Month: June 2015

I Shall

I have few resources

Often only kindness

And the will to not be inured

To the sorrow of the mourners

And the cries of the injured

I shall not keep to silence

Nor allow bigotry to be ignored

I shall seek no answers in violence

In pursuit of grace much can be endured

I shall make a quiet strong alliance

Between peace and love letting both be heard

In a voice even, but full of defiance

Against wrong thought and action

Committed via both deed and word

Gene G. McLaughlin 2015

Note-

Something I wrote to remember both how sad and outraged I was last week in South Carolina, but also how inspired I was by the survivors families in Charleston and their capacity for grace and forgiveness.

June 15th and it hits 100

I got nothing tonight

But the summer heat

No feeling

But pavement burning

My feet

Only the ache

No

Deceit

Flesh singed

Like Meat

Gene G. McLaughlin 2015

The Bear Went Over The Mountain

The bear went over the mountain

To see what he could see

And all that he could see

Was the other side of the mountain

Was all that he could see

So the bear took a long slow moment

Atop that lonely mountain

He thought of all his wanderings

Where all his winters brought him

This mountain was a mountain where

Maybe his moments could have meaning

If the bear he so allowed

The next mountain might have something

That from the bear was hidden

A sacred secret knowledge

The bear would finally make his own

His paws dug in the dirt and dust

His fur felt the warmth and sun

His bones they came to realize

The mountain knew the same things

As the next did and the one before

There were mountains to be found

By stillness and not by climbing

By the staying and not the roaming

The bear went to the top of the mountain

The bear called the mountain home

The bear climbed to the top of the mountain

The bear became of where he sat

The bear became the mountain

Together they both grew

Into another mountain

For another bear to find

Gene G. McLaughlin 2015