Yin Yang

The meaning of life includes death.
Birth implies burial, 
up implies down.
Existence enfolds emptiness,
sadness the clown.

There is nothing without something
no goodness without evil.
The sun points to rain
Love requires indifference, 
Hatred the same.

Complexity requires simplicity
The Many are still One.
Divided needs unity,
One second, eternity, while
Tyranny points to the free.

Yin and Yang is cosmic truth
the concept is universal.
All that is and is not
All that was and will be,
What could be and what cannot.

Embrace the opposites
in ourselves and each other;
feminine and masculine.
It is a true paradox,
we are all both yet just one.

Ice

Icy grey attitude
solid, frozen anger;
arrow aimed and shot,
made of crystal cold.

Marbled intensity,
frostbitten fear flying;
missiles strike, war is fought.
emotions uncontrolled.

Diamond desperation
chills to the inward bone.
Hardened spear hits the spot;
icicles of ire scold.

Sandy friction loosens
the grip of iced longing;
trampling all tempting thoughts,
plotting ever to be told.

Leaven raises and is warming,
melts the coldest of hearts;
Love's arrows freely sought
penetrate, defeat cold.

©2012 Cherie Boeneman

Peril and Hope

The latest projections by the Huffington Post have the GOP retaining control of the House of Representatives, even adding a few seats to their majority. It is unclear whether the Democrats will retain control of the Senate. I can see now why Sandy Levin wants to retire: he might not want to continue to fight the Republicans on every single thing. I read that he refuses to play political games and that's all the GOP knows how to do. I might be tired of it too if I were him. I know how tired of it I am as a citizen. But that is precisely why we need him to win this election. We desperately need people like him. We need his decency, his competency and the refusal to play games. This county's only hope is in people like Sandy Levin. If the worst happens and Romney also, somehow (by hook or by CROOK) wins and the House GOP maintains and extends their control and the Democrats lose control of the Senate then this country is doomed without voices like his. Still, I would understand at his age the desire to retire. I see it regularly in my own mother.

People like Sandy are our hope inside the government. But the ultimate hope is in the people of the United States of America:. the hope that we will fight to keep our voices for truth and social justice alive and strong so that we might fight the corruption and greed and lust for power of the GOP and their corporate masters. We must fight to reverse the trend towards government surveillance of citizens whether or not  we are guilty of anything other than patriotism . The Patriot Act was but one example of this trend. There have been many others: NDAA, FISA,the projected use of drones in American cities...all are efforts to control an increasingly restive population. But they are doomed to failure just like the dictators in Africa and the Middle East if we fight for our rights as they are given to us by God and the US Constitution. It is a fight of faith, personal and civil. It doesn't mean violating the separation of church and state. It means the exact opposite: it means upholding that gulf between the two in order to preserve our liberties. When the forces of religion, corporations and government merge, heaven help the people of the United States. We must be the voices and bodies to stop that awful possibility and reality. Occupy Wall Street may be one of the shining examples in this struggle; citizens uniting for a greater cause than themselves. That is, and will continue to be, the great hope for this country, the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.


P.S.  I realize Sandy Levin voted FOR all the above awful legislation but on all other matters he has been and is on the side of justice and fairness. In addition, his opponent in the new MI 9th district is just awful and a Tea Party advocate. 

Where the Wind Blows (Haiku)

Wind blows where it wills,

Whispering as it travels;

Freedom's pure form.