“Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did, and it never will. Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue till they have resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they suppress.” – Frederick Douglass (1818-1895)
“If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one, subject to particular exceptions.” – James Madison (1792)
Everything Made Easier
by Michael Doyle
Everything is made easier with a breath
And the touch of your hand
I look into your soul and find the depth
That has always helped me to understand
It's there in our strength of connection
Seeing from your perspective forms the bond
You've always given me your true affection
And my heart beats quicker as I respond
Your eyes are your beautiful soul's revealing
I always want you to be by my side
I find myself happily immersed in this feeling
As our love approaches one another, arms open wide
Selflessly, we've come to agree and to forgive
Neither of us needing to be right
Letting go of history to truly love
We love again, renewed with every sight
(c) July 13, 2023 Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved
“Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm.” – James Madison (1787)
“The man dies in all who keep silent in the face of tyranny.” -Wole Soyinka, playwright, poet, Nobel laureate (b. 13 Jul 1934)
Mess Over Neatness
by Michael Doyle
Shall we live as Lucy or Linus
As a spreadsheet of plus and minus
Minimalism can be said to be neat
But life as messy has this beat
It is a deep-seated emotional need
That a life well-lived is one freed
From all the hassles of constraint
That neat-freaks pass along as restraint
The possessions that we keep say we were here
However clumsily these might actually appear
Strewn about and laying around, they hold our personality
Only the clutter remains of us eventually
The unused paperweight can hold our sentimentality
Depending on how long it's been in the family
Our mementos are flung into the corners of our rooms
Like life's tapestry woven on invisible looms
It's not a thrift store but a store room of the lost
That comes to us as presence of memory's faded cost
These bring the paraphernalia of all of our yesterdays
Into the future of what we find we cannot castaway
The possessions that we keep, say we were here
However clumsily these might actually appear
Strewn about and laying around, they hold our personality
Only the clutter remains of us eventually
Each of the objects that hold on as permanents
Have an unofficial reason and feeling like remnants
Reminders of past lives lived as we muddle through
The midlife passages that make us start anew
Braving the piles of all the sordid items collected
Can bring an afternoon of memories recollected
Cramming our spaces with the tokens never really be wrong
All of these traces we keep are where these belong
That possessions that we keep, say we were here
However clumsily these might actually appear
Strewn about and laying around, they hold our personality
Only the clutter remains of us eventually
(c) July 12, 2023 Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved
“What is it that affectionate parents require of their Children; for all their care, anxiety, and toil on their accounts? Only that they would be wise and virtuous, Benevolent and kind.” – Abigail Adams, letter to John Quincy Adams, 1783
“I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. ‘Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.” – Thomas Paine, The Crisis, No 1, 1776
Love Lives On
by Michael Doyle
Driving around the middle of the nation
Trying to stimulate my daughters' imaginations
And love for seeing the beauty of this nation
Like their grandmother would have; if the situation
Had somehow allowed this to follow
If she had thrived; but somehow I'm just a shadow
Of all that she could have been with her artist eyes
That would have painted every bend's surprise
Today marks the anniversary of her death
And it saddens me; taking away my breath
While at the same time, making me happy
As I realize that her soul is with us on every journey
I love their excited eyes as we go to explore
Kindling the fire of wanting to see so much more
As I retrace the steps, she would have chose to reveal
And once did for me, so many years ago, and still
I add my something of difference in their day
Realizing a garden of dreams along the way
Letting each blossom bloom as if meant
Into the new, maybe bolder dreams to be dreamt
Making lists of music, movies, and food to eat
That maybe they would have had, if they could yet meet
The artist and dreamer who once opened my eyes
To so many pleasures and happiness to my surprise
Wiping sleep and tears away from a young boy's eyes
Teaching me to love without remorse or compromise
And showing her son a world meant to explore
Looking for that something better and something more
I think of her on the anniversary of her too-soon death
How she looked up at me, even with her last breaths
Telling me that she was tired and filled with pain
And like my grandmother before, long for West Virginia's rain
I wonder if she's smiling that I shared this home
Driving through the rains of West Virginia, with them, not alone
But with the two hearts that she wished she had met
She whispered that it was one of her only last bits of regret
In the places we eat and places that we see
I feel a bit of my mom living yet still inside of me
As I watch my daughters' faces at these traces
Of their grandmother's memories and her traces
...And I know that love
... her love,
... lives on
And still I miss her with my falling tears
(c) July 11, 2023 Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved
“The influence of each human being on others in this life is a kind of immortality.” -John Quincy Adams, 6th president of the US (11 Jul 1767-1848)
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