Dear Diary Page 93…
Hello Diary..
Have been dealing with some oppressive heat and humidity the past few days, mainly indoors working on chores, tasks and projects.. Were doing a bit of sorting of paper files and communications today when I came upon some letters from a dear friend from the UK..communicated online also, never met personally but shared a lot of thoughts and memories over the years… she was near 90 when she passed away a couple of years ago, a diehard Rugby fan and stanch supporter of the Queen…she as a distant cousin to Elizabeth Barrett Browning and over her younger years wrote poetry and articles for various meida and magazines….she used the pen name of Chris Clark and lived in county Lincolnshire…. I had found two pictures she made by hand using pieces from her garden and painstakingly gluing each piece to the cardboard creating a picture, then wrapped them in plastic and heated the plastic to fit tight… thought I would share them with you… the pictures are 8″ by 11″…
She made these pictures as a Christmas present and thought my late wife, Kathy, would like them, take the mind off of dealing with cancer for a bit…Chris use to make pictures like this when she was young for gifts, as it was during the Great Depression and didn’t have any money… she also shared a poem/reading she wrote, will include it at the end of the blog..
Like me, she was not into religion..as the chaplain told my wife “it is what is in the heart that matters, not the name above the door” and the both of us decided that should we start to believe, it would be from the heart and mind, not guided by some book written by others… like they did at the Sermon on the Mount, just quietly venture out into the backyard, the sky would become the roof of our cathedral, the birds would be our choir and we would follow the advice of the Seekers..
Will close now and finish the day.. The mind is like a computer, constantly taking in knowledge and in a state of evolution, learning more about itself and the rest of the universe and it is no different here as Bree and I venture down the path least traveled… not sure when or how we will return, but return we will one day, Fate be willin’ and the creeks don’t rise…
Will leave with a song that was Chris’s favorite, perhaps she has done just that with her passing… 🙂
The poem;
This Is My Domain…
(by Chris Clark)
The poet said;
“Do you think it possible
That the big leap for mankind,
The first step on the moon,
Disoriented us?
Even at the time
I grieved for future lovers,
Walking in the moonlight
That was raped of romance.
But now I keep thinking
How much more was lost
When we reached the moon
Than its mystique.
Nietche said God was dead,
Yet didn’t seem convinced.
But, when at last we conquered space,
Did God just move away?”
God said, (God always speaks to poets,)
“THIS IS MY DOMAIN”
Within my borders dream the quiet shires,
That England still holds close against her heart
Oil rigs anchor in my stormy seas
And gush strange wealth on Scotland’s shores,
Ireland bleeds, and red, hands still are flung,
History scarred to maim the innocent.
“THIS IS MY DOMAIN”
Within my city streets the pushers prowl,
And babes new born have drug infected veins.
My children steal to buy death’s merchandise,
My daughters advertise to gain from base desires.
The right of all to read, so late and hardly won,
Debased by hypocritic vendors of the print.
“THIS IS MY DOMAIN”
Not these Isles only, but in fief my world.
My dark skinned babies dying in the sand
Cry still, as Philip heard, come help!
Grain mountains are not moved by dearth,
And human locusts swarm about the gifts,
The meagre gifts the rich relations send.
“THIS IS MY DOMAIN”
Encompassing the obscene squalor that apartheid rule
And Pakki-bashing, muggings, National Fronts,
Uneasy Shaloms wail round Israels walls,
And dispossessed new lost tribes grieve for home.
Race-lines on maps are never my frontiers
I know no boundaries on man made stars.
“THIS IS MY DOMAIN”
Brooding, I watch it shift and change,
Illusion-fettered by what men call Time,
Out of my mind, from the primaeval seas
Something to struggle, something to climb
Onto the land, eons later the trees
Until, as but my concept can,
Painfully down from his tree came Man.
A later eon, a later tree
In love I let men murder Me
In love I let them day by day
Pursue their dangerous foolish way
If I saw Time as mankind sees,
My heart would break at sight of trees
And if my thoughts were as men’s thoughts
My mind would snap at sight of men.
Love would hate and truth would lie
And I, the living God, would die!
BUT IT’S NOT SO! said God.
“It is Your domain”, the poet said
“But it seems You reign differently too,
More like presiding over a republic
Over ruled by the Congress of men???”.
“ I like my poets” God’s voice was sad,
“They have often been the only voice I had,
To whisper with!”
onthepathleasttraveled 