For Joy (10/12/1947 - 03/08/2020) My sister asked for a chocolate cake And so I baked her one With chocolate frosting and nothing out of the ordinary. She was just recovered from fluid on her lungs Aspirated the day after Thanksgiving. Now, at home in her dining room, She had the breath to appreciate The chocolate deliciousness. Ten weeks later, she was lying in her hospital bed, Cancer exploding throughout all her parts. She was mostly delirious, But was willing to take in some cold chicken soup. I fed her, Small spoonful by small spoonful-- Her last meal. I wish she were here to bake me popovers And a cocoa carrot cake. I want to revel with her in the sweet berries salad we'd often share Or hear her joy at me playing the harp And see her dab at her eyes when I sang a sad song. I see your smile, Joy--a reflection of my crooked one. But, where did you go?
Archive for the ‘Words’ Category
My sister asked for chocolate cake
Posted in Words on July 12, 2020| Leave a Comment »
What is the Plague?
Posted in Reflection, The World, Words, tagged hubris, plague, poetry on May 21, 2020| Leave a Comment »
What is the plague, what is the plague? Is it the virion? Is it the germ? Or is it callous disregard For those different and infirm? Is it the offspring of Narcissus Who see their reflection in The vain Gods of progress? What is the plague, what is the plague? We were living, we are dying, And the selfish keep denying It's a plague we are defying. We were dying, but we're surviving The plague of righteous fascists Who've been wickedly conniving. What is the plague, What is the plague? We are living in a test Of our resilience at its best. So we hope, and strive, and pray To make it through another day Hunkering down, and turning away From touch we crave every which way. What is the plague, What is the plague? We cry at needless loss When lives we love become the tossed Bodies in cold cold containers As the dross of sycophancy bill for their ridiculous retainers As we become the pawns in necromancy. What is the plague, What is the plague? The plague is human hubris, Pride of place and pride of stature, With souls that are infractured By the synapses of greed and callous Disrespect for the being that is earth And the beings that have worth. Greed is the plague, Greed is the plague.
Gifts outside the box
Posted in Reflection, The World, Words, tagged gift-giving, gratitude, positivity on December 25, 2018| Leave a Comment »
True gifts of light. Do try this at home if you wish!
I led a pre-Christmas group at work last week that I do every year at this time. I ask: what is a gift you’d give yourself, one you’d give to those you love, one you’d give a stranger, one you’d give the group, and one you’d give the world–remember, these are gifts that do not cost money, so think “outside the đ”. But I preface this with, what is a similar gift someone(s) once gave you that has helped you in life.
In this spirit of giving and acknowledging such gifts, for this holiday season, I give myself a pat on the back for being patient with life and acceptance of my circuitous path. I give my loved ones many, many, many hugs and kisses (if they want them), my attempts at being non-judgmental, and my time. I give a stranger my work as a volunteer helping families with breastfeeding babies and occasionally helping someone carry something down the street. I give my colleagues(my group) suggestions (only when asked for) and the wisdom of my experience (only when asked for). I give the world my music because I can’t help it and I can’t help it any other way.
And gifts I’ve been given: my mother gave me her altruism, the love of words and grammar and scrabble, and the love of poetry and her faith in my music. My father gave me his talent with numbers and sounds (he was a sonar engineer) and the love of puns and Pi. My husband has given me his patience (sometimes) and a steadfast love and the best father I could have for my children. My children have given me a reason to be proud and the sheer enjoyment of being with them and seeing them grow to be such thoughtful and caring souls (and a huge dollop of attempts at being patient when they drove me nuts). My sister gave me a home when I was needy and an appreciation of beauty and her love of my music. My brother gave me the joy of driving fast and a love of art on paper. My nieces and nephews have given me the gift of listening. My wider family and friends have given me love, people to play with (scrabble, walks on the beach, music) and the joy of connection.
I’m glad I can be grateful.
Merry Christmas everyone!
Dusty Confusion
Posted in Words on November 26, 2018| Leave a Comment »
I have been sleepwalking in a dusty confusion
while my soul longs for the clarity of transcendence.
I retreat into my room, fall into my bed, weary.
Sleep comes to me,
heavy with fatigue and melancholy.
I dream of wordless, menacing beings
who attempt to destroy me.
I wake myself from the rush of fear
before I die this dream death.
I lie there in and out of fitful unconsciousness.
âWhy do you sleep?â
says a Voice at the edge of my awareness.
âDon't forget me,â I say in my anguish.
âCome to the door and greet me.â
"Hello", says the Voice.
I say, "Come in".
A gentle hand wrestles
with the tangled bedclothes
of my consciousness,Â
letting in a sliver of light
under the blanket of darkness.
The Voice, warm and honeyed, soothes into my ear:
"Open your eyes, the lights will guide you.
They shine on the pathway to wherever you are heading."
A star, shining in my head, seems to say:
"Be just, be kind, be loving.
Watch and learn.
Choose."
From a place of green, warm, enfolding comfort deep inside me,
I hear my own voice:
"Open your heart and mind
and your mouth will sing, spilling out
an evanescent music which bubbles forth
a thousand spirits chanting
like flutes, like bells, like chimes,
like gongs of goodness.
Open your arms and hands
and your fingers will become feathered wings,
fanning out seeds of change
with a whoosh upon the wind."
***
I open my eyes.
I arise.
I stretch off the dusty sleep of the shadows.
I draw over my shoulders
the many-hued scarves of sensation.
I let fear be simply one color of the cloak I wear.
***
My feet follow the trail of the Voice.
Triptych Haiku on Pain
Posted in Words on November 18, 2018| Leave a Comment »
Pain and suffering–
pinch, tweak, itch, ache, throb, soreness–
Human condition.
Rubbing in the salve–
With a touch or stroke on skin;
Is this true relief?
Deep inhale of air–
Energy wanders to cells,
Breath is half the cure.
The power of unabashed curvature
Posted in Motherhood, Words on September 14, 2018| Leave a Comment »
Inspired by Rick Berry, a painter whose figures are unabashed, but not always as curvy as the mature woman in this poem.
A woman–
She dances in the morning light
In the power of her unabashed curvature–
The full breast, the round stomach,
The tender rosy tint of her skin
In the glow of the rising sun.
Hers is the beauty of having labored,
Confident in the strength of her body
That more than once released a newborn,
Wet with the blood and fluid of her womb
Then held upon her warm sweaty midriff
And welcomed with fresh milk into
A legacy of human struggle.
These she nurtured with love and soft arms.
This dance now is to reclaim her rhythm.
She moves with the pulse of the drum
As if it’s her own heartbeat.
She feels the deep strum of bass
As if it’s the earth’s ground.
She sighs with the high breathy flute
As if it’s the cloud on which she floats.
There is sinew under her soft supple skin.
Her body’s muscles echo the millions of ancestral mothers
Who have come before her bearing two-limbed fruit
And daring to strive forth daily in tasks and joys.
She sinks into all her senses.
She smells the oil of amber and rose upon her wrist.
She feels the warmth of sunlight upon her face.
She tastes a ripe peach and rejoices in its juice.
Her feet, touching bare upon the ground, stomp to the beat of drum.
She sees sky, grass, flower, a child’s face, and a man’s weathered yet longed-for visage.
She hears her own voice singing in sympathy with the music’s rhythm
And her heart cries for beauty in all and in awe.
She dances life and death and life again–
A woman.
Is there singing in the sea?
Posted in The World, Words on August 26, 2018| Leave a Comment »
Â
A poem I wrote in the spring of 2018… The inspiration being the news about what is happening to our ocean life and my innate knowledge that all life has and all lives have a song.
* * * * *
Is there singing in the sea?
The sound of the waves is a lullaby
to me reclining on the sand of the shore.
“Shhh-ahh, shhh-ahh, shhh-ahh”
whisper-sings the ocean mother.
I wonder that the clouds in this bluest sky
set the tempo of these waters
that flow with the earth’s spinning rhythm.
The sound of the waves is a lullaby
to me reclining on the sand of the shore.
“Shhh-ahh, shhh-ahh, shhh-ahh”
whisper-sings the ocean mother.
I wonder that the clouds in this bluest sky
set the tempo of these waters
that flow with the earth’s spinning rhythm.
Is there singing in the sea?
Do these waves mask the tunes
of the whales’ poignant aria of loss and death,
telling the anguish of suffocation in
the plastic detritus and metallic poisons of two-legged land creatures?
Do these waves mask the tunes
of the whales’ poignant aria of loss and death,
telling the anguish of suffocation in
the plastic detritus and metallic poisons of two-legged land creatures?
Is there singing in the sea?
Do the dolphins recit of love
in their joyful darting dances in and out of the waves?
Or of fear and pain when caught in the fisher’s net or
when smothered by the fume of a boat’s exhaust?
Is there singing in the sea?
Do the bleached corals, blanched by the heat of humanity’s hubris,
croak in raspy gasps for air?
Do the anemone yet hum a swirly melody of the flow of life and death
as they gently entrap their tiny prey?
Is there singing in the sea?
Down in the dark, dark depths
where the weight of water and the near absence of light
is belied by the insistent beauty of life in thermal streams,
do strangely formed beings sing a pungent bacterial lay of survival,
a deep booming ostinato of “then, now, and evermore”?
Is there singing in the sea?
I walk along the strand and count my steps to the
ebb and flow,
ebb and flow,
ebb and flow
of ever-moving tides.
Seals, resting on rocks and sandbars,
mouthe a pulsing monophony of moaning tones
as they warm themselves in the sun
while waves lap at them in slow deliberate time.
I sing along with their cantata
“ah-roo, ah-roo, ah-roo”.
I pick up the lone nautilus and hold it to my ear.
I hear a soft soothing breathing.
I ask silently of the shell,
“Is there singing in the sea?”
She replies in a quiet
“phffff, phffff; phffff, phffff”
insisting that as long as there is
sky and cloud
wind and water
seal and sun
rock and amoeba
sand and starfish
shell and crab
storm and wave
fish and fathom
shark and cod
predator and prey
whale and narwhal
signal and echo
dolphin and dance
turtle and current
thermal and geyser
there shall be singing in the sea–
but only if the two-legged land creature
learns to sing along.
What is the essence of my soul?
Posted in Words on August 24, 2018| Leave a Comment »
A few nights ago, I watched a documentary on the use of DMT (the psychedelic Dimethyltryptamine, which is also found endogenously in our bodies and in all kinds of plant and animal beings) in controlled scientific experiments, during which the volunteers, to a person, reported “out-of-time” experiences, seeing angels, floating through stars, expanded consciousness, etc. I was never a big psychedelic drug taker, but with the use of music, I have had such experiences. I also have a client on the mildly psychotic spectrum who reports something similar in their experience of their schizophrenic hallucinations, and since I sincerely believe that we all carry the imprint of our celestial (as in big bang) origins, I have been given a sense of the profound beauty that we carry within us as a gift from our universal beginnings. This is my poetic response… (starway, gauzey, dearth are NOT mistakes!).
* * *
What is the essence of my soul?
What is that truth that makes me whole?
Am I the stars, the sun, the moon?
Do angels sing along with my tune?
What is that truth that makes me whole?
Am I the stars, the sun, the moon?
Do angels sing along with my tune?
What are the shapes in my consciousness
When I float out of time in weightlessness?
I sing a song of colors in flight
Sailing through space on wings of light.
My heart lives in the rhythm of the universe
A drumbeat of blood rushing in a traverse
On the spiral starway of the galaxies.
I’m high on a glittery gauzey trapeze.
Within my body, each little part
was born a trillion years ago
when the universe exploded at its start.
Flowing through my soul’s synergy
are my ancestors, the stars,
creating my existence of electric energy.
I am the stars, the sun, the moon.
I am the mother of milky ways
within whom is born all love and compassion,
without which is never a transformation.
I am the energy from which all matter is birthed,
I am the light out of which comes wisdom,
I am the sounds of a musical prism,
I am the transcendence of fear, pain, and dearth.
I am the universe.
Â
Absurdity (an homage to Albert Camus)
Posted in Music, The World, Words on August 27, 2017| Leave a Comment »
âI draw from the absurd three consequences, which are my revolt, my freedom, and my passion.â âThere is no love of life without despair of life.â â Albert Camus
Absurdity
This song was written on August 5th, inspired by the Brain Pickings blog post on Albert Camus’s philosphy about living through despairing times.
I look outside my window and I see the rain
I look outside my window and I see the rain.
But for the rain, there wouldnât be the flower.
But for the rain, there wouldnât be the flower.
How absurd! How absurd! How absurd! How absurd!
Chorus:
No love without despair, no mend without a tear.
No freedom without a scar; just passion goes far.
I look across the sky and I see the clouds
I look across the sky and I see the clouds.
But for the clouds, there wouldnât be the rainbow
But for the clouds, there wouldnât be the rainbow.
How absurd! How absurd! How absurd! How absurd! Chorus
I look inside my heart and I see the pain.
I look inside my heart and I see the pain.
But for the pain, no joy in a blue sky.
But for the pain, no joy in a blue sky.
How absurd! How absurd! How absurd! How absurd!
In a dream, spoken freely, is the chance.
Beneath an ever-changing sky is the dream in my eye.
I speak a truth, and my dream does a dance.
I sing a truth, and my dream learns to fly.
I look outside my window and I see the rain
I look outside my window and I see the rain.
But for the rain, there wouldnât be the flower.
But for the rain, there wouldnât be the flower.
How absurd! How absurd! How absurd! How absurd! Chorus
******
Click here to hear the song: Absurdity on SoundCloud
Nevertheless, She PersistedÂ
Posted in Music, The World, Words on February 11, 2017| Leave a Comment »
My new song — Nevertheless, She Persisted, in honor of Senator Elizabeth Warren
He told her, be quiet. He told her, sit down.
He told her, donât riot. But she stood her ground.
Nevertheless, she persisted.
For she had her morals and she had the right
And she had the laurels to put up a fight.
Nevertheless, she persisted.
Chorus:
Never the less, she went on.
Never the less, she resisted.
Never the less, she moved strong.
Never the less, she persisted.
She spoke for all people who donât have the power,
Whoâve been put down, and turned round, and been made to cower.
âWe wonât shut up, we wonât back down, we wonât give up, and we wonât turn round.
Weâll stand in the hallway and shout the door down.â
You may have your rules but those ways are broken
And she grabbed the tools so the truth could be spoken.
Nevertheless, she persisted.
For she had her morals and she had the right
And she had the laurels to put up a fight.
Nevertheless, she persisted.
Chorus
Hear the song here:
https://soundcloud.com/janhapharp/nevertheless-she-persisted
or here
https://soundcloud.com/janhapharp/nevertheless-she-persisted-with-heartsoulvoice-duo
The Muses of Happiness 