The time spent quietly comes to its end It's been another year of pleasant enough living Having found my best habits and friends And it has been another year of peacefully giving
But in truth it has been yet another year gone past As yet, the new one worries some as it begins We prepare to sail this journey before the mast And my eyes mist up as I steadily study the winds
We've arrived at the Year of the Wood Dragon It arrives with the mists of a morning's gentle rain It is a spring's mist that comforts my imagination I look forward with peace on the future it contains
It brings rise to a weary world's natural confidence It arrives with creative determination spent in diffidence Almost infinite in its self-worth, it comes with diplomacy Like life's tree reaches for the sky and builds its legacy
This is the fifth of the 12-year-long cycle of cosmology With its five elements serving as a balanced philosophy The green dragon brings forth both expansion and power While we chase our dreams past the turn of the hour
The dragon is an emblem of benevolent divinity It is the nature deity that dominates Chinese mythology The dragon is the most desired of the Chinese bestiary Through its rebirth, it comes as a self-fulfilling prophecy
Dragons rise and phoenixes take to their flight Bringing rain to the earth's center through the night It is the fifth cardinal direction bringing a perfect harmony Let us rest between the yin and the yang for all of eternity
(c) February 9, 2024 Michael Doyle All Rights Reserved
“If it be asked, What is the most sacred duty and the greatest source of our security in a Republic? The answer would be, An inviolable respect for the Constitution and Laws — the first growing out of the last. … A sacred respect for the constitutional law is the vital principle, the sustaining energy of a free government.” – Alexander Hamilton (1794)
Open up your eyes and see Look into the new horizon The morning light brings possibility Shining on without corruption
The purity of this new day Lies in your hands to be made The rain may fall along the way But don't hide away or be afraid
Northern shadows in the woods Whisper the way in your ears Let truth be known and understood Light prevails against darkness and fears
Running with the stars we seek and find Like our childhood, we are leaving home We must keep our past and yet leave it behind Walking with our ancestors, we're never alone
Bound together hand in hand It is not and won't be too late Compassion is required to understand How to love and forget how to hate
Once it was the future, now it's today The darkness does not always need to win Believing in ourselves, we'll find the way The morning light arcs to begin again
(c) February 8, 2024 Michael Doyle All Rights Reserved
“If we desire to avoid insult, we must be able to repel it; if we desire to secure peace, one of the most powerful instruments of our rising prosperity, it must be known that we are at all times ready for war.” – George Washington (1793)
We lose ourselves in life's false accusations Falling into fear before the wicked prosecutions These are the lessons learned in life's school Like pearls before swine in a misapplied golden rule
No one loses purity at the and hands of others As force is used to inflict separation on one another Something is gained as followers of that better name That brings us to beauty despite love's forlorn lane
The beauty of a love that cover the heart in paradise Even as wounded hearts see Hell with their own eyes Healing hands touch hands as if searching for something Praying that we don't give and allow life to become nothing
As sacred as this life is of which we adore and sing Birthing new life with the love that God lovingly brings It covers over a multitude of our most complex sins And this is how the love of sacred life humbly begins
These moments of true love call for sacrifice Even as we gather the courage to live life This life's path is meant to be made kind There are the heart songs seen even by the blind
(c) February 7, 2024 Michael Doyle All Rights Reserved
“I think our governments will remain virtuous for many centuries; as long as they are chiefly agricultural.”– Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to James Madison (1787)
Pulling On the Heart Songs (of the Blind) by Michael Doyle
Those with blinded eyes only know darkness And yet stand firm from life's harshness The pain that finds its awkward way Attempting to conceal the hope of a new day
Even still, there is an exchange of kindness That somehow provides sight beyond blindness These are the golden moments each life is given As we, the fatally flawed, walk this life unforgiven
There are pains in life that make us hideaway We attempt to cover our vanity and ugliness away Until the tears in our eyes hold our truth there And the wounded seek to be lost in a fabled nowhere
The nowhere that becomes a bottomless pit Of unpleasant truths shown to those who cannot forget The abandoned heart prays only to find its home It's the precious dream of nothing being alone
A broken heart seeks mostly to finally understand As we wander life's path, meandering hand-in-hand We hide together from all of them, every single one All those pretenders of virtue who wish innocent lives done
(c) February 6, 2024 Michael Doyle All Rights Reserved
Heading out of Australia to escape this Aussie winter. First stop Japan, then UK/Ireland and if work doesn't call me back, onto Chicago. I will make it up as I go along
