Poetry
Poetry
The Incomplete Garden
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sat, 04/02/2016 - 05:58I sit
in the same chair
to write
each day.
Up,
to my left,
is a large window
I gaze out of
looking for inspiration.
It is dark
when I start.
As the day breaks
forms appear
out of the darkness.
The old swingset
my daughter used to play on;
starting to deteriorate
now that she’s gone.
The house across the street
where the Rabbi and his family lives,
with cars coming and going
full of mysterious stories
to be remembered and retold.
As the morning light grows
the incomplete garden
comes into focus;
the struggling lilac bush
from my late mother’s house,
the pile of rocks
with the yellow jacket’s nest
I once disturbed,
the bird feeder
left behind
by the previous owners,
and random plants
waiting
to be organized
into beauty.
The Other
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 02/19/2016 - 12:54There is always an other in the room with us
whether we know it or not
whether or not we are alone.
There are those we know;
our mother,
an ex-girl friend
from long ago
who still haunts our memories
whom we’re never able to quite forget,
and that teacher
from that time in class
whom we’ve never have been able to forgive.
There are those we don’t know;
the unknown soldier in the faded photograph on the wall,
the homeless man that once slept in this room,
or the man
who died of AIDS
that no one remembers.
There are those we seek to know
Elijah, Buddha, Mohammed, Jesus.
Then, there is the other inside of us,
the other we seek to deny or kill off,
our greed and lust,
our desires for earthly goods,
that nice watch that man is wearing,
our desires for physical pleasures,
as we look at someone attractive.
It is hard to write in the voice of the other,
those we remember, those we repress,
and those we seek to serve.
Note: This was written for a poetry group prompt about writing in the voice of someone else
Ash Wednesday: Memories of Dust #wRite40
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Wed, 02/10/2016 - 22:15We remember being in Arid Land
and Breathe Wind blew us
into Holy Water.
Breathe Wind,
Holy Water,
and We mingled
and became something new
called “man”.
But we ignored Breathe Wind,
forgot Breathe Wind
and Breathe Wind left.
Holy Water evaporated
and we again became
Dust
in Arid Land
Lent 2016
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 02/04/2016 - 22:40“You are about to enter unchartered territory”
my internal GPS announced
as I sat in traffic
on I-84
northbound.
I looked at my fellow travelers
stuck in their cars
and wondered,
“How is this commute different
from all other commutes,
this pilgrimage,
in a post modern
wilderness?”
Lent starts soon
and giving up chocolate
isn’t unchartered territory.
“We confess…” I thought to myself.
What sort of Lenten discipline
echoes that?
Giving up our addiction to fossil fuels?
Somehow, that sounds like world peace
not only unchartered,
but probably unattainable.
What is attainable,
with God’s help?
How do we discover
our unknown, undone deeds?
How do we become
more conscious
more loving,
while stuck in traffic?
That would be unchartered,
maybe even life changing,
a worthy Lenten discipline.
The Death of an Unintentional Racist
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 01/26/2016 - 21:22He didn’t have
a racist bone in his body
in the colloquial sense
of a bigot
treating others,
unlike him,
harshly.
He always tried
to help those
less fortunate
than himself
even though
he didn’t believe
in affirmative action
or acknowledge
white privilege.
He was advanced in years
as the car industry faltered
and the city became poorer
and blacker.
He was stoic,
self reliant,
and continued to drink the tap water
even after
the city
started drawing water
from the river
and health advisories abounded.
We’ll never know
if it was the bacteria
in the water
of the now predominantly
black city,
or just his age,
that killed him.
