“Knowing trees, I understand the meaning of patience. Knowing grass, I can appreciate persistence.” – Hal Borland
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Memory’s Connection
Memory's Connection
by Michael Doyle
Memory goes beyond mere collection.
Below the skin is the synaptic connection.
Life is weathered by the sun and the rain,
Until there is no awareness left in the brain.
Dementia is nature's worst solitude,
Alone in the night where emptiness intrudes.
Alzheimer's scraps away at the memory
Until you don't even remember your family.
Lost deep inside the valley where we forget,
Life has lost all meaning but that of regret.
Deep inside the eyes of the lost is the burn
Of thinking of how much a soul can unlearn.
One by one, though we try our best to trace,
One by one, we somehow forget the loving face.
The one we have known deeper than our very own,
Lost memories bruise us deeper than the bone.
Self-identity oozes away until it is gone entirely.
Grounded in feelings of touch, we lose our humanity.
It's inescapable how timelines collapse into a blur,
And fragments of thought can't quite form to occur.
Lost deep inside the valley where we forget,
Life has lost all meaning but that of regret.
Deep inside the eyes of the lost is the burn
Of thinking of how much a soul can unlearn.
Thoughts become tethered fractals of a tree
That rips out the core of what passed as memory.
It is a cruel world in which to be left alone,
We lose ourselves in a whirlwind twilight zone.
Plunging face first into this unbreakable wall,
The memories carried are not just what we recall.
It's for the kids and the hope to break the chains,
That the wounded refuse to slip down memory's drains.
Lost deep inside the valley where we forget,
Life has lost all meaning but that of regret.
Deep inside the eyes of the lost is the burn
Of thinking of how much a soul can unlearn.
(c) May 13, 2025 Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved
Posted in Poetry and Poems
Tagged Alzheimer's, Awareness, Brain, Bruise, Burn, Collection, Connection, Dementia, Emptiness, Eyes, Family, Forget, Fractal, Fragments of Thought, Huanity, Life, Loss, Lost, Love, Loving Face, Meaning, Memory, Poetry and Poems, Regret, Self-Identity, Soitude, Soul, Tether, Timelines, Touch, Trace, Unlean, Valley, Weathered
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First Principles: The Greatest Kindness One Can Render To Any Man Consists In Leading Him From Error To Truth
“The greatest kindness one can render to any man consists in leading him from error to truth.” – Thomas Aquinas
Posted in First Principles
Tagged Consist, Error, First Principles, Kindness, Lead, Mankind, Thomas Aquinas, Truth
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Thought For the Day: One’s Virtue Is All That One Truly Has, Because It Is Not Imperiled By the Vicissitudes of Fortune
“One’s virtue is all that one truly has, because it is not imperiled by the vicissitudes of fortune.” – Boethius
Posted in Thought For the Day
Tagged Boethius, Fortune, Imperiled, Thought For the Day, Virtue, Viscisitudes
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Hard In the Stumble
Hard In the Stumble
by Michael Doyle
It seems we are all morally inarticulate.
It was nothing that I thought to anticipate.
I'm holding on to constellations that won't speak,
No matter how much stardust begins to leak.
American depression has become today's obsession.
Drugs, alcohol, and suicide claim souls in succession.
In our age of conspiracy, trauma drives polarization
Into the numbing down of minds across our nation.
Finding myself starting to grumble,
I caught myself hard in the stumble.
Moving on like a modern Marlon Brandon,
I found myself sketchy like Picasso.
Circling back on all of my hesitations,
It was a moment filled with frustration.
How is it that it's not a movie scene?
I look around, and everyone's gotten too mean.
The social media grind constantly serves to remind
How far it is that we have gotten ourselves behind.
No one can afford to have an economy,
And even if they did, it wouldn't suit the sociology.
Maybe we shouldn't give our selfishness free rein.
It could be that doing so is where we are most insane.
A selfie-world doesn't lend itself to consideration
Of all the others that make up our American nation.
Finding myself starting to grumble,
I caught myself hard in the stumble.
Moving on like a modern Marlon Brandon,
I found myself sketchy like Picasso.
Circling back on all of my hesitations,
It was a moment filled with frustration.
How is it that it's not a movie scene?
I look around, and everyone's gotten too mean.
I don't know what I'm scratching for in advice,
Is it just the hope that we can become more nice?
Let's become the sort of people who show up for one another.
Let's remember we are sisters and brothers.
The morals of mankind are something of grave consequence.
Perhaps this is why it's more than sheer coincidence
Our founders focused on character in our society
And that we have forgotten this truth in all of our complexity.
Finding myself starting to grumble,
I caught myself hard in the stumble.
Moving on like a modern Marlon Brandon,
I found myself sketchy like Picasso.
Circling back on all of my hesitations,
It was a moment filled with frustration.
How is it that it's not a movie scene?
I look around, and everyone's gotten too mean.
(c) May 12, 2025 Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved
Posted in Poetry and Poems
Tagged Age of Cospiracy, Alcohol, American Depression, Anticipate, Circling Back, Constellations, Drugs, Frustration, Grumble, Hard, Health, Leak, Life, Marlon Brando, mental-health, Mind, Morally Inarticulate, Numbing Down, Obsession, Picasso, Poetry and Poems, Polarization, Relationships, Speak, Statdust, Stumble, Sucession, Suicide, Trauma, Writing
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First Principles: All Courses of Action Are Risky, So Prudence Is Not In Avoiding Danger (It’s Impossible), But Calculating Risk and Acting Decisively
“All courses of action are risky, so prudence is not in avoiding danger (it’s impossible), but calculating risk and acting decisively. Make mistakes of ambition and not mistakes of sloth. Develop the strength to do bold things, not the strength to suffer.” – Niccolo Machiavelli
Posted in First Principles
Tagged Act, Ambition, Bold, Calculate, Courses of Action, Danger, Decisive, First Principles, Mistake, Niccolo Machiavelli, Prudence, Risk, Sloth, Strength, Suffer
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Thought For the Day: Consider Your Origins: You Were Not Made To Live As Brutes, But To Follow Virtue and Knowledge
“Consider your origins: you were not made to live as brutes, but to follow virtue and knowledge.” – Dante Alighieri
Posted in Thought For the Day
Tagged Brute, Consider, Dante Alighieri, Follow, Knowledge, Live, Origins, Thought For the Day, Virtue
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Stumbling Stones of Salvation
Stumbling Stones of Salvation
by Michael Doyle
To deprive the world would be like violence.
If preachers were to keep this in their silence,
Not allowing the people to hear an explanation
About God's grand plan to provide us salvation.
With boldness, we speak the word.
In its clarity, refusing to allow its being blurred.
Stepped out in all of its holy legacy,
God's truth is revealed within the human family.
Transformative in faith and in our confession,
We, the believers, are encouraged to take possession
Of the whole truth of Jesus's revealing gospel.
We, the faithful, must openly speak and reveal.
God's view of all things known in Christianity
Is one of a message of completeness and continuity.
All things are worked together for the holy and the good.
This is what needs to be entirely understood.
In humanity's struggle to move into enlightenment,
We often consequently neglect the need for acknowledgment
That the fulfillment of God's underlying story
Is only found in the profession of the Lord as God's glory.
It is in this open confession that all of humanity
Finds itself on the divine path to our sanctuary.
This was given to us through Christ's crucified dignity.
And still, we struggle with giving God His sovereignty.
In this single great act, the Messiah became our foundation.
The earth trembled as it groaned its faith bringing explanation.
Though rejected for not meeting the hypocrites' expectations,
It turned out to be man, not Jesus, who needed an explanation.
The children of God are comforted in their sorrow.
There will be joy to be found in every new tomorrow.
At the heart of the message is our Lord's resurrection.
All heads bow; some still know Heaven's good direction.
Because of this, we place our trust in our heavenly Father,
While taking a cool drink out of His holy, living water.
From this, we find that despite our troubles, we have our release,
And from this release, we find our way to heavenly peace.
(c) May 11, 2025 Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved
Posted in Poetry and Poems
Tagged Bible, Bold, Christianity, Clarity, Explanation, Faith, God, God's Grand Plan, Gospel, Holy Lecay, Jesus, Poetry and Poems, Preachers, Salvation, Silence, Struggle, Stumbling Stones, The World, Transforative, Violence
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Thought For the Day: The Loveliest Masterpiece of the Heart of God Is the Heart Of A Mother
“The loveliest masterpiece of the heart of God is the heart of a mother.” – St. Therese of Lisieux
Happy Mothers Day!!
First Principles: It Is With Your Heart That You Believe and Are Justified, and It Is With Your Mouth That You Profess Your Faith and Are Saved
“For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.” – Romans 10: 10
Posted in First Principles
Tagged Faith, First Principles, Justified, Mouth, Profess, Romans 10:10, Saved, Your Heart
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