Thirteen Reasons Why Not

We are not permitted to choose the frame of our destiny.
But what we put into it is ours.
-Dag Hammarskjold

1. God made you; you can never be replaced
2. God made you for some purpose – live to find it
3. Someone is blessed in knowing you each day
4. You must live so that others may live
5. Someone desperately needs your kindness right now
6. You haven’t yet written your book, your story, your song
7. When you offer up your suffering, you help others
8. Children running barefoot through the flowers of spring
9. Children running barefoot through the leaves of autumn
10. Dachshund puppies. And leaves. And flowers. And children
11. Coffee and a talk with a good friend
12. Breakfast and the Sunday morning funnies
13. That empty pew God has saved just for you

Pick up your Markings
discover that reading you
is meeting me

A heart cleaved open
by thoughts never spoken yet
I know them as mine

How can this be when
penned and inked long before I
was even an I

Here they are, speaking
words never written yet known
as carved on my heart

These words resonate
pulsing out, low and long as
water on the shore

Washing over Time
one voice drawn from two strings
as Rilke had said

As is you and I
with one voice burning with words
that transcend all time

Thanks for the giving
back of my words which I spoke
long before I was

And for your markings
guiding me along the path
to the Meeting Place

Where you and I are
one voice drawn from two strings
in Eternal Hands

We are not permitted to choose the frame of our destiny.
But what we put into it is ours.
-Dag Hammarskjold

1. God made you; you can never be replaced
2. God made you for some purpose – live to find it
3. Someone is blessed each day in knowing you
4. You must live so that others may live
5. Someone desperately needs your kindness right now
6. You haven’t yet written your book, your story, your song
7. When you offer up your suffering, you help others
8. Children running barefoot through the flowers of spring
9. Children running barefoot through the leaves of autumn
10. Dachshund puppies. And leaves. And flowers. And children
11. Coffee and a talk with a good friend
12. Breakfast and the Sunday morning funnies
13. That empty pew God has saved just for you

Thirteen Reasons...


        We are not permitted to choose the frame of our destiny.
                           But what we put into it is ours.

                                  -Dag Hammarskjold

1. God made you; you can never be replaced
2. God made you for some purpose – live to find it
3. Someone is blessed each day in knowing you
4. You must live so that others may live
5. Someone desperately needs your kindness right now
6. You haven’t yet written your book, your story, your
song
7. When you offer up your suffering, you help others
8. Children running barefoot through the flowers of
spring
9. Children running barefoot through the leaves of
autumn
10. Dachshund puppies. And children. And flowers. And leaves
11. Coffee and a talk with a good friend
12. Breakfast and the Sunday morning funnies
13. That space in the pew God has saved for you


-from Coffee and a Dead Alligator to Go

Possibly a re-post

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim’s Journal of Life, Literature and Love
Fellowship & Fairydust (fellowshipandfairydust.com)
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                                     ­             Trial by Twitter

                     “…why torture ourselves in order to hurt others?”

                                    -Dag Hammarskjold, Markings

We have made ourselves a surveillance state
Eager to be approved
Fearful of being judged
We the accused must not presume to think

We impeach ourselves daily on their screens
(The screens are hardly ours)
Accusing ourselves of sin
Against the loving terror of the Now

But as for a torch and a Phrygian hat –
Is there an app for any of that?

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                  He was Hollerin’ Jesus on Nowhere Street

               The madman shouted in the market place. No one
               stopped to answer him. Thus it was confirmed that his
                thesis was incontrovertible.

                  -Dag Hammarskjold, Markings, 12.22.57

He was hollerin’ Jesus on Nowhere Street
At the Corner of Life and Death, ‘way gone
Where there was a grocery store when we was kids
Next to a soda fountain with pinball machines

He was hollerin’ – sinners can’t hear, I guess
And beatin’ on his Bible and dancin’ about
Like a man with a devil in his soul
And that ol’ devil was wearin’ him down

He was hollerin’ among the ruins, a shame
When he looked at me
                    and hollered my name

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                 Sailing a Couch into History

         We are not permitted to choose the frame of our destiny,
                           but what we put into it is ours.

                         -Dag Hammarskjold, Markings, p. 51

Through eating, fatting, sleeping, video games
En couchant in a stasis ossified
By the low expectations of the zeitgeist
(“What’s a zeitgeist?”) some flail into history

The ironic echoes of Call of Duty
Flatten against an empty ‘tater-chip bag        
Yesterday flung into the baby’s crib
(“Ain’t no one seen little Shawnee today?”)

His MePhone case is manly hunter green
He's checkin’ out the fantasies on a glowing screen