BROKEN

America is a joker.
Saying one thing,
Doing another.
Making crazy.
Crazy in our heads,
Crazy deep in our bones.

America puts bandages

Here, there, everywhere!
Then, rips them away
Revealing festering wounds.
Wounds that cannot heal.

Ghosts appear as fathers,
Founding Fathers with a
Galaxy of dreams.
Dreams for the few.
But what of the many?
Those who swirl for centuries in a
Kaleidoscope of smoke and dust.

Let me hear a trumpet!
A trumpet of hope.
Somewhere? Anywhere?
None to be heard.

 

I AM

I am human.

I am earth swirling for eons
amid galaxies of stars.

I am the cold moon, the fiery sun.

I am earth ripping apart
Pushing up mountains of majesty
Bursting with creation.

I am the ocean’s turbulent waves
Descending into crystal lakes of
Glittering calm.

I am the breath of wind
Sweeping across meadows
Gathering seeds of change.

I am healing forests
Standing tall for centuries
Holding wisdom.

I am consciousness.

I am love. I am hate.
I am human.

 

MYSTERY

It’s a lot to be known, known completely.

It’s a lot to be human.
Our nature often in flux.

One day, lightness
Another day, darkness
Then, something in between.

It’s a lot when mind, body, spirit
Splinter into broken pieces.

It’s a lot feeling dragged into a
Bottomless cauldron of darkness

It’s a lot when those same pieces
Come together rising like a Phoenix.

It’s a lot feeling the joy of release
Dancing on a pedestal of persimmon.

It’s a lot placing one foot on a floating petal,
Then another and another.

It’s a lot feeling lightness take hold
Obliterating all shades of the other.

It’s a lot to experience the beauty of life.

Connie Rinehart: “With a love of the human spirit and a passion for storytelling, I chose documentary film as a way to earn a living.  My skills were honed firstly in the edit rooms and then in producing for documentary television.”

From the I, Too, Am America Project, selected for publication in the Amplify US Literary Journal