Living in a rapidly transforming society with daunting technological and structural changes has created a whole new array of emotional stresses for millions of people. Overlaying this with the reality of the passage of our few short years on earth can produce a major challenge for us. Acknowledgement of this changing reality can help take the edgeness off our discomfort.
Many of us come to the mid point of our earthly journey and find ourselves lamenting the passage of time. In "Mid-life" I wonder about the idealism of youth that gave way to the cynicism of middle age and the regrets for things left undone; mountains unclimbed. Yet, there is the miraculous possibility of reclamation of loss opportunity, if we are open to them. "Temporal Reality" was my response to my own personal realization that I have already passed the point of no-return on my earthly travels. I don't have all the answers yet for this.
A major life change experienced by more and more of us is unemployment as a result of down-sizing, out-sourcing, merger mania, corporate reengineering. Whatever we call it, the result is often quite traumatic and frightening. Job security is no more. "Freefall" describes the experience of a friend recently fired from her job without cause. I have passed through unemployment several times and there is a weightless feeling, for certain. But, a cobalt sky overhead.
Several million Americans have been placed in nursing homes, often against their will. A professor friend of mine faced the reality of closing his parent's home and placing them in a facility because of rapidly declining health. In "Nursing Home" there can be hopeful possibilities beyond barren tile floors and semi-private rooms.
While driving from South Carolina to Alabama for Susie's funeral I passed through two severe weather fronts. I had been told just before leaving that there were some uncertainties about my employment. While driving from the funeral home to the home of Susie's parents, it occurred to me that all the beautiful flowers would in three days be wilted and in a landfill. About the same time I encountered a massive multi-car accident with fatalities at rush hour. In "Changes" it occurred to me that Easter was only two weeks away.
Mid-Life
Solar fusion wilting morning dreams,
past memories of future fantasy fade.
Far back in yellowed archives of remembrance,
a wide-eyed champion battled for a better world.
Yet unburdened by the sands of time,
strength of youth carried me upward.
Morning mist watering seeds of knowledge,
I set forth to educate an unknowing world.
Idealism of youth transmuted to adult cynicism,
I struggle to pay the mortgage, alimony, taxes.
Wondering what went wrong where,
heaviness of decades lost presses down.
He will restore the years the locusts have eaten.
Free Fall
Flinging the sterling portal open,
a vast yawning chasm opens before my feet.
Buffeted by stratospheric currents,
my serenity is blasted beyond towers of cumulus.
Memories of terra firma's safety forgotten,
doubt's dagger digs deep into my soul.
Hesitation haunting my hold on sanity,
I step from security into vast vulnerability.
Painful panic powering me earthward,
I place my trust in Another's Work.
Rejuvenating shadow opens above me,
my terminal terror yanked beyond.
Surreal stellar silence enfolds me,
proclaiming myriad possibilities.
An astral pendant I am,
hung from an empyrean diamond.
Weightless, sands of time stand still,
all of life's dreams yet before me.
Be sure to look Up.
Nursing Home
The shadows dance on the walk,
a silent requiem for what once was.
Shuffling forward, to the aseptic unknown,
you leave behind myriad memories.
Four decades of joys, tears, laughs;
sold to the highest bidder.
Supper arrives in a plastic tray,
erasing remembrance of Wedgewood with family.
Leaves falls, exposing the leaden sky,
Autumn has turned to winter.
Is it true, autumn colors really end?
Mercifully, you never did know.
The bitterness of winter has come to you,
wind, uncertainty, the unknown howling.
Christmas comes in winter
Temporal Reality
Wondering what the world was like on VE day,
a long half century in the distant past,
my brother was already making his mark.
While discarding a scientific report, once cutting edge,
the copyright date tells me it is ancient,
being printed seven years after my graduation.
Remembering the shootings at Kent State;
how intense and real that turbulent era seemed,
I realize a quarter century of life has quietly slipped by.
Nearly a third of a century ago,
while I was discovering girls in junior high school,
John Kennedy was blasted beyond to the unknown.
Today satellites travel beyond the planets,
four decades into the space age;
Sputnik wouldn't happen until third grade.
My office has four high speed computers,
I wonder how I ever worked without them.
In college I used a slide rule and pencil.
In the year of my college graduation,
3.5 billion people crowded the earth.
5.3 billion did so several years ago.
When I went to college I was debt free,
the Federal government was debt free.
Today I and it owe nearly five trillion.
I went to the most expensive university in America,
Two thousand a year; tuition, room, food, and a maid.
This year I spent two thousand for a four-day seminar.
A crooning mother brings a daughter to church,
her grandmother born long ago;
more than a decade after I first breathed.
Is this what they call middle age?
Changes
Change, the inevitable seasoning of life,
Today I learn my job may be eliminated.
The cerulean benevolence above
gives way to a leaden tempest.
The state names, the city names;
they are becoming foreign.
My young flower wilts in the torrid heat
of neoplastic frenzy.
There is no one to water her garden.
The botanical delights will in days be
but as solid waste for compost.
The polished mahogany shrine will tomorrow
be consigned to the subterranean darkness.
Another is to join my flower at sunset,
catapulted beyond, leaving the concrete ribbon,
commemorated by the flashing of red, white, and blue,
A procession of thousands passes by,
hurrying to their suburban fortresses,
I join the procession with them.
The fortress is secure,
those within have clung to their frantic living,
someone is calling on the second line of the other phone.
There are thirty-one messages on the machine.
A young man slips through the cracks,
no one is with him in a dark place,
as he wonders where my flower went.
There is a sterling moon,
pendant above the leaden tempest.
The dogwoods are in bloom,
tomorrow a solar celebration will greet them.
Easter is near.
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