Bluebonnets Bold

A few years ago I had the pleasure of driving through Texas when the Bluebonnets were in bloom. It is a visual experience and one to behold. And since April is poetry month and nearly at its close, I present this poem in honor to both. The Bluebonnets and the poetry.

Bluebonnets Bold

© 2010 Rolland G. Smith

Bold blossoms blue stand proud above their green,

They grow in strength and know their light is seen

By all who motor by or stop to gaze

Into this garden of wonder, a maze.

Color binds attention and form holds grace.

Attracting heart and spirit to this place.

The flowers stand as one and separate too,

As symbols of the noble ones, too few

Who comes to see and hold this place in love

Responding to an essence from above.

Sweet nectar is the wine of blossoms blue,

Sipping through the lips of zephyr's new.

Tell all who pass here, fast or walking by:

The fragrance of the flowers glorify

The spirit of the earth and nurtured seed

That blossoms into beauty when we need.

Bob O'Brien

I need to shout out to my old colleague and journalist Bob O’Brien. He died in his sleep yesterday, and anybody who has lived in New York City would know his name, his face, and his talent.

When I first met Bob, he was an excellent writer for anchorman Bill Jorgensen at Channel five WNEW-TV. He quickly became what we call in the biz, a “street reporter,” meaning you covered anything and everything assigned to you.

“Street Reporters,” were the “Factbooks” of the city, the ombudsman of neighborhoods and in many ways the conscience of the streets. They knew the people who lived and died on their streets and in their homes. They knew the precincts and the cops who worked there. They knew the borough administrators on a first name basis. They did their homework in and on the streets, which included bars and bodegas and they told the daily stories of life and dying.

Bob O’Brien was not only a great writer; he was an excellent reporter, presenter, colleague, and competitor.

He finished what he came here to do and has gone home. Would that we could all be as talented. Thank you for helping me that one night in 1970. I'll never forget it.

See you on the other side, Bob.

The Bells of Democracy

I have tried to distance my mind from Washington politics and our current president, BUT things happen, and then things need to be said.

The president was asked yesterday if he would pardon his lawyer Cohen. He responded that that was a stupid question. It may be a premature question since Cohen has not been charged with anything. It's not, however, stupid.

He pardoned Joe Arpaio. He pardoned Scooter Libby without the usual vetting Justice Department process, so the question is not stupid, it is the answer that rude for the office and arrogantly dismissive.

At a state dinner for the President of France, no congressional leadership Democrats were invited. No press invited as is the tradition. A state dinner is an honor from the "state of America" to a visiting dignitary. It should not be partisan gathering as Trump has made it.

I keep writing about the beauty of life and the joy of comforting observations, but every time I find solace in truthful grace, I get drawn back into the lies and distortion of Mr. Trump because I pay attention to what's happening in our nation and our world.

I know that some of you want and need to see the so-called draining of the political swamp. In many ways, I agree with you, but not with the diminution of our democracy.  Not with lies, distortions, and attacks on our sacred institutions. Our republic must be sustained with the clarion bells of truth, honor, tradition, inclusion, compromise, and courtesy. Without these foundations, democracy, as I remember it, loses.

Tulips Spring

Have you ever noticed how spring moves North? Somebody once said it comes North about 20-miles a day. I think it’s less than that, but it doesn’t matter. It depends on the jet stream and weather systems.

A few hundred miles to my South it’s already spring. It’s warm and colorful and aromatic. I drove through New Jersey yesterday, and the Forsythia was in bloom; not here yet.

Right now I am waiting for the blossoming of an old friend. It is a single red tulip near my front porch that comes back year after year. The leaves are there, but not the stem. When it blooms, I know its time to plant without worry of frost.

Tulips Touch of Spring
© 2011 Rolland G. Smith

A single Tulip near my porch
Ascends alone as crimson torch
To be the one by teaching all
That it’s alive long past the fall.
I read its thoughts within the red
And vowed to spread the message said:
It matters not where you abide
As long as you subside your pride
And be your blossom on the earth
As blessed by God’s just love and mirth.

Earthday 2018

Yesterday was a special day for each of us to go far within the recesses of thought and then into the canyons of reason that dwell in the vastness of our minds and rest for just a remarkable moment in the secret garden of our knowing.

It was Earth Day. Earthday is the acknowledgment of the elusive link between the illusion of earthy separateness and the reality of spiritual connection to all things.

I am delighted that humanity began the celebration of Earth Day on April 22, 1970. I was a television reporter in those days, and I remember covering the event and marveling at a positive gathering so different from the Vietnam War protests I’d been reporting.

When you can rest in the secret garden of your spirit, you will feel the inner-connection of all things, and if you stay there for a little while in meditation, you will see all the connections as pulses of soothing light. You will connect to the chlorophyll of plants, the flight of insects and birds, to the awareness of mammals and especially the knowledge of the earth herself.

Note a post by Benjamin Vogt in his blog entitled The Deep Middle about the similarities between blood and chlorophyll:

“…that the hub of every hemoglobin molecule is one atom of iron, while in chlorophyll it is one atom of magnesium.' Just as chlorophyll is green because magnesium absorbs all but the green light spectrum, blood is red because iron absorbs all but the red. Chlorophyll is green blood. It is designed to capture light; blood is intended to capture oxygen."

It is much like the science-fiction movie Avatar and its magnificent story of connections between the Na’vi people and their sentient environment.

Earth Day, if you can do nothing else, just say thank you. Nature will hear you.

A Memory of Barbara Bush

I  remember Barbara Bush’s touch and her voice.

Many years ago when her husband was ending his presidency, my wife Ann and I were invited to the White House for a Christmas Party. George H.W. Bush would be leaving the office in a few days when Bill Clinton would be inaugurated.

It was a great experience being there for a holiday party. I had been a White House Correspondent for Metro Media back in the early Nixon presidency, but this was different. I had anchored Mr. Bush in a town-hall kind of televised meeting during the campaign, and he had his staff invited Ann and me to one of the last shindigs at the White House.

The Christmas Party gathering had some broadcast notables invited as were Senators and Congressman and Bush administration cabinet members and administration appointees.

It was a wonderful experience for Ann and me. We did the usual walk-around greetings as we noshed and sipped our way around the festive public areas of the White House.

At one point Ann and I were in the middle of East Room listening to and singing the Christmas Carols the Marine Corp band was playing. It was just the two of us. As we were singing “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing” the President and Mrs. Bush joined us from behind. Barbara took my arm and the President linked with Ann’s arm, and the four us sang the Christmas carol.

When it finished, we chatted for a few moments and off they went to work the room, as the saying goes.

Rest in peace Barbara Bush. What I hear now are the Herald angels singing as you come home.

A Spirit Farm

Every once in awhile in our earthly travels we come upon a place of peace. It immediately resonates with our spirits, and we stand in awe, not only of what we are seeing but also of what we are feeling.

I visited such a place in Virginia quite a few years ago. It is called, “Finally There” farm.

I will share it with you in a poem.

Finally There Farm
© 2011 Rolland G. Smith

There is a farm called "Finally There."
Where nature spirits come to share
The truth of life where all is free
In new dimensions, few can see.

Soft mountaintops and rolling hills,
Let breezes dance on rocks and rills.
The cattle roam on grass serene
To dot the meadows: black on green.

There's something else 'bout Finally There
That's different and earthly rare.
There's peace and calm - tranquility
From all the places we can see.

Some souls will see a normal farm
Of scenic grace and natural charm.
But inner sight sees spirit's play
Within the valleys light bouquet.

Way Back when!

I wrote this as a blog post back in 2011, long before The Donald was a political name. Maybe I should have been more prescient.

"The Donald"

What is it about our country that encourages and supports, accepts and often actually believes the buffoonery of media hogs like Donald Trump.

There seem to be unfortunate axioms unbound in our land: money breed’s mega egos and celebrity sires megalomania.

Unfortunately, the media, these days, will follow the money and report anything that money says including statements without reason, assertions without fact and pronouncements as phony as the person saying them.

It’s not only The Donald who is saying untruths or promoting imaginary distortions to pander to partisan beliefs for his agenda, but a number of our elected politicians are also doing the same thing.

I think we as a democratic society are better than that. Truth, honesty, fairness, courtesy, compassion and common sense are the values that all of us embrace. These are the only attributes that should get candidates elected.

In the theatre, all drama must have some comic relief. I guess it's the same in the theatre of life.

You're fired Donald!"

Jobs are jobs! Some are profound.

Sometimes casual conversations provide a lesson in humility.

Some years ago I was a known public figure by being a local television anchorman in a large metropolitan market.

I was on the air delivering the news each weeknight at six o’clock and eleven O’clock and did so for many years.

On weekends, I would choose to get away to the mountains for relaxation in a reclusive environment. Sometimes my family would join me and other times I would go alone.

Late one Friday night after a newscast I drove alone to a mountain cabin, I stopped at a roadside tavern to pick up a six-pack of beer. I ordered the beer and said to the bartender I’d have a short one since I was only a few miles from my destination.

As he poured a small glass of draft with a creamy bead on it, the guy next to me said, “I know who you are.” I introduced myself and said, “thank you for tuning in from time to time.”

He said, “You have an interesting job.” I agreed with him. Then he said, “I do too.”

“What do you do?” I asked.

“I’m a garbage man.” He replied. Before I could say anything, he continued. “ I see more wonders of nature hanging off the back of a garbage truck than most people see in a lifetime.”

I listened with wonder and attention as I sipped my beer.

He said, “You know, there is one spot in all these beautiful mountains where you can see seven mountain tops from one spot. Not very many people know where that is. I’ll show you sometime if you’d like?”

I said, “ I would.”

We never did connect again. I’m sorry we didn’t for I would have liked to have known this fellow a lot better.

Poetry, yea Poetry

April is poetry month.
President John F. Kenned talked about poetry at the dedication of the Robert Frost Library. He said:

“When power leads man towards arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitation. When power narrows the areas of man’s concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of his existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses. For art establishes the basic human truth which must serve as the touchstone of our judgment.”

I would add to that…

Poetry precipitates emotion into words.

Poetry embraces the perceived pain of life and breaks it down into soft images of understanding, and it takes the joy of being and transcends it into a sustaining ecstasy of imagination.

It amplifies the specks of grace from the minutia of things beautiful and allows us to be it, if only for the moment of appreciation.

Poetry clarifies and sometimes condemns. It magnifies the inner magic of feelings and encourages the soul to rejoice in the shared awareness of another’s insight and makes it our own.

Poetry laughs and cries and brings the sensual into an undulating body of words, and it sometimes holds forever, an emotion long past, a desire forgotten, a wish remembered or a splendor that’s vanished in the illusion of time.

Poetry is a link to the Divine within each of us and the demons of our imagination. It allows introspection without pity and effacement without fear of obscurity.

It is intellect and spirit wedded in the sacredness of creation. I believe it is agape love at the purest verbal level.

Time Spent Waiting

I’m re-reading an excellent book entitled Waiting for Autumn by Scott Blum. I recommend it as a delightful story filled with allegory and fantasy.

The title engendered thoughts about waiting.

Someone is always saying to us "wait a minute" or "wait up" or "Wait for me." So we do! We wait for a minute or ten or a half hour.

Several years ago a systems analyst fed all kinds of waiting data into a computer and concluded that ordinary people get very abnormal when waiting in line. They get angry and irritable.

It's not just the line around the block that does us in. There are other kinds of lines, the ones formed in our mind. Waiting for someone to pay us the money they owe or waiting for teenagers to get home.

In some of the more prominent cities, you can pay people to do your waiting for you. Some supermarkets show commercials on a television monitor as people wait in line. Apparently, it works. They say when we wait we get bored. With boredom, we eat. It's no wonder wait, and weight sounds the same.

When the computer added and subtracted all of the waiting data, it came up with a surprising statistic. In an average lifespan, we spend up to five years, just waiting.

The Weekend

I’ve had a pleasant and comfortable weekend. I have played golf ever since I was a teenager and continue to enjoy the game albeit in a different level from when I was young. My attitude to and within the play has never changed. I am there to enjoy my friends, the day and the nature offered by the architecture of the course.

I spent the weekend glued to the Masters Golf Tournament. It is the quintessential tournament in the game and indicative, in many ways, of our global gestalt.

Master’s players were from many countries. China, India, Japan, Australia, several countries in Europe. It’s a United Nations of the sport. Golf is the only sport where you are your team. It’s individual against individual. It’s the only sport where fans keep quiet until the swing is finished. It is the only sport where courtesy and etiquette to your opponent is part of the game. It is the only sport where you call infractions upon yourself.

Would that we could get the world’s countries to do the same.

Wind

There is a mighty gusting wind striking and lashing my house. A front moved through earlier and trailed the pounding waves of turbulence in its wake. At 40 to 50 MPH it shakes the timbers and rattles the rafters.

Winds can be deadly, devastating, common and gentle. In any of them, you can't see it unless debris and dust give it form. Wind is a silent sleuth that quickly alters our security or soothes our nerves.

Throughout time we have given various types of wind names that have stayed and even been immortalized in song. Maria comes to mind from the musical Paint Your Wagon. The Santa Ana’s in California are destructive. Nor’easters in Northeast America are either blizzards or pelting rain. Tornadoes are everywhere.

In other cultures and places, the names of the winds are extensive.

Bise, a dry wind funneled over the Alps.
Mistral, a cold wind over the Mediterranean coast.
Brickfielder, a summer wind in SE Australia.
Sirocco, a hot, dry, dusty wind from the Sahara.
Chinook, warm air coming down the Rocky Mountains.

My favorite of all names is because of its gentle nature.

Zephyrs. May we have more of them in our lives.

Martin Luther King Jr.

I post this every year on his birthday because I honor the man, his ethics, his vision and his spirit. This year, this post is special. It is the 50th anniversary of his assassination.

Martin Luther King Jr.

© 1995 Rolland G. Smith

I had a dream the other night.
   And Martin Luther King was there.
He spoke in tones befit the wise
   And asked me if I’d share,
The news of how his dream came out,
   Since he had been away.

I told him times had changed somewhat
   But the dream was still a dream
And somewhere in these many years
   Was progress, or so it seemed.
Tell me, he said, what has happened,
   Since he had been away.

We’ve legislated out the hate,
   I said, but laws can’t touch the mind,
If bias reeks within the heart
   There cannot be a human – kind.
It’s still not true, he said,
   For he had been away.

And then he said, where he is now,
   There is no ONE color bright,
Not black or white, yellow or brown.
   There is only a loving light.
It’s the truth I lived, and live,
   He said as he went away.

April's Spring

We had a spring snow storm this morning where I live. Big heavy wet flakes coated the trees, bushes, branches, and benches. By the afternoon it was gone, thanks to the sun’s intensifying rays, that’s the nature of spring storms. The upper atmosphere is cold enough to make snow, but the surface is warm, so it doesn’t last.

Spring teases us like that for several weeks. An enveloping warmth one day and the next day near freezing, then warm again. It’s a lot like a theatrical drama. The exposition to let us know what season it is, then the rising action of interest and mystery of anticipation and character development and finally the climax of continuous warmth, called spring. You’d think we’d get used to it since it happens every year.

According to Kathy Galimberti of the AccuWeather staff, the first day of spring is celebrated differently in global cultures.

In Poland, a 16th-century tradition is to throw a large straw filled doll called a Marzanna into the river to drown a cold, dreary winter. The decorated dolls symbolize the end of winter.

In Bosnia spring is welcomed with the festival of Cimburijada. People gather for the celebration of scrambled eggs. Eggs are a symbol of new life, a new season; many hundreds are scrambled in big pots and given out for free.

I like Japan’s spring welcoming. During cherry blossom time people boat on the Imperial Palace moat and host parties under the blooming trees. The Japanese have been doing that in Tokyo for centuries.

Shakespeare’s sonnet 98 is my favorite spring acknowledgment.
“When proud-pied April, dress’d in all his trim, Hath put a sprit of youth in every thing…”

Easter Rebirth

In the northeast and elsewhere when winter wanes, and spring creeps in on sunny days with glacial melt, we have a visual arrival of a long-awaited season. Usually, the first gentle harbinger of spring is the Crocus. Plump rabbit ear-like leaves poke through a cracked soil of frost’s fissures and surprise the eye with green delight and soon colorful expectations.

Crocuses are the herald angels of spring. Their flowers come with the natural colors of Easter, yellow, lavender, purple, some in cream and others in white.

About thirty of the species are cultivated by us humans, including the “Crocus sativus.” If you like bouillabaisse and other Mediterranean dishes you can thank the Crocus. The pungent, robust flavor of Saffron comes from the flower’s stamens.

I have a couple of cherry trees on my property, and when I looked yesterday, the tiny buds were ready to splash into a pink splendor. Unfortunately, they don't last long, but their moment in the early spring is glorious.

In Japanese culture, the cherry blossom is symbolic of the beauty of life and also life's fragility. It reminds us that life is beautiful, but it is also short.

And so for this Easter season, I offer this observation of nature's grace. Enjoy the rebirth that lies just below the protective bark of winter and the spiritual renewal birthed in each personal faith validated by what we call the glory of spring.