About Your Future
Writings by Sha’Ra On WindWalker
(in collaboration with Sha'Tara EarthStar)
Copyright (©) 2017 Cocoons to Butterflies Publishing
Published by: Cocoons to Butterflies Publishing
Chilliwack, B.C. Canada
Cover pictures by: Top, Alfred Borchard
Bottom, Barun Patro
All pictures found on FreeImages.com
Space Picture: ESA/Hubble
I hope you enjoy these writings. Feedback is welcome.
Contents
Foreword
A Man—A Survivor
A Path Maker
A Very Sad Tale In Rhyme
Against The Wind
Embarrassed
Lady Marion, Lady Joy
Box Store Vision
White
Who Are The Dead?
My Beloved
No Tears
Oneness
Outlook On Life
Reaching The Light
Did I Get That Right?
The Gift
Embrace All (Don’t Be Shy!)
Dreams
The Immune System
Against Time
Body
Elk Mountain
I Dream Of Tara
It's All About Your Future
Ixioca-Li
In My Search
Losing Sight
Asters
Sand To Sand
The Potter's Hands
Release!
It Was At That Time And Long, Long Ago
Losing
Melody
Tears In The Rain
The Tree
Toaster
To Vote Or Not To Vote
Troubles Of Mind
A Living Entity
The Prophet's Story - As Told By Earth And Sky
Winds Of Eternity
Living In
The Sea
Time
Waging War On Society
Wild River
Woman Of The Sea
Wisdom Speak
Prayer Of The Innocent
Worn-Out Coat
You Took My Money, Where's My Cure, Doc?
Tears In The Wind
No More Secrets
Speak To Me Or Do Not
Future Child
The Sacrifice
Too Early Spring
What Does God Mean?
Who Cares?
Before All Ends
Two Storms
Love
Wistful
Wind Dancer
Foreword
These books contain a form of free verse poetry, opinions based on observation, and some humour and imagination, engaging the heart as well as the mind. A critical look at many current issues intriguing and plaguing man. Spirituality, interaction with nature and environment, social changes, dwindling resources. Well worn issues now, indeed. But the poetry and other works in these books gives this subject a different perspective. I daresay that here we can find a "higher" vantage point from which to look at ourselves within the cosmos.
Who knows but some of the ideas in the books may get you inspired to do that thing you always wanted to do, even if this comes in a very small way, to make your corner of this world a better place to be in. Who knows but you may realize your little corner is a really nice place to be in after all.
It's all about life, if at times expressing life "outside the box" as the saying goes.
A Man—A Survivor
A strange old man, a very ancient figure,
that’s who he was, who he is.
A man of many titles in as many times:
poor Bill, mendicant, beggar and tramp.
At times,
panhandler, good-for-nothing loafer,
deadbeat, vagrant, hobo, gypsy
and in more recent times,
a welfare bum.
Sometimes this strange man
comes back from the sea,
sometimes from the wars or prison:
no one comes to the quays to meet him
and to hug him. Alone
carrying a damp and dirty canvas bag
he limps down some dark alley
to find a familiar den,
a smoke-filled tavern, an inn.
For a few coins, a room under a stairway
a garret with drafty shutters
become his home ‘til the angels come
or the demons, but who can ever tell?
Sometimes he just gets tired of jostling
for position and wealth—leaves one night
never to come back. What for?
His wife re-marries, but does he care?
Who’s to know? Not even he
wandering the drafty city streets
with his new title and essential wealth.
He’s a successful miner now,
mining garbage for treasures
carefully arranged in a rusty shopping cart
(of missing front and bent wheel
from an accidental encounter with a taxi)
until deposited for safekeeping.
They call him “homeless” now—the
politically correct term
for this strange old man who never did fit,
who in his youth had a strong back
to break up the coal, carry gear and pack a rifle
walk through flooded paddies
and burn babies in their mothers’ arms
inside grass huts in a land so far away.
He knew well enough then why he did this:
for God and country and freedom
they’d told him and he believed.
He came back from the killing fields
to log the dark green hills
until the trees were gone.
He cleaned out curbs and culverts
for a pittance in part time jobs
to bolster free enterprise and capitalism.
“It’s all good” they said with a leer
and what could he do but believe?
He doesn’t remember much of that
and really, what does it matter now?
the rich got richer and died,
the dead remain dead
and he’s got his place
behind four loosened cement bricks
under a bank where he keeps his valuables,
drinks, sleeps and feeds his nightmares
of bullets and blood, of flames that roast flesh,
of screams of pain and terror:
endless screams—the voices of the dead.
Until it’s time to work the streets again,
push the rusty cart with the one bent wheel
until the angels return again
or the demons, and who’s to know?
He’ll be there again tomorrow
and the day after that
and the day after the Great Day
there he will be in his dirty tattered rags
his long stringy hair blowing wildly
in the cold, cold winds that haunt
the endless noisy, dirty, drafty city streets
and who knows what his title will be
next time I pass him trying not to notice?
I think I already know this, in my heart
as I look around and ponder this place:
he’ll be a survivor.
A Path Maker
A path maker,
beats a track in deep snow,
walking to, then fro,
so older ones,
those not so sure of foot,
smaller of stature,
or a woman with child in arm
can get through without stumbling.
In his dream, the path maker
helps people along their own way;
he extends a helping hand,
a kind thought,
offers an encouraging word
to make a memory from a smile...
I realize how each individual
must walk his own path.
This does not mean, however
one cannot place a few markers
along the trackless void.
A Very Sad Tale In Rhyme
I was walking through a very nice wood
which is what I proclaimed as loud as I could
when they all objected as I knew they would
and to stop listening I pulled up my hood.
There came a pink train with a car or ten
at what time you ask, well I don't know when
and you should know this did not happen then
but only after all the pigs got locked in their pen.
The pink train huffed and puffed at a pretty pace
and of its passage it left not one trace
save that on my left shoe was a broken lace
which wither I pulled I could not unlace.
A puffing came the train rounding a hill
the noise from its whistle came out rather shrill
while round about the land stood solemn and still
and the ticket-master introduced himself as Bill.
Out came a thousand tickets in great fanfare
as the ticket-master punched and said, 'beware!
I can spot a fake ticket, or even a silly pair'
and scowling he said, 'fool me if you dare'
Now came the station as pretty as you please
and round-about the land was a bowl of green peas
so inviting it seemed, as for to give great ease
when a great buzzing came, as from a million bees
A man in a black hat stepped boldly forward
and said, if you please, my name is Edward
had you paid attention, at the start you'd have heard
this is my train, I travel with my bird.
Said a green parrot who just loved to be heard,
'he travels with his bird, he travels with his bird,
not always the same bird, you see I'm the third
and of green feathers you can see I'm gird.'
The pretty station stood at the bottom of the vale
which if you know your history is much like a dale
and there lay the train neither hearty nor hale
So we come to the end of this very sad tale.
This story of course has a very good moral
much as some seas have islands of coral
and if this could talk the moral would be oral
and as for the writer, what but a crown of laurel?
Against The Wind
She was born to run against the wind;
knowing naught of walking lightly
in silken nightgown on a morning breeze.
Mother said: girl, you make it happen
no one else does it for you...
and she became a believer.
No stepping back from life's thrust,
no time to create a peaceful, tranquil space
where uplifting thoughts could flow
to people her nights and fill her days.
A child was born to