Wisdom Revolution: Trying Something New

Wisdom Revolution: Trying Something New
A Re-creation* of "Writing in the Dark" by Denise Levertov

A universal truth
Shouted with urgency
To the tumbling toddler
Is not heard

The same universal truth
Shouted with the same urgency
Leaves the child confused

Then, with the consciousness,
The inevitable, stark awakening
Of adulthood's challenges
The light in the dark is rediscovered



*Re-creation as described in Teaching Literacy for Love and Wisdom: Being the Book and Being the Change by Jeffrey D. Wilhelm and Bruce Novak, "[Participants] are first read a short poem; then, as it is read again, they circle the words that resonated with them; finally, they write their own poems, in 2 1/2 minutes, the time [Gabriele] Rico has found optimal for creativity" (Page 60).  It should be noted that in between circling words that resonate and writing one's own poem, there is a clustering stage in which participants use free association to write down words they connect the words they circled in the poem.  This clustering technique was also developed by Gabriele Rico.

Humanity's Loss of Humanity

Humanity's Loss of Humanity

The bottom line
The bottom dollar
And beneath that the hard-working
Never-quitting
Forsaken squalor
They pull at their sabotaged bootstraps
Pulling for falsified possibilities
Buried beneath
By the cold calculations
That equal humanity's loss of humanity

To See and Be Unseen

To See and Be Unseen

My look unknown
My gaze unseen
I've never looked through her
Because I can't
I can't see passed my future
I can't see beyond my heart
My love
My world
I cannot lift my eyelids
Without the strength she gives me
I cannot dance
Without her song
I cannot hope
With her gone
Absent from her mind
I know it may never be
That I find a place in her heart
This truth
Puts the sadness in one eye
And hope in the other
When they close
The battle between them
Is made known only to me
As it should be
My challenge faced alone
My struggles battled alone
My fate challenged alone
I open my eyes
And face the next day
With hope and sadness
Keeping me continued

Cascading Tapestry of Mindless Thought

Cascading Tapestry of Mindless Thought

I once had a thought
A thought that refused to leave
A thought that refused to be
Another stitch in the tapestry
The intricacy
The delicacy
Of my complicated mind
It was the thought
That gave way to the river
At times too fierce
That gave way to the stream
At times too calm
It was my first defeat
My first triumph
My first thought

Between the Lines

Between the Lines

In between the lines not yet written
Are the secrets not yet stolen
By the light of truth
And decay of time

History: The Living Legacies

History: The Living Legacies

Once alive, living
Once passed, remembered
And once those who remembered have passed
Once here, but now forgotten
This is the legacy of most
And this is not a curse
No ripple makes it from the center
To the end
Most don't even start in the center
Multiple ripples made all at once
A collection of legacies
Become our collective history
Both in and out of the written pages