Michelle Garren Flye's Blog, page 44
February 25, 2019
Poem: Red Sky Vow
[image error]I’ve been thinking a lot about the nature of the promise. Like the old saying, “Red sky at night, sailors’ delight.” How do we know a red sky at night means clear sailing? Because nature makes a promise and actually follows through.
This year I’ve decided to depend less on others’ promises to me and more on my own promises to myself. Promises from outside entities may never become reality. I am the one in charge of promises to myself. Michelangelo agreed with me, evidently. He said:
“The promises of this world are, for the most part, vain phantoms; and to confide in one’s self, and become something of worth and value is the best and safest course.”
Was he right? Undoubtedly. We cannot depend on the “world”, whether that be our government, our friends, our schools or our churches. What really matters is the promises we make ourselves—more specifically the promises we make to ourselves that we keep.
Nature, after all, does not make its red sky vow to us. It makes it to itself. Tomorrow, it tells itself, I will make a beautiful day. And that vow shows in its beauty that it will be followed through on.
I’ve made myself a vow to reach beyond my comfort zone and try things I’ve never tried because I thought I couldn’t do them. I’ve promised myself when things are wrong in the world, I’ll do what I can to make them right. My promises are not to others. They are to me.
The result is a kind of red sky in my own soul. I’ve written a children’s book though I’ve always sworn I’m not smart enough to write for children. I’m taking singing lessons because, in spite of a lifelong love of music and singing, I’ve never thought I could sing—but I can, at least a little. I’m not as tone deaf as I thought. I’m writing poetry and I’m speaking out instead of shrugging things off. It feels right.
What red sky vow could you make?
Red Sky Vow
By Michelle Garren Flye
Make a red sky vow today.
The power comes from within.
Tomorrow is the promise—
A better and brighter day;
The end of rain, the sun will shine.
Follow through comes from you—
Light the candle of your vow,
Watch the air brighten and clear.
A red sky vow is one you make yourself
And fulfill for the good of your soul.
February 21, 2019
I’m Building an Army of Daffodils (poem and pictures)
With great respect for Emily Dickinson
I’m Building an Army of Daffodils (with pictures as proof)
By Michelle Garren Flye
[image error]I’m building an army of daffodils.
It grows larger every day.
New recruits swell the ranks,
Bursting to take up the fight.
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You’d think they’d be frightened,
But slender stems are strong,
And I’ve found them guarding
The most dark and unfriendly places.
[image error]Time and toil cannot dim golden rays.
Weather cannot bring them down.
I’m heartened by their constant grace,
Humbled by their passing allegiance.
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February 14, 2019
Crazy Little Thing Called Love (with a poem)
[image error]Happy Valentine’s Day! A day dedicated to this crazy thing called love.
But why “crazy”? you ask. What do you mean by that?
Because nobody knows what causes it. And you risk ruining it by examining it too closely.
Because what else could it be but crazy to open your heart and show someone else what’s in it?
Because loving someone—or something—is the biggest risk you can ever take. If they don’t fail you, the world might. Life happens all around us every single day. And it happens to all of us in different ways all at the same time.
Because if you let love into your heart, it will take up all the space there—and if life happens to the subject of your love in a way that takes it away, the emptiness might just become a black hole that sucks you into the void.
So why, then? If it’s such a big risk, why do we do it? Why do we search for love? Why do we willingly plunge into the risky waters of love?
No one knows. And certainly no one knows better than the poets that no one knows. In his aptly titled poem “Poem”, e.e. Cummings said:
love is the voice under all silences,
the hope which has no opposite in fear;
the strength so strong mere force is feebleness:
the truth more first than sun more last than star
I like this and I feel like it comes closer to identifying the what and the why better than anything I’ve ever read. It’s like “The Force” in Star Wars. Love underlies everything, is everything, the one superhuman strength that you can’t really identify but it’s really there. It makes us stronger and weaker at the same time.
Love—whether it’s for parent, sibling, child, spouse, pet or all things—is the way we connect most intimately with the world. The more we feel, the closer we are to the universe. The more we open ourselves up to love, the more risk we are willing to take for the love—the more fragilely strong we become.
A Million (and 1) Things to Love
By Michelle Garren Flye
Where is love?
Songs simplify,
Poems complicate.
But love is there.
Reach for it.
The love of saving,
The love of believing,
The love of finding.
Love fleeting,
Love flying,
Love staying.
The world is full.
All around you, things to love.
Objects for affection.
A cat, a dog, a child.
A rose, a plant, a sunset.
A soul mate for the very lucky.
Hope will find love.
Trust will strengthen love.
Faith will keep love safe.
Reach for it.
Hold it tight in your heart—
And hope it doesn’t
Break
You
Open.
February 8, 2019
A Million Zillion Liberal Dreams
Yesterday I thought a lot about the new liberal progressive Democrats and their “Green New Deal”. Though I’ve always considered myself a moderate Democrat, it seems to me that this Green New Deal makes all kind of sense. New jobs, new infrastructure, eliminating carbon from our energy sources.
Once upon a time our nation would have embraced what now seems outrageous to so many.
As usual, I had music on when I figured out something major. And the music contributed to the resounding “click” I heard in my head. This time I was in the car, and Pink’s version of “A Million Dreams” from The Greatest Showman came on. And…click
Why do poets and artists tend to be more liberal?
Why are so many liberals poets and artists?
(Click) We are dreamers.
It’s true. We dream of what could be or we let what is haunt us. We dream of change. We dream of life and love and liberty for all. We are patriots who believe our country can be better, and we can make it so.
We have a million, zillion dreams, and yes, they keep us up at night.
My ruminations left me with two questions, though.
1. Why is the Democratic Party afraid to own their dreams? Why not just say, yes, this is who we are and what we want, and we know we can get us there?
2. Why is everyone so afraid to dream these perfectly reasonable dreams that will benefit everyone in our country and the world at large? If we have a million, zillion dreams, there’s room for everyone in them, isn’t there?
Advice for Democrats running on a liberal agenda: Own your dreams. Stop apologizing for them. A Green New Deal is a dream worth fighting for.
What dreams do you have that are worth fighting for?
I am Liberal
By Michelle Garren Flye
We are
(Liberal)
Dreamers.
We stay awake
At night imagining
What we can be.
What you can be.
We are
(Liberal)
Believers.
We believe the world
Can welcome all.
A place for us.
A place for you.
We are
(Liberal)
Reformers.
We own our mistakes
(And yours) and fix them.
For your future.
For our future.
We are
Dreamers
Believers
Reformers
Imaginers
Romantics
Visionaries
Advocates
Innovators
Environmentalists
Activists
Scientists
Artists
Poets
Crusaders—
Liberals.
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For tomorrow—photo by Michelle Garren Flye
February 1, 2019
Poem: Pinned
Pinned
By Michelle Garren Flye
Pins hurt, I remember. Pins stick in your skin when you put on a new shirt without checking. Crimson stains on ivory.
Why pin each other, then? Why pin those we love? Stay here. That’s your spot.
It hurts.
Why pin those unlike us? Stick them with scarlet letters. You’re not us. Stay away.
It hurts.
We do it anyway. Jab into flesh until blood comes. Pins like Judgment, like nails on the cross. Us. Other. With us, against us. Pins line up, sharpened stakes to keep us in or push us out.
I hold one in my hand, a dagger to slash and judge. Watch. The blood waits, pulsing, just beneath the sin.
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January 30, 2019
Poem: For Tom (broken)
One of my heroes made the news for the wrong reasons this week, bringing home to me that all of us become less relevant as we age. Even the great ones.
For Tom (broken)
By Michelle Garren Flye
Don’t speak too loudly.
Stay out of their way.
Their edges are sharp and they will cut you,
Force you to retreat, retire.
Your own edges are worn—
Who is impressed by Woodstock anymore?
You didn’t win your wars.
Vietnam, civil rights.
Even the drug war is left for this generation to fight.
Compassion is round
In your hands, but
It turns flat in theirs—and shows only one side.
That side has edges
And they are used to cut.
So be careful, stay silent, keep clear and beware.
For the round and the soft,
The worn and the frayed
Have no place in the edgy world of the young.
January 23, 2019
Despairing of Toxic Humans
He’s witnessed a lot. What would his social media status be?
Albert Einstein said, “We cannot despair of humanity, for we ourselves are human.”
Of course, Al didn’t live in the age of social media, did he?
By now, everyone has seen video of the MAGA hat-wearing Catholic kids making fun of the Native American elder who may or may not be a Vietnam veteran. And everyone has an opinion. Some say the kids are at fault, others the African American men who hurled insults at them because they were wearing MAGA hats.
Personally, I find fault with everyone involved in that situation, including myself. And I was several hundred miles away when it happened.
Just to be clear here, the kids from Covington Catholic were absolutely behaving badly. Toxically. Their parents should ground every last one of them for disrespecting their elders.
With that said, however, those kids were mirroring not only what they were seeing right then, but also, probably, what they see at home and at school. The evidence for this? The chaperones did not interfere. By not interfering, they okayed the behavior of these kids. I’m not sure why anyone is surprised by this. They are from Kentucky, the lovely state that gave us Turtle Man McConnell, the most toxic human being in government.
Add to that the horrible behavior of the other adults on the scene, and you can see what these kids are up against. And then some idiot adult edited the video to make it look like the teenagers were the only ones misbehaving and idiot adults like me were outraged and posted and reposted on social media.
The truth of what happened on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial is that everyone was behaving badly. There are no martyrs here. And I really wish the adults would own up to their bad behavior and set a better example, because condemning kids for following the super bad examples they see from adults is going to get us nothing but more toxic adults.
Of course, Einstein also reportedly said, “Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity.” So maybe I shouldn’t hold my breath where humans are concerned.
January 17, 2019
Poem: No Pain (for the Jerks)
No Pain (for the Jerks)
By Michelle Garren Flye
It’s little things.
Playground things.
A hard bump
Instead of a pass.
A mocking word
Like a tiny barb.
A whisper, a lie,
A rumor spread
Like stinky cheese
On a wilting cracker.
It’s dumb things
That shouldn’t matter.
A missing invitation
To a birthday party.
Picking me last
For every team.
Just bullshit really.
Nothing that hurts.
You can’t make me cry.
I’m too tough for that.
I don’t cry when
The leaves fall.
I don’t weep when
Rain thunders down.
I don’t mourn the
Wilting dead flowers
By the walk.
How could neglect
Pierce my heart, then?
Why would contempt
Cause me grief?
Or cruelty sadden me?
I feel no pain.
I feel nothing at all.
“Reflection” Photo by Michelle Garren Flye
January 2, 2019
Bite-size philosophy and me
Today’s world and politics often inspire a fit of philosophy in me as I try to make sense of what is happening and how to deal with it. –photo by Michelle Garren Flye
I’m a closet philosopher. Seriously, I’ve been accused of thinking too much. The problem is, if I try to read an entire book—or even an entire essay—by a philosopher, I get bored. I find myself thinking about what’s for lunch or what my kids are doing or when I need to go grocery shopping again.
The Internet has solved that for me. When I find myself pondering a philosophical problem, I can look it up on the Internet and find bite-size nuggets of inspiration in philosophical quotes. And since I always like to check my sources, I end up reading at least a paragraph or two from the quoted philosopher. Until I started this up, I had no idea who Bertrand Russell was but now I’ve read several paragraphs from him!
Google this one if you’re likely to fall for internet hoaxes: “…it is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatever for supposing it true.”
–Bertrand Russell
That’s how I found out Albert Camus agrees with me that today’s attitudes toward “West Coast elite” writers, actors, and artists is a bad thing. Camus would have been heartbroken by the fall of Hollywood in today’s world. Of course, Camus died in 1960, and I don’t even know if he ever saw a movie, but I found a quote that seems to support this idea of mine. Camus wrote: “Beauty, no doubt, does not make revolutions. But a day will come when revolutions will have need of beauty.”
What a wonderful thought. I pictured men on a bleak battlefield ceasing the fight while they looked for the beauty of what they were fighting for. How many wars might end if we stopped to think about what we fought for? I checked the source of the quote and found a longer section of Camus’s essay “The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt.” In this section, Camus expounds on the necessity of art to make sense of history. Look, for instance, at this sentence:
“Every great reformer tries to create in history what Shakespeare, Cervantes, Moliere, and Tolstoy knew how to create: a world always ready to satisfy the hunger for freedom and dignity which every man carries in his heart.”
–Albert Camus
I dare to believe that Camus wrote, in 1951, how I’ve been feeling about the way many artists are treated today when they dare to make their feelings about the larger world known. Stephen King, Barbra Streisand, Colin Kaepernick (yes, sports can be art), J.K. Rowling—even Rob Thomas—all of these artists and many more have been slammed on Twitter and in conservative media for daring to make political opinions known in today’s highly divisive atmosphere.
To the artists I say, you have vision and you must keep seeing. Keep seeing and keep speaking out because though you are outnumbered by those who can’t see, your light shines brighter than theirs. And that’s your job.
In case you were wondering, Camus would have agreed with me about this. In that same essay, he said something which I can only take as a message to me and to all like me who see the world as oppressive and who want to make it freer and more beautiful and welcoming to all:
“The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.”
–Albert Camus
And that is how I will seek to live my life.
December 31, 2018
Poem: Resolution 2019
Maybe this year can be better. Photo by rawpixel.com on Pexels.com
Resolution
By Michelle Garren Flye
This year, it will all be different.
I’ll study Love, find its uses.
I’ll know how big it is.
I’ll measure it, weigh it.
I will find its boundaries.
You say that’s impossible.
You say Love knows no such things.
You say it has no limits.
You say it’s ageless, timeless,
And you say Love never stops.
Well, we’ll see, won’t we?
When I put it in a test tube
And place it in the centrifuge—
Apply enough pressure…
We’ll see who’s right about love.
I’ll spin out all my discoveries.
For the whole world, of course.
Everyone wants to know,
Every body longs for my answers
About why Love is, who it’s for.
This year I’ll figure it all out:
Who deserves Love?
What is Love made of?
When is the right time, and
Why is less Love too much to bear?
Just wait and see.
Because when it’s done,
They’ll adore and worship,
Congratulate and adulate—
They will all love me.
