#blueplanet
The scattered words disturb the silence.
I prefer written pages with my left hand,
But it is trembling too much to write slowly
I miss him, his calm hands giving juicy oranges.
Shattered glass falls in slow motion,
Screams in the apartment,
Just the neighbor next door.
Another struggle,
Another soundless fracture
From the outside,
It’s not visible
What really hurts.
I have my refuge.
My piano and fingertips
Strike the rhythm,
Racing to speak in time.
What I want to repeat to myself
It isn’t lush or gentle,
Only barren,
like thoughts hung on a dry twig.
I trace figure eights,
Locked in a simple shape.
I stare and cannot fathom
The logic of a cold two plus two.
A thought-form circles
Around the blue planet.
Something pointing,
With its mercury finger.
It speaks in an unknown dialect
It shows the place to live
And huge fluorescent deserts.
The clouds’ minds —
A piece of earth
Soaked in different
Kinds of screams.
This is my blind chance.
I was born here.
In my mother’s paradise garden
Spinning in dawn’s glow.
Sometimes I just write
To ease personal and common guilt.
I hear tattooed numbers,
Granting citizenship of the lower caste.
And here,
The fresh scent of good life in the morning.
Blackbirds and thrushes fell silent.
My mother knows how to speak to them,
I know how to speak with trees.
Everything pulses,
On this small piece of earth,
Giving shelter to creatures
And stones no one throws.
I am here in a place I can happily bear,
Without cold speculation.
I can still dive into metaphors,
This is my greatest luxury,
The gift after so many disturbing lives.
It would be better to create a world
With only diverse breathing gardens.
I don’t need too much for living,
A naked soul is enough for me.
So, I am sitting in this landscape
And I peacefully hope
That my daughter will remember me tenderly
As I remember him, my father
And all who passed away.
The simplest thing is
The presence of every human being
It's like a celluloid film strip
Left behind the broken ribs
In the left ventricle of the heart
That never lies, never cheats me.
Sep 3, 2025
Sep 3, 2025 at 3:13 PM UTC
The giver of life
Most exceptional planet
Mother to us all
Apr 8, 2021
Apr 8, 2021 at 1:35 PM UTC
*First light in the Hudson Valley
Arbor Day of April, 1970.*
Adrenaline coursed through our young
bodies, our hearts on fire with purpose.
As we rode our bikes, walked, or jogged miles
to our rural high school, red-winged blackbirds
called out from the misty swamps.
Beautiful but invading, acres of purple loosestrife
were rapidly taking over their wetland habitats.
Harbingers of the forests, blue jays issued
warning cries from deep in the woods,
where blights were killing our trees
with increasing frequency.
Three of us rode together, cycling in relative
silence, until we came to a meadow
selected for our early breakfast picnic.
We feasted on special fruits and cheeses,
hungrily stuffing in rare treats.
One friend began to send iridescent
soap bubbles into the chilly air.
Up they rose, up over the soft, puffy cloud
of her reddish curls, and into the dawning sun.
One bubble landed, unbroken, in the cold, dewy grass.
We stared at it, somehow understanding that here
was a delicate metaphor for our own fragile planet.
Approaching our school now, we breathed deeply the fragrance
of apple blossoms from commercial orchards all around us.
The spraying of pesticides had yet to be banned.
We were sleepy in our classes that morning;
most of our teachers understanding that we stood
now for something worthwhile, that we believed in,
and they smiled with kindness, some even with approval.
Our principal agreed to an awareness-raising slide show
designed for our fellow students, teachers and parents.
An intelligent man, he was admirably tolerant of the wave
of changes that our generation brought with us.
Smoke stacks, polluted water, and dying wildlife
flashed onto a screen in the darkened auditorium,
accompanied by the vivid symphonic power of
Stravinsky's 'Rite of Spring'- a score so revolutionary
that a riot broke out at its premier, in May of 1913.
We had no idea then how much worse things would become.
All these years later, we each do our part, blessing
the efforts of our children and their children,
hoping fervently that we are not too late.
Apr 22, 2016
Apr 22, 2016 at 2:37 PM UTC