Newspaper ink dyes my fingers
Good news and bad stain alike
Black and pungent insistence
Truth at my fingertips
The rub that resists removal:
Every situation has a right to be
Harder to see are the stains I leave
Good news and bad bear my prints
How I’ve aided, fought, ignored or condoned
Mother to it all, front page to back,
Every headline whispers complicity
Mirrors my whorl on the world
___________________
Copyright Deborah McGlauflin, May 15, 2017
Posted in Being Otherwise poetry collection | Tagged interdependence, Mother's Day, motherhood, taking responsibility, the Dalai Lama | 1 Comment »
I’ve launched a CrowdRise campaign so folks can join me (easily and inexpensively) in sharing copies of Good in the End with patients at Hospice of the Chesapeake, where I work and vigil volunteer. A $10 tax-deductible donation gifts a book to someone who’ll really appreciate it. Thank you!
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
Legions crowd the shore
With legions more
Frothed and gasping in the rapids
Scrambling up the far bank
Stretching to the horizon
Ever on the move
Flowing forward
Here and there
Now and then
This and that
The news only covers
The midstream flailing and the cries
The real story is too obvious
Too simple and too close
Proclaim it now:
We will cross the river
We are crossing the river
We have crossed the river
We are the river and the shores
We are the crossing
We are.
–Copyright Deborah A. McGlauflin, February 11, 2017. All Rights Reserved.
Posted in Being Otherwise poetry collection | Tagged beyond politics, resistance poetry, resistance writer, transcendent view | Leave a Comment »
All that remains now is your ragged breath
harbinger of fast approaching death
I breathe with you having made my peace
sending love and the gift of release
taking in your lingering hurts and strife
ease now the last knots of this life
Breath by breath
Birth and death
Countless alphas and omegas
Inhale others’ pain
Exhale one’s own gain
The breath of life connects us
Your benediction a wordless communing
breathing my pain for your kind consuming
breathing me glimpses of your transcendent views
our entwined hearts ascend and fuse
consumed in a blaze of awed beatitude
leaving undying embers of gratitude
Breath by breath
Birth and death
Countless alphas and omegas
Inhale others’ pain
Exhale one’s own gain
The breath of life connects us
Not just for us this final exchange
we include multitudes as far we range
all welcomed in our expanding embrace
across infinities of time and space
sending love to fulfill every need
blessed and blessing beyond lightspeed
_____________________________________________________
Copyright Deborah A. McGlauflin, July 4, 2015. All rights reserved.
Posted in Good in the End poetry collection (death and dying) | Tagged alpha and omega, birth and death, breath of life, final breaths, giving and receiving, nearing death, tonglen | Leave a Comment »
Tilting water world
One red leaf falls to the pond
Startled geese take flight
Osprey over pond
Sharp-eyed, wings fold and plummet
Death served with a splash
Fluffy baby swans
Only two left of seven
Snapping turtles’ lunch
After a flood tide
Stranded fish gasp on the sand
Mouthing alien air
Cherished family dog
Releasing its final breath
Suddenly a corpse
Copyright Deborah McGlauflin, April 2011. All rights reserved.
Posted in Good in the End poetry collection (death and dying) | Tagged death and impermanence, death in nature, haiku, natural death | Leave a Comment »
Some few slip free of gravity
into orbit thundering heavily
there they ghost above the oblivious
and witness the sacred obvious
Finitude beholding the Infinite
Some when dying attain liberation
from the gravity of their situation
they float us free in a loving wake
clear eyes reflecting a bottomless lake
Finitude beholding the Infinite
__________________
Copyright Deborah A. McGlauflin, May 12, 2015. All rights reserved.
Posted in Good in the End poetry collection (death and dying) | Tagged achieving orbit, attaining liberation, contemplating infinity, escaping gravity, finitude, human mortality, liberation from death, sacred perspective | Leave a Comment »
