Forgotten Frontiers

Posted on February 25, 2022 by admin

 

 

Forgotten are the memories of the Alzheimer’s people.
This is dedicated to all people with Alzheimer’s
and to their caregivers.

Forgotten Frontiers

Forgotten frontiers, forgotten roots,
Forgotten pioneering boots,
Standing bleached by wind and rain,
Standing still, but can’t sustain,
Beneath the louring, darkening cloud,
That with a clap of thunder loud
Would erase our pioneering past,
The story that was built to last.

Every shingle, every board,
Every wind and every chord
So backbreaking hewn by calloused hand,
To craft a home, to build a land,
To fill with heart, and dwell with soul,
Once left behind to the bad dust bowl,
Forgotten now and left to rot
As we go headlong on without a thought.

Forgotten now the soul who built
The life that now we live without the guilt.
We forge ahead, forever getting, rarely give,
Even forgot the art of how to live.
Forgotten history, forgotten folk,
Forgotten that to have a wheel you need a spoke.
Forgotten frontier, forgotten roots,
Forgotten pioneering boots.

Sometimes we forget the roll we play
And strut the stage, demand the pay,
Play the hero, forget to bend
While friends and family reach wits’ end,
Left behind in wind and rain,
Unable to sustain.
Forgetting minds, forgetting roots,
Left behind by walking boots.

Forgotten frontier, forgotten roots,
Forgotten pioneering boots.

Forgotten_Frontiers_--_2016-03-07_1002

—

http://www.deviantart.com/art/These-boots-are-made-117062446

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There is Hunger in the World

Posted on February 14, 2022 by admin

 

There is Hunger in the World
There is hunger in the world
To be loved
A hunger to be acknowledged
To belong
There is hunger in the world
For quiet
And a hunger everywhere
For peace
(Well, not everywhere, for there is still
not peace
There is still
Not love
There is an appetite in some hearts
For hate
A hunger to be acknowledged
As better than you
There is a hunger in the hearts of some
For civil disquiet)
Better to break bread together
Than to shout and fight
Better to aim higher
To shine brighter with love
Than to starve with hate
Oh, there is hunger in the mind
For saying
And humger in the soul
For hearing
Hunger amongst the poor
Amidst the downtrodden
And the memory loss people
The cancer-ridden, the lost
And the stolen,
Hunger amidst all who wander
Hunger
In the mind, in the land
There is seeking
Seeking food for the belly
Food for the mind
Food for the soul
There is craving in the world
Craving for understanding
There is searching for a voice
There is a reaching out
For a friendly hand
To shake
Oh
There is a hunger in the world
That is not being fed
Hear the cries of the hungry
For they are life
And life is precious
More precious than all the words can tell
There is a hunger
Hunger in the world
Break bread with the hungry
Feed the starving minds
Break with the hatred
We are all of a kind
Reach out – Reach out.
Pixabay
There ius hunger for equal equality
Not equality only for the strong
There is hunger for justice for all
Not just equality for the self empowered
There is a hunger for recognition
Not just for the /privileged
There is a hunger for fair play
For one and for all, for anything less
Is privilege and reward for the heirs
And nothing muc left for the rest
Oh! There is hunger in this world.
Plant the seeds of equality, compassion,
Understanding, acceptance
Fertilize them with good faith
Help them grow.
It would be called democracy.

 

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Her Funny Face

Posted on February 14, 2022 by admin

 

HER FUNNY FUNNY FACE

H. W. Bryce

      Based on the Rondel

 

I fell in love with her funny face.

I knew inately that she had been abused

For that, and that she was oft accused

For being different, for being out of pace.

 

I laughed with delight at that funny face

When first I saw it, yet could see, amused

She was not always, that she had been used.

I knew inately that she had been abused.

 

Somehow I knew that she had found her space,

Like the clown, funny out, crying in, but disabused

Now of the shame of having been so early badly used,

That she had found the inner spunk and grace

To know with confidence to wear that face.

And so, I fell in love with her funny face.

— —

This is a rondel, a poetry form of 13 or 14 lines with

Two rhynes and repetition of two lines.

Note: the more famous sonnet has 14 lines, and so,

This, my first rondel, has 14 lines.

— —

 

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Children’s Hour

Posted on February 5, 2022 by admin

 

Children's Hour pic

CHILDREN’S HOUR

 

H. W. Bryce

 

Between the dark and the daylight,

When the night is beginning to lower, (lour)

Comes a pause in the day’s occupations

That is known as the children’s hour.

—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

 

Between the dawn of the day

And the end of the work hours,

Come the stresses and the strains

In the guise of the children’s hour.

 

Come the pros and the cons,

The tossing of bric-a-bracs and insults anon

With reference to garter belts and gutter snipes

In such array as to self empower.

 

The children hurl across the great divide

Such poisoned slurs in figurative form, and

Then from the teacher’s throne they hide,

And never suffer rebuke or, smitten, hide.

 

For this bombast a release is

And freedom from the pressures of

The heavy burdens of childhood democracy,

And the volume transcends each over each.

 

Then, of a sudden in children’s hour,

Two voices shout the same thing

Across the children’s hour room, and

A consensus raises its smiling head

Above the din and silence intervenes.

And all the children stand in awe, as statues.

 

The children look, each to each, dumbfounded.

Until they realize just what they had done,

What great, unique acconplishment they had

Just achieved…agreement. They had raised

 

The level of the children’s hour. They

Fill the holy air with shouts,

Surprise, and glee. They celebrate

Without constraint, and the teacher just smiles

 

As left side of room claps and cheers

And right-side echoes that. But Jane jumps

Up and waves her arms in the air and

Dances in place, tears filling her eyes.

 

Then, spontaneous, both sides pour into

That sacred play space, like two rivers

Converging, the red river and the blue,

Doing the happy dance as one congregation.

John crosses that rubicon and embraces the

Jubilant, dancing Jane, and they hug dance.

 

Many hands are shaken, many a bear hug

Embraced, all in celebration of this unusual

Feat that had just ended the endless childish

Bickering and found the practice of

Conversation therapy. They had just

Ended the practice of onversion therapy.
— —

https://pixabay.com/fr/photos/rhinoc%c3%a9ros-cornes-animal-sauvage-782278/

 

Well done, said the happy teacher,

And hoped the truce would hold, for

Democracy of childhood demands

The children get along and play nice.

And thus ended the day’s children’s hour.

— —

 

 

 

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Silence Has No echo

Posted on January 19, 2022 by admin

 

Silence has no echo

Silence has no Echo

Nor any rippling effect

–Lucille A La Roche to Nancy Ndeke in a scintillating discussiion

of Lucille’s post of Mya Angelou’s poem “Phenomenal Woman” on Jan 11, 2022

— —

Silence Has No Echo

 

H. W. Bryce

 

Silence is a cave, sheltered from the breeze,

Hiding from the rumour, hiding from the tease,

Silence is the sound of fear, silence stifles every tear,

Silence hides from bullies where no one else can hear.

 

Silence has no echo

Silence sends no ripple out

Silence holds its feelings in

No one hears that secret thought

No one reacts to its needful call

No one floods the schoolhouse hall.

 

No one tries to stop the slap

No one bites his tongue or contradicts

The hurtful verbal smear

For silence sends no echo out

No ripples sent to reveal the doubt.

Silence launches no defence, silence wields no clout.

 

There is no echo to that silent prayer,

There is no ripple to spread the word of fear,

Silent in its cave, the echo huddles down,

Stifles its own voice and life never breathes fresh air.

No one witnesses the fall of stresssed-out tear,

Life wilts in airless cave, hope never does appear.

 

Courage must be born before courage can

Come to the aid of muted echo’s pain,

A ripple needs a pebble, to start toward the dawn

Before there can be any sort of gain.

 

Silence needs a voice, the truth of that is plain,

We need to learn to read the silent brail,

We need to lure the silence out from its silent cave,

We need to hear that silent echo send the ripples out

For healing love to hear that call        scream it out.

 

Cave life is isolation, and isolation

Writes upon its own cave wall,

And nobody ever sees it

Till long after they are gone,

For silence sends no echo,

Silence sends no ripple out

To meet the breaking of the dawn

Where helping hands await

To erase that killing hate…

To free the silence from its chains.

 

For silence has no song

And silence makes no tune

Silence has no echo

Silence sends no ripples out

Silence must be broken

To let the prisoner out.

— — —

Image: https://pixabay.com/fr/illustrations/homme-destruction-double-exposition-1519665/

Nancy Ndeke said:

this is equally phenomenal, a befitting response to the amazing piece by Maya.

Posted in A Voice in the Wilderness, Advocacy, Alzheimer's, Caring, Conversations, Lonely, Lost, Missing, Poem | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

A word to the Lonely Wanderer

Posted on January 10, 2022 by admin

 

May be an image of text that says 'Some souls leave behind a trail of light that is never forgotten. Artwork Pinterest muses from mystic'

A Word to the Lonely Wanderer
Inspired by two Facebook laments about being lonely.
You wander, aimlessly, you say,
Forever seeking, a destination
Waiting out there for you. You say.
Your friend, you say, is isolation.
This may be true, destination still unchosen,
Your spirit pulling, leading, wandering,
No end date due, no reason yet known,
Loneliness, you say, is your fate.
You see empty pastures as you stroll,
You see the mountains too steep to climb.
You miss the mileposts, you miss company,
Even the flowers, the grass, the blue, blue sky.
Mountain goats you see as a threat,
Bulls in the lea spell danger to you,
Your nerves are shattered, your thoughts
Are all self blame, too harshly judged.
Stop. Look. See. The flowers in the meadow,
They bow to you. It wasn’t just the wind.
The mountain you spurned, was but a hill.
The goat you thought would butt, was but gamboling.
Hope has been ever by your side, my lonely friend,
Now hear this: To all of us you pass by
Know that we think you are, something else:
Pure inspiration, which you leave behind you,
Ways for us to explore, ways that lead
To betterment for us. You may not look
Back over your shoulder, but know this:
Your life is not a waste; it is love and love
Is what we receive from you.
Be not lonely, dear one, you are not
Really all alone. You have us, and we
Are walking along with you.
You are your own goddess, we honour you.
If we never meet, know that when you walk by
We are inspired and we love the work you do.
Be not lonely any more. Our arms are wide open.
Fear not this role you take. Stop and look.
Embrace this esteem we hold for you.
You have arrived. Your destination is
Right here, beside you, with us.
I know. For I, too, have walked that
Lonely, seemingly endless path.
And I am here, where I belong.
In this wonderful poetry world.
Where you are welcome.
—H. W. Bryce
— — — — — — — —
Posted in A Voice in the Wilderness, Advocate, Alzheimer's, Being there, Blues, Caring, Choices, Dementia, Friends, Hero, Hope, Inner Travel, Irony, Lonely, Peace, Poem | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

What the world needs more of…

Posted on January 4, 2022 by admin

 

What the world needs more of

What the World Needs More of

Grn mini comp Nov 13,2021

 

–H. W. Bryce

 What the world needs more of

Is the human touch,

The pat on the back, the warm

Handshake, and most of all,

The hug.

 

What the world needs more of

Is a word of encouragement,

A hint, a clue, a cue on how to do

That thing, that you are,

 

A look in the eye, a nod of the head,

A thumbs up and a here’s to you

In this endeavour of yours.

 

What the world needs more of these days

Is less of the sharp tongue, the coiled fist,

The blasphemy, the threats, the anger

And bitter revenge, the carping, the

Ignoring of others, the using of others,

And the hands that never help.

 

What the world needs more of these days,

Is a whole lot less of the gaslighting evil,

The bragging and the shouting and the

Cursing and the criticisms, and a whole lot

Less of the taking of the Lord’s name In vain.

Yes, what the world needs more of these days

Is moderation, charity, helping hands, polite

Politics, the taking better care of Nature, and

Of course, Peace.

 

Hands across borders, smiles of encouragement

To help each other get there, to basic

Universal love.

 

Image from Pixabay

 

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