Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Riding My Bus of Dreams



If the wet gray skies
are getting you down,
and the rain is trickling
under your coat, down
the back of your neck,
if there is too much
Christmas to buy
and not enough dollars,
if some of your loved ones
are far away,
and too many Christmases
have passed,
with too many faces
no longer around the table,
if love never arrived,
at least not in the form
you had expected it,
take a little time to
Occupy the Blues.

Go ahead.
Feel it all and,
if you're strong enough,
widen your vision
to encompass
all of the unwanted,
abandoned animals
who will spend Christmas
in the SPCA,
or the creatures
who live their whole lives
in cages,
waiting to cross our tables,
or the wild ones displaced
from their habitats,
then picked off when they "encroach"
on "Man's" Territory.

Are you depressed enough yet?

Just watch the news.
I know. I don't do it often,
and each time I do
I remember why.
The humans may be
even worse off
than the animals
in so many places.
And for certain,
the environment
is in complete distress.

But I'm riding my Bus of Dreams
down the gray, rain-drenched streets
through the worst part of town -
where the disenfranchised
eke out their bare existence.
They remind me I have so much
to be grateful for.

I see them carrying
their small packages home
with gladness in their hearts
to make a small Christmas
with their loved ones.
We all dream
the same dreams.
We all love to give.

When my heart aches
for humanity,
for this suffering
and unbalanced planet,
for the 99%,
for the melting at the Poles,

I remember that
even in its distress,
Mother Earth continues
to love us,
to provide for us,
to sustain us.

She wakes up every morning
beautiful.
She presents us
with her best sunrises
and sunsets,
her bluest skies,
her fluffiest clouds,
her necessary rain.

When I see her resilience,
I roll up my sleeves
and get ready to
begin again.

I decide to Re-Occupy Hope.

21 comments:

  1. "re-occupy hope". What a great conclusion! No matter how bad things may look, they will never get better if we refuse to have hope...but with hope, just maybe things can change!

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  2. I'm with you, let's re-occupy hope, together!

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  3. oh what a beautiful song that is sherry... a song of giving and encouragement and caring for those around us... sing on... smiles

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  4. I totally agree with you about the news. Most of the time all TV feeds us with is depressing events, catastrophes and fears. But I loved how you ended your poem with enthusiasm and positive energy!

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  5. Riding the Bus of Dreams sounds like the best ride in the world. Thank goodness for the love of Mother Earth despite all of the bad news.

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  6. Here's a blog which'll help you focus on what's truly important...

    You're a writer? Cool shoes. Me, too (kinda, sorta). I know for a fact, however, you gotta whole lotta intelligence behind those two ears, girl; thus, I wanna give you my finite existence: to intrinsically value the Great Beyond which I’ve learned to appreciate, to visualize the fundamental reality of infinity is why I‘m here for a teeny-weeny amount of time. Looky here...

    Precisely why I had our ‘philanthropic + epiphany’ (=so much to give + vision): wanna see a perfectly cognizant, fully-spectacular, Son-ripened-Heaven?? … yet, I’m not sure if we're on the same page if you saw what I saw. Greetings, earthling. Because I was an actual NDE on the outskirts of the Great Beyond at 15 yet wasn’t allowed in, lemme share with you what I actually know Seventh-Heaven’s Big-Bang’s gonna be like: meet this advanced, bombastic, ex-mortal Upstairs for the most juvenile-lip-service, ultra-groovy, picturesque-paradox, pleasure-beyond-measure, Ultra-Yummy-Reality-Addiction in the Great Beyond for a BIG-ol, kick-some-ass, party-hardy, robust-N-risqué-passion you DO NOT wanna miss the sink-your-teeth-in-the-smmmokin’-hot-deal enveloping, engulfing our catch-22-excitotoxins. Cya soon, girl…

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  7. Oh I love to the thought of finding hope again..and despite the dread there are places where things are getting better.. where sky is getting bluer, where the water actually get cleaner.. starvation is decreasing, and fewer children dies at birth.. in reality good news are always forgotten..

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  8. Such joyful words Sherry to remind us there is so much hope...

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  9. you went the full gambit in this...it can go either way...th disenfranchised can feel overwhelming because what can we do...i hate leaving people behind....the resilience of the earth is heartening....re-occupy hope is a cool turn of phrase...i have not heard anything about the occupy movement in forever...but it made me think there in a different way

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  10. Love this, Sherry. So many things to dishearten (the animals got to me right away--a weak spot) but I love the ending: Occupy Hope!

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  11. THANK YOU! Refusing to despair is powerful!



    ALOHA from Honolulu
    ComfortSpiral
    <3

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  12. Sherry--I'm having some problem commenting but wanted to say that you seem to me like resilience personified. K>

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  13. Sherry, this strong response to the prompt was a thrill ride, for you stopped/touched on the places where tourists fail to go,to comprehend, where the homeless, where helpless animals reside, where so many around us with less than us should be worthy of our gifts of love, caring, & possibly assistance; thanks for being the gentle gadfly in the holiday pudding.

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  14. Such a wonderful verse that ends with hope...

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  15. How simply lovely and positive this is. Brings a warm feeling.. perfect for this time of the year.

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  16. i love the fact that hope is there at the end for a new beginning...

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  17. This is so touching on so many levels! I love your poem-and you offer us hope! Thank you, Sherry!

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  18. ... and to think we are their keepers... have a 20 year old cat who needs plenty of TLC... which I manage to give him daily

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  19. Thank you for the lovely reminder Sherry~ We have a lot to be thankful for and we need to keep on replenishing hope and love in our hearts ~ I am trying to write again after a study break ~ But I passed, smiles ~ Have a good weekend ~

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  20. I love this. There has been so much come my way this year to push me to reoccupy hope. Earth is an amazing place we should view with wonder not with the lens of despair.

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