Speaking of paradigms outdated It turns out trees are overrated This thought comes I am knee-deep In a prairie's secrets to keep
In the verdant landscape, songbirds sing Providing a soundtrack to the blessed things Dancing blue granma and sand dropseed Trace the passages prairie dogs quietly read
Once upon 80 million years ago The first shoots of grass began to grow An odd weed vying for room on the forest floor Flowing into impossible numbers hard to ignore
Homo sapiens arose from this as a grass people Where savanna skies formed our first steeple Today, the suffering of grave damage brings a decline Disposable as grasslands hoping for a sign
Arboreal chauvinism flows in a tyranny of trees Truly needed velds are ignored amidst the pleas As waist high golden-grass shimmers in its waves A pendulum swings like a scythe across the graves
Of a world that seeks protection beyond all cost Not knowing what to do to preserve it before its lost The grasslands that hold the secret in their soil And without which it matters little how man might toil
Against the slow-motion tug-of-war that chases The ebb and flow of forest and grassland traces Each is overturned in a narrative of human destruction That offers the present and future its instruction
As it turns out in the true history of procession There is not a naturalness nor one way succession In its biome awareness, there are lessons of disparity That only recently has come to be known in clarity
Despite the seeming sameness of apparent simplicity The native grasslands are true bastions of biodiversity Like the tip of the proverbial iceberg, it's the roots Meaning as much as flowers blooming like cheap suits
Fires are for the savanna as the rains for the forest Each has it's ways and needs that thrive in this contest Life around the world finds its way past its vulnerability As each grass blade turns as if to stress its capability
A sea of green is transformed into a technicolor of flowers That brings the glory to the glorious of this finest hour There's a little of this left for those who care to see Out beyond the cities and forests are the history of prairie
This then is not simply something disposed of as a big empty It is the pages of the past unraveled in surviving prairie That must be allowed to be conserved, restored, and to grow If we, as to humanity, are to get past the ugly and truly know
(c) July 25, 2022 Michael Doyle All Rights Reserved
“Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been and ever will be pursued until it be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit.” – James Madison (1788)
All around the world of praise The hands of glory lift and raise Souls filled with challenges met Have no time or need for regret
Serving our part in the glory Doing our best to live by the story In looking like Jesus in our journey Doing what it takes takes to serve free
Received as savior in our walk Living against the resistance without balk But in acceptance of the endless trials These are best met with firm smiles
No one hit wonders but standing that test Convenience is nice but we're at our best When we take up the cross in obedience To the Lord who gave His all without lenience
Beware the Devil who lives as our adversary Who along with the world can be quite contrary Refusing to yield to our fleshly needs When we need grace to overcome the life we lead
The one commonality in all of our problems Is not so much the multiplicity of sins But ourselves met in the mirror so clearly As the center of all is our own duplicity
This self is where the restoration begins And our own owning up is when repentance wins It isn't the dreams but the dreamer who decides In this life, there are no truly free rides
Too often, we give away to living in fear Instead of awareness of the need to persevere Living as a Christian will be no stranger To this world that has its fill of danger
There will be pressure points felt But the ace in our hole beats any hand dealt Live what we profess to rise above Sanctified in the freedom of God's faith and love
Living not by our kinds of banners But living life as a display of manners Remembering that God is above us all And keeping this knowledge at our recall
(c) July 24, 2022 Michael Doyle All Rights Reserved
“Nothing is so contagious as opinion, especially on questions which, being susceptible of very different glosses, beget in the mind a distrust of itself.” – James Madison (1790)
“Words, when written, crystallize history; their very structure gives permanence to the unchangeable past.” – Francis Bacon, essayist, philosopher, and statesman (1561-1626)
“We ought to consider what is the end of government before we determine which is the best form. Upon this point all speculative politicians will agree that the happiness of society is the end of government, as all divines and moral philosophers will agree that the happiness of the individual is the end of man.” -John Adams, Thoughts on Government, 1776
It used to be that all it took was a remembrance Of what used to be and now is turned into encumbrance Summoning a piece of the city that used to exist When what was before is turned into what persists In the mind, aching like a heartbreak from before But as you turn on the street, it exists no more
Like two twin towers arched across the skyline And are now gone in all but a memory, like friends of mine Now since the pandemic, the wounded cling to what's gone Yet eager to move past this, New Yorkers wish to move on Staring up into the skies for the last star of dawn The heroes of tomorrow are often those left to carry on
Cynicism and forgetfulness forge the future for many There are so few left even hopeful of having an epiphany In a place where a collective form of amnesia clasps Around 40,000 memories were stricken down by poisoned asps That came without any visible sign or clear warning Only to leave the souls of this city lost in mourning
The pandemic is not gone and it has no final end date This leaves so many wondering what will be their fate The battle for finding any hope is fought within self It is carried on in whispers and no wisdom from the shelf Will see the survivors through stripped of grief of memory Because death itself has become the thing of living legacy
Still, as nights go on, there is warmth yet to be found Love, dreams, and magical things still somehow abound In this steel-girded city studded deep inside the concrete There is a world meant to be explored and traveled by feet All of this is shared in a city of strangers turned into family And yet distrust has turned faith into its first casualty
The spirit of America stands lonely ill-spoken as if a homily As if a footnote in the textbook written in sentimentality About a time and place where a melting pot was once believed in And a church mouse quietly prays for belief in this once again Waiting for a rusted ferry to sink while survivors learn to swim Grasping for a moment's hopeful light in this world grown dim
A mind's melodic memory is accompanied by a rhythmic beat Words suggest that somewhere out beyond the city's heat That there is something to live and die for and it is better Out beyond the neon lights is a God that is a respecter Of those who live righteously and boldly speak of living virtue Regardless of all the world has done and the Devil's own due
Abstractions pile up and the plot twists into dissatisfaction While thinking persons and feelers blend into the contradictions The city's lights sparkle as if a gaudy glittering necklace New York yet remains as the New York and as if no other place The affection that's the soul of this city still shines through For those who love New York, no other city will ever do
(c) July 22, 2022 Michael Doyle All Rights Reserved
“We lay it down as a fundamental, that laws, to be just, must give a reciprocation of right; that, without this, they are mere arbitrary rules of conduct, founded in force, and not in conscience” – Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the state of Virginia, 1782
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
