Shame

Sometimes I am
ashamed
of my fridge
and chocolate
easily purchased
at the corner
convenience store.
My life in
running water
rivulets and
Internet broadband -

How easily
convenient
these words are typed -

while someone lies
in a hospital bed
surrounded by
flies and
hazmat-suited
angels

Or as a young
girl traces
out the alphabet
in rocket-flared
lamplight -
striving for something
more.

I am no stranger
to suffering,
yet it too seems
privileged
when times of
plenty interlace
like the
puzzle pieces of
my existence.

This casual sense
of privilege
and shame at having
by luck
what so many others
seek -
is privilege as well.

So still I feel
ashamed
and wonder if
what I can do
will ever be enough.

© Eleanor Clark
9 September, 2014

Nostalgia

There was a moment
when we might
have paused
together in the
respite of some
shaded isle
and shared a lifetime
of sorrows and of joy.

Sadly,
though
we passed
like shadows
of a train
dappled
on white-wheated
fields of grain
in sunshine bled of colour.

You and I
it seems
was nothing more
than whimsy
and a thought
within a dream.

© Eleanor Clark
6 September, 2014

Bones of War

Chill, the bones
of war are stirring -
rattling in the
blood of children
sleeping -
staining the soil
where ten thousand
mothers weep.

Icy hatred boils
behind rockets
red that flame
and fan the world
burning in circled
embered sparks
amid the cheering
crowds of jubilation.

Pain we heap
and heap in piles
of rotting fear
and putrid anger
stench enfolded
in snide political
veneer that reeks
of platitudes -
bandaging wounds
that will not heal
with poisoned words.

And still we try
to sell what cannot
be bought -
this earth
that belongs
to none.

© Eleanor Clark
30 July, 2014

Vicissitudes of Life

Amid the thorny
vicissitudes of life
lie patches of
sunlit joy
radiantly penetrating
the soul
to warm it
from within.

© Eleanor Clark
27 July, 2014