Saving America

Saving America
Somethings funny about this flu stuff. I don’t really care one way or the other about school closing, 2 more sets of hands around to help with “Spring Cleaning”. It makes no sense to me and seems like a drill, like the siren that goes off every Saturday at noon.
The overtones of “teacher hand out” daily recommended schedules. As if parents have no clue of what to do with the teachers students. I know they don’t want me calling them about how their student is acting during their 4th period of lawn work!
The medical folks are just whacked out. No like we need help with not catching the flu or a cold, we did it for a very long time before their preventative medicine. Their are millions of folks out their not looking for sympathy or a prescription who don’t go to the Dr. regularly and do just fine. By the way, a unified message about what this is and how dangerous it is would boost your credibility.
I don’t even have to mention politicians, but I will. We really can handle this without you. I mean you can pass a bazillion dollar bill loaded with some side cash for birth control issues and restructuring the work week, I guess? Just understand we see through your campaign motives with us in the best interest, but we’ll see right through your summer ads about how you saved America from a pandemic by sending everyone out into the economy to rub elbows while clearing scarcely stocked shelves.
I guess I’m just thinking this is a reminder for me of how important some of these folks in our life think they are. The latent message for me is that some of them don’t think to highly of us. We’ll take our time off and visit loved ones, spend some time helping out “Paw Paw” around the yard, and a few extra trips to the nursing home if it opens up. The good thing is the kids are going to learn about hard work, compassion, and common sense. From that perspective these folks just might have saved America!

Dad

Shards of sunlight pierce the glass
Illuminating the grayish shroud
To a waxen white finality

Dust swirls in the quiet of sunlight
Finally resting on the wooden accents
Silencing the room

I stare at the recorder thinking
Wondering what his last breath said
As memories of his words echo

The recorder sits silently unaware
His last wish was his last breath
Would be recorded for posterity

No one understood the clarity of death
And his one last hope was the euphoria
Would reveal the one truth

The one truth that would unravel
The mystery of suffering and joy
Undulating across existence

He lived for the one moment
The moment all was revealed
And peace would reign within

A peace that you could feel by
Looking at each other outside life
For a fleeting glimpses of us

He believed in thought as power
To transcend violence, pain, and
all the insecurities of not knowing

He believed all the shouting distracted
Humanity from hearing the truth of life
And all the beautiful rhythms it held

He believed the universe was one song
rhythmically keeping evil at bay
Through echoes of silence

I learnt to listen from his silence
Listening was my portal to sanity
To understand the chaos around me

Seconds can wipe away decades
With one silent moment of understanding
Reverberating across space and time

But he wasn’t an actor, he was a thinker
And in that world everything was possible if we just listened for the one truth

The collective truth exhaled in the silence
Of death revealed for a finite moment
To anyone who could rise above the noise

In the end, sitting in his room watching,
I realized that his life was my lesson
Changing with each rotation of the sun

He already left the room for his one song
As I played his highlights like a slideshow
Silently reminding me that words can be silent

His voice is inside me now, reminding
Telling me that words just echo
Without actions to color the world

There is no last breath, it’s a lie
Because his one last breath
Is within me to be passed along

His thoughts are part of my actions
And my actions bring life to goodbyes
And smiles to hello’s, I learnt to talk

To share the one song we’re given
Because it’s ours, so he was right
I finally payed attention to his thoughts

The recorder was a prop, an impetus
For me to listen and speak to myself
About the words and thoughts he loved

So now I am part of his universe
Through his note within the song
That now echoes within me, silently