i walk Tripp Lake beach
wearing my blue beach attendant
shirt picking up forbidden
beer cans, shards of glass from
last night and years gone by
cigarette butts by the car load
early morning a time for pondering assisted by
my wood-pecking drummer friend who comes
every morning to beat out a tune
on the metal sign full of bullet holes
he stops often to clear his small head
maybe rattled by his own talented beak
he seems to wait for me his audience
unperturbed by the fact that no insects
imerge from his sign
this summer is full of political conventions
no rain,just mass shootings and politicians
who make us sick by their deceptions
i feel the Heart Bern plaguing my short-lived
hope that we here in this land of beauty
would awake to each other to red cardinals
woodpeckers vast forests that still cover
the uninhabited Northland of Maine to see
how close we are to our Canadian and Mexican cousins
all inhabiting land we stole from those who
lived on this continent when we came knocking
say nothing of the wild animals who used to share
this home and find not resting place now for dwindling
animal tribes some gone forever
we sport a half black president his wife
more beautiful, wise and intelligent
a hundred percent black woman, but big business
insists they support a woman who lies because
she has sold her soul for a bowl of soup
she sits high up in the pockets of
the rich but our real leader
would be a Shirley Chisholm or a Bernie Sanders in drag
the people cry out and fall prey to the feudal media
owned by the few with no conscience for the rest
yet there are millions across the world especially
the old and young together we march and tweet,
birth new movements want revolution again
a light breeze blows across the pristine lake
resident loons cry their sorrow for the state
of this homeland and yell in anger for the loss
of too much love no children ride on their backs
this year my sixteen year old grand daughter and
her cousins are searching for the giving tree in a
culture dominated by isolation and greed where are the
elders to teach them? we have relegated them to
the dust bins of assisted living and deep poverty
at 69 i work for pennies my social security $312 a month
my pondering becomes prayer listening for
any word asking to be transformed… open my ears
i say, let me hear you here walking on the water
calming this raging storm of our disturbed world
when i am this quiet the words stop and i am
the first human in millions to be transformed in the silence
Poet Jude's Poetry 