.
Meet people.
Take time to observe.
I want to make memories.
I want to feel alive.

I SEE YOU

"I see your strength and courage,
Your hesitations and fears.
I see the way you love others, and
Your struggle to love yourself.
I see how hard you work to grow,
And your dedication to heal.
I see your vulnerable humanity,
And your transcendent divinity.

I see you, and
I love what I see!"

~Anon

THE KOALA

Poem by Francis Duggan

He's not been known to expend energy
Spends most of his life on high branch of gum tree
Scratching his ears and sitting on his bum
And feasting on the leaves of manna gum.

Whilst other creatures run and sport all day
He eat and sleep and doze his life away.

Small eyes, big ears and button type dark nose
All night and day he sleep and eat and doze.

By white man hunted to extinction brink
The Koala, Aboriginal for 'no drink'
The creeks all dry and no water about
But Koala not been known to die in drought.

And I've been told that their numbers on increase
That conservationist gave to them a new life lease
And it's thanks to those, to those who genuinely care
That Australian wood still has it's 'native bear'.

A cuddly looking creature like big cuddly toy
And i have always felt a sense of joy
The few times I've been lucky enough to see
A koala up on high branch of gum tree.