first things first
When I was a young man, I wanted to change the world.
I found it was difficult to change the world,
so I tried to change my nation.
When I found I couldn’t change the nation,
I began to focus on my town.
I couldn’t change the town and as an older man,
I tried to change my family.
Now, as an old man,
I realize the only thing I can change is myself,
and suddenly I realize that if long ago I had changed myself,
I could have made an impact on my family.
My family and I could have made an impact on our town.
Their impact could have changed the nation
and I could indeed have changed the world.
❤️
Author: Unknown Monk 1100 A.D.
Speaking of marvels, I am alive
together with you, when I might have been
alive with anyone under the sun,
when I might have been Abelard’s woman
or the whore of a Renaissance pope
or a peasant wife with not enough food
and not enough love, with my children
dead of the plague. I might have slept
in an alcove next to the man
with the golden nose, who poked it
into the business of stars,
or sewn a starry flag
for a general with wooden teeth.
I might have been the exemplary Pocahontas
or a woman without a name
weeping in Master’s bed
for my husband, exchanged for a mule,
my daughter, lost in a drunken bet.
I might have been stretched on a totem pole
to appease a vindictive god
or left, a useless girl-child,
to die on a cliff. I like to think
I might have been Mary Shelley
in love with a wrongheaded angel,
or Mary’s friend, I might have been you.
This poem is endless, the odds against us are endless,
our chances of being alive together
statistically nonexistent;
still we have made it, alive in a time
when rationalists in square hats
and hatless Jehovah’s Witnesses
agree it is almost over,
alive with our lively children
who–but for endless ifs–
might have missed out on being alive
together with marvels and follies
and longings and lies and wishes
and error and humor and mercy
and journeys and voices and faces
and colors and summers and mornings
and knowledge and tears and chance.
❤️
Alive Together by Lisel Mueller
The Main Task
There’s always a distraction
among the clover
A fine place to stop and smell the roses
for the discovery of new words
I stand beside the ocean listening to eternity flow
blending with the beauty of those brilliant intelligent arguments inside my own brain
the reasoned scientific analysis of my own practical mind
against the passionate classically romantic poet of some other-mystical dimension
I smile at them both
Intrigued by their genius at their knowledge of how to win me over
How they can become champions of this moment
and defeat me so instantly
How each of them know how to hold the golden title belt aloft
Over my unconscious body
Today I wink at them
praise them for their wisdom
then I tell them the competition is over…
we are now on the same side
working together
as a new elite team of super heroes
Avenger-like, in some respects,
tho all our masks,
and colorful costumes, are gone
and we stand here in the sand
barefoot and nearly naked
soaking up each others sin
breaking bread as friends
with our seagull handlers
who tell us our new names
and give us the secret mission directives
The Main Mission is actually so deceptively simple –
1. heal your own wounds
2. smile with your eyes-laugh from your belly
3. pay attention to everything beautiful
4. share your love
5. enjoy the journey
6. keep listening to every story
7. tell people everything you know
8. never stop the music
9. live every minute with gusto
10. just keep breathing evenly
life: acoustic & amplified 