Blue Skies Are For Everyone

Sorry but this poem definitely needs this introduction.

One of my bestest friends Aaron, just got back from a mission trip to Peru. They built a house, well actually a shanty, for a homeless family. They also took gifts and supplies to an orphanage where they stayed and bonded with the children for a little over a week. Aaron is a great guy anyway but you can just tell this experience has changed his life.

Anyways, he showed us these pictures of him and a little girl he met standing alone watching a pick up soccer game in an area where it's quite common for people to just abandon their children. She wasn't part of the orphanage and she didn't speak English so Aaron's only connection with her was a game of catch with an old ball.

The poem of course is just my interpretation of something that happened a world away and though I fear it's not, I hope that the reality is much better.



Blue Skies Are For Everyone

She won't speak of the night when she sleeps alone
on the stones with dreams she doesn't understand

She just wants you to throw her the ball
so maybe she can catch a piece of who you are

She finds it in your smile as you find in hers
things you have in excess are things she's never seen

But for that one frozen moment in the journey
you are connected by the ball that hangs between

And of all you want to give her before you go
tears will remind you there is nothing that you can

She's not thinking of tonight when she'll sleep alone
on the stony ground where the shivers keep warm

She runs off to dream of things you've seen
while you wonder just who's life was changed

And later in the day the clouds part for the Sun
Gently reminding: God made blue skies for everyone

When We Rode Stars

Strange Photographs

I am only aware that my feet are cold
bit by bit as I make my way bit by bit
shuffling toward the blur reaching back
hand me my prescription and urge me on

I understand what she says better than her
so why can't I fix me - this broken tool
Hammering the future with past nails
I'm losing what I was in the white noise

And as the snow lays in my dreams
God lays the white quilt over all we've done
but in my wake the field is parched
nose to the glass I forgot the smell of rain

My feet are so cold in this icy grass
strange breezes whip and wail and tease
into my tender ear alle alle auch sien frie
all I ever wanted is to fall down and cry

I realize the pictures I've taken aren't mine
The people I've been are only ghosts
my spirit watches me from somewhere else
and the mist in the laurels have yet to decide

Inverted

There is a switch in every human
operating purpose
random moments approach and fade
and once in a great while... collide
Sometimes the breaker is thrown
bumped and blown by an uncaring
yet infinitely affected world
In many more an instance
the button is merely grazed
by chance careening into self
leaving unchanged
Fairness does not exist
in the natural place
nothing is deserved
and we'll never get it right
that we've all got it wrong
In the rarest of cases
a man might find that switch
be it through his own pain
or that of someone else
and want to give instead of earn
no longer slave to the fear of loss
toiling not to gain
but gaining through his purpose
the smallest light shining through
while the rest of us remain
unaware, inverted

monday january 12, 2009