quote: the big picture

Posted on May 8, 2022 by Herb Stone

Dedicated to everyone now facing great life challenges and worldly suffering including ill health, aging, separation from a loved one, personal loss, loneliness, waning faith and hope, and weariness, etc. You are not alone. I see you beloveds

Wizened, Wisened

Posted on April 29, 2022 by Herb Stone

poem: sitting at the hospital manifesting a healing

Posted on April 26, 2022 by Herb Stone

poem: sitting at the hospital
manifesting a healing

exiting the great facade
of the cavernous hospital
shaking off its stupification
stepping into the pristine light

bird sounds transport me
into the present moment
flower scents rife
in their perfumery awaken the soul

my morning nature walk
to the big pin oak tree
its gnarly bark rough to the touch
grounding my Body on the Good Earth

at the midpoint
reversing course back to the room
five minute cross legged sitting zazen
unclutters my Mind

connecting with the Heart chakra
energy of the Spirit flowing
through the body’s energy channels
filling our being with Love

Body, Mind, Spirit
re-balancing here and now
prepared for the new day
meeting it in each present moment

expecting a healing

Herb Stone
here&now working poetry
April 24, 2022

photos by author

Author’s note: Our sixth day of my
wife’s hospital stay, I am finally clear and able to express some of our experiences. We turn and open to the healing energy of
the Cosmos as well as utilizing her
professional care. Her rehab and healing
is challenging, slow, and promising. Our
hope to return home soon.

For you all, my dear friends! Loving one another 💓

Posted on April 17, 2022 by Herb Stone

Reflection: On Aging’s Bad Breaks

Posted on April 9, 2022 by Herb Stone

Reflection: On Aging’s Bad Breaks

My first two thoughts: we get plenty of ‘em, and aging is not for the timid.

My beloved wife fell this past Monday and fractured her ankle. A stumble and a fall in the blink of an eye. A good thing we were home, and she fell on the carpeted floor.

It is a bad break to fall in the fragility of our aging, and breaking a bone is just plain bad anytime. After writing my poem for Cathey, ‘I got you,’ suddenly I did not as I was too far away to catch her.

With the strength of our love, our deep trust in one another, and critically, a resilient sense of humor, we meet these challenges and those to come.

I love what Anne Lamont recently said on her Facebook page about turning 68. After opining what is left for those of us aging who have witnessed the foolishness, evil, tragedies, and suffering of the world, she says: “So what does that leave? Glad you asked: the answer is simple. A few very best friends with whom you can share your truth. That’s the main thing”, and “we look up. In 68 years, I have never seen a boring sky. I have never felt blasé about the moon, or birdsong, or paperwhites.”

Ah yes, in our aging, we cling to a few dear friends, sharing our truth and belonging, and looking up and around at the beauty surrounding us. Please send prayers and healing energy for Cathey and a good recovery for her.

We send each of you our love, gratitude, and appreciation!

poem: the poet in times of war’s calamitous uncertainty

Posted on March 25, 2022 by Herb Stone

poem: the poet in times of

war’s calamitous uncertainty

witnessing, entering the chaotic fray
with nothing but words of reality on the
ground and perennial truth of the ages

resisting the post-truth totalizing
systems of fascist lies and violence
of the powerful and controlling

oh, Liberty, perennially calling all
to live free of oppressive
tyrannical authoritarianism

bodily, directly, non-violently,
affronting the oppressor’s
indignities and injustices

with no assurance of personal safety,
soul bared, wounded healer,
lamenting, revisioning, transforming

more imaginative, true, authentic, holistic, just,
life-giving alternative counter dominant
cultural ways of being together in diversity

veritas vos liberabit

Herb Stone
here&now working poetry
March 24, 2022

Images: 1) ‘Ukrainian teacher bombed out of her apartment by Russians’ by Justin Yau/Sipa
USA, 2) ‘Maternity ward patient and her unborn baby killed by Russian attack on the hospital’ by Evgeniy Maloletke/ AP

Author’s note: ‘Veritas vos liberabit’ is latin for ‘the truth shall make you free.’

My poem is written a month after Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine and the continuing war resulting in approximately 5,000 Ukrainian civilian deaths, millions of refuges leaving their country, cities bombed to the ground, Russia commiting war crimes, and a very uncertain future for all. I wrote the poem remembering that poets through the ages have always been the bane of authoritarian tyrants, as poets, within the poetic tradition and the expressiveness of the poem, are prepared to reveal the darkness of war and tyrants, in ways that perhaps preachers, journalist, diplomats, heads of state, and others (except the survivors) are not able to do. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, poets are the only ones capable of articulating the transcendent nature of things by identifying ‘symbols’ and ‘emblems’ of the world. Thus we see a role of the poet as truth-bearer of the prophetic tradition.

poem: a lament for when loss and chaos overwhelm us

Posted on March 21, 2022 by Herb Stone

poem: a lament for when loss
and chaos overwhelm us

at times we find ourselves
struggling to follow that string
which runs in and through
the losses of old age, illness,
loneliness, and change, and
the worldly chaos of power,
control, violence, war, greed,
injustice, pandemics, and
calamitous uncertainty

trying to maintain hope
over the fear and anxiety
of personal and collective angst
rendering the mind
like runaway horses pulling
a chariot, the body like a
bag of bones, and the spirit
like a ghost, we are reduced
to a frazzled remnant of wholeness

until that time we turn around,
softly and gently opening our soul,
heart, and hands, carefully looping
that string which runs freely through
the loss and chaos of our lives
leading us to return to that place
which is our unchanging connection
to eternal Truth, Wholeness, and
Belonging

Herb Stone
here&now working poetry
March 14, 2022

image: block print, ‘Mary, the Untier
of Knots,’ by Kreg Yingst

poem: for the Ukrainian women in the black parka and scarf (I am signaling you through the flames)

Posted on February 28, 2022 by Herb Stone

poem: for the Ukrainian women
in the black parka and scarf
(I am signaling you through
the flames)

her blue eyes squint
from the sting of the smoke
flaxen hair covered with
a large white bandage
her high cheekbones
smeared with blood
lips searching for words
which do not come
hands extended, palms up,
crying out for justice

her weary visage
hangs in the ether
of eons haunting us
for the hundreds of million
war casualties from stones,
arrows, bullets, bombs,
humans cruelty and incarnate evil
fueled by human desires for
power and control always
resulting in violence

may her suffering
ignite in us
the awareness that
the line of peace and violence
runs through every human heart
asking our self: what is the mirror
of life holding up to us, what are
we creating and how is it creating us,
and what is it we intend to create
here upon this earth home

thus may the compassionate heart
of the enlightened mind overcome
the sovereignty of death culture,
such that in her suffering we lament,
embodying the life force and peace
in every breath, manifesting
peace is every step, our lips
perpetually chanting peace,
shalom, shanti, salaam, and our poetry
defeating the conqueror with word

in our third eye the bloodied woman
with her haunting blue eyes and flaxen
hair and high cheekbones transforms us all

Herb Stone
here&now working poetry
February 26, 2022

photo Wolfgang Schwan/Anadolu Images

Author’s note: It is with great respect I
credit quotes from my poem from other
master writers and master teachers.
The subtitle of my poem is a line from
the poem ‘Poetry as An Insurgent Art’
by Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Stanza three,
lines six through eight are by the writer
Mark Nepo and line nine and ten are by
the writer Gary Zukov. In stanza four
‘the compassionate heart of the enlightened
mind’ is a Buddhist teaching taught by many
including Sogyal Rinpoche, and ‘peace is
every step’ is a book title and teaching from
Thich Nhat Hanh. All of these writers and teachers
are masters of their art and should be read and
studied for their wisdom especially in the area of
peace and life viz-a-viz violence and death.

May be an image of 1 person and standing

poem: where is everyone?

Posted on February 21, 2022 by Herb Stone

poem: where is everyone?

the ninth of ten siblings,
high school cheerleader,
dancer in the band,
friend to all she knew,
aunt, wife, mother, grandmother

her dreams and memories
are filled with people
which she often
vividly remembers today
feeling their close presence

she will often ask:
where are the young ‘uns,
is everybody upstairs,
didn’t so and so spent the night,
isn’t there thirty in our group

beloved, just us two
old folks living alone;
others out on their own,
some living alone, others passing on,
where is everyone indeed

Herb Stone
here&now working poetry
February 18, 2022

photos: 1) the cheerleader
2) one of ten siblings front
row center (only nine are pictured)
3) Grandmomma

Author’s note: The elderly in our
society face multiple challenges
when it comes to remaining socially
engaged as we age. Perhaps first is
that our culture idolizes its’ youth and
encourages maintaining one’s youthful
attitude as long as possible into old age.
This negates the value elders may bring
to our culture such as seeing the world with
spiritual maturity and offering their wisdom
from long experience. Additionally, for many
as they age, there are factors leading to
increasing loneliness and social isolation.
Some of those factors include cognitive
conditions such as dementia and Alzheimers,
other worsening health conditions of
aging, living arrangements, and lack of
transportation, among other factors. We must
do better at forming inclusive, intergenerational
societies that value and bring dignity
to all regardless of age.

poem: soliloquy on aging

Posted on February 12, 2022 by Herb Stone

poem: soliloquy on aging

lately finding myself
taking some time off, slowing down,
being quieter, more still,
disengaging from daily routines,
in need of a hae’lan

it has been a long, harsh winter,
worldly challenges of apocalyptic malaise,
the ever present change of
aging, illness, loss, relationships,
community, belonging

not a single thing but a whole thing
needing time to face, and including
my shadow, imperfections, dis-ease,
slowing it down, fitting it all together
forming a new gestalt of Life (and death)

beloveds, yearning for restoration and
re-engagement, from this exilic journey,
to a new complementary perfection,
of authentic wholeness and holiness,
belonging together in radical grace and love

Herb Stone
here&now working poetry
February 10, 2022

photo: writing at my desk

Herb Stone, Poet and Author

Sharing my original poetry which encompasses topics that touch my heart and soul including spirituality, faith, theology, nature, authentic being and belonging, social justice, and social criticism.

Category Archives: suffering

quote: the big picture

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Wizened, Wisened

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poem: sitting at the hospital manifesting a healing

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Reflection: On Aging’s Bad Breaks

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poem: a lament for when loss and chaos overwhelm us

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poem: soliloquy on aging

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