It’s in the smallest sounds
The briefest touches
The shortest glimpse
The most fleeting feeling
The faintest scent

It’s in the loudest symphonies
The longest entanglement
The seemingly endless moment shared between wandering gazes stopped
The lasting, lingering instinct
The strongest, most pungent aroma

It’s in an informal talk with a friend
A polite minute long conversation with a stranger
A speech given
A comment overheard
A phrase dropped
A joke made
A remark pointed

It’s in the violent torrents of stinging drops
The gentlest whispers of snowflakes dancing
The beacons of golden hope shining down undefeatable
The spiraling wisps twirling to the ground from their noble perch up above
The tiny fragments of faraway life sailing on the invisible breeze from one life to another

It’s the renewal every human needs,
That once in a while of going on
That inescapable truth: we’re only human
That once every so often we accept
That everyone can only take so much

We all need something to hold
We all need something to hope
We all need something to roam
We all need something to go
We all need something to have

It’s the renewal
And it’s everywhere
It’s in our waters
And in our fires
It’s in our air
And in our earth

Everywhere someone can find it
Everywhere someone will need it
It’s everywhere you look
It’s everywhere you need
That’s what renewal happens to give.

Dreams of a happier time
Hopes of a sweeter life
Live no more
Gone they go

Symbol of a beautiful horizon
Evidence of a gentle trying
Wasted and thrown
Never to be known

There they lie, still ******* in strings
Still wrapped as delicate pretty things
But no longer meaning what they should
Just a memory of a broken dream, no good

Never forgotten, but not at all good
So cruel and cold like winter wood
Never to become in reality the fantasy
Never to overtake comfort by ecstasy

They don’t mean a thing now
And good riddance to them

Ripping, tearing, clawing, shredding
No impact, everything continues
Melting, fading, vanishing, reducing
Soon nothing will remain; all will end

Streaked with blood, just a bit
Soaked in pain, more than ever
That small blotch insignificant
That horrid agony with a head to sever

Falling, crashing, thrashing, fighting
Dirtied by dust and blood and remains
Crushed, defeated, destroyed, absolved
Wailing among bones of love and life

And why must this be so
What catalyst evil had been committed
Why smash the glass, let the blood river flow
What bones worthy of being crushed and knitted

Dying, perishing, demising, failing
Only one way out and one exit left
Gasping, thrashing, struggling, failing
Striving to breathe and fighting the door

Failure looming still
With his tall cloaked friend
Stand inescapable
The pain is over; here is the end.

Here is the end.

Forward march, my intelligent young friend
Though your fight be neither fair nor just
Know you shall emerge God’s victor
Simply because you suffered
For what you knew to be right
The decks were stacked against your logic
Many upon many centuries ago
But mayhap now stand a possibility,
Just the tiniest portion of a feeble odd,
May be shaking towards favor
That this day may dawn your chance

I know you to be so very, very brave
I’ve seen not a stronger man yet
But not everyone has eyes of clarity
As you have opened my mind
Retain your noble mind
Hold your sweet mentality dear
You’ll not have it too much longer
If you let yourself fall prey to their fear
Keep your head high and be quite sure
To keep it together and collected to one
Let the pieces make a united front
And work like parts of a machine
No other way can allow
You to gain what justice and fairness seek

Remember always as well
That you fight not for yourself
But for me and for us and for your own child
Who you will love with all you have, just as I have you
Who you shall raise the very best you can, just as I have you
You fight for the future, allow for generations on their way
You fight for the past, avenge generations died in injustice
You fight for the present, for girls everywhere struggling with you
You are a united front, my grandmother and your child alike
Though many years and laws so cruel keep you down
You are our past, present, future and you fight as one

They will keep you down
Remove you from their way
Every second they can
They won’t miss a shot
To fire you down to your place
That’s why it’s your job,
Why it’s your fight to make a new one
Carve out your rightful standing
I know you can do it
You must keep that faith
And harbor it always in your soul
You won’t stand a chance if you let it go
And you must win this fight
My time is up, I’m nearly gone
It’s plain to see, you know it
I can fight with you no longer
Each step here on out you take alone
But remember I am with you:
My soul is tied to yours
My memory lives on within you
My cause and yours are one
And this cause, dear, is important
You must fight til the end
You must win at least part of your fight
So now I say to you as your loving mother
And I tell you, my loving daughter:
Win rights for all women,
Here and across the globe,
Dead, living, and unborn
From one soldier to another, I say to you
Keep up the fight
Until freedom rings for all
From sea to shining sea.

Beauty is pain
Beauty in everything
Beauty nowhere
Beauty is love and joy
Beauty is streaming tears
Beauty is smiling and singing and dancing
What is beauty at all?

Sea life and sweetness
Fruit and flowers
People and parties
Pizzas and pajamas
Gold and grass
Love and life
Beauty is boldness and beaches…

What else is beauty?
Sparkly eyes with a glimmer
Bluebirds and ravens gliding on whispering wing
Whistling leaves in clear robins-egg air
Flaming orbs breaking over flawless horizons
Water trickling in magical notes of liberty
Is that beauty in purest form?

Where does it go when the spirit dies?
Fade and wither away into nothing for lack of life
Or become transformed as energy converts in movement
Or dance off into sunlit clouds into heavens above and beyond
Glow itself up to be borne again to some new beauty
Or reset to a new life as memory soft and sweet
Where does it go and where does it stay?
Where does it go?