Ben Naga

This is a poem that I wrote earlier in the year.  It seems fitting to close out the year with it and perhaps let go of all that I’ve meant to do but forgotten (including blog posts :))

The forgetting
I forget what I was meant to be doing
I forget who I am, all the aspects and how to talk about them
I forgot about all the emotions that I didn’t allow myself to feel as a child
I forget my innocence

I lose myself in doing the details of living
and forget who I am meant to be
I live in tasks and busyness and business
and forget about serving my soul, and others
in a meaningful way

I forget about meditating
about following my breath
I remember to forget the past
I forget not to plan for the future
I forget to be present

I fail to…

by Thomas Davis
a sonnet from the Waterkeeper’s sonnet cycle

 The old man stood inside the freezing dark
And watched the Indians in their makeshift camp.
He felt his age, an ancient patriarch
Who’s seen too much of living hard to tamp
The rage he felt into a discipline
The oilmen in their fancy suits and ties
Embraced each time their spokesmen put their spin
Upon the outrage in the Indian lies
That let them dance and sing and carry on
Their protests as the winter iced men’s blood
And civilization turned into a pawn
Of waterkeepers dredge from river mud.

Our Mother Earth, he sneered, then turned away.
The Law will win, he thought, and have its say.

Note: The Waterkeeper’s Sonnet Cycle is in honor of the protestors in North Dakota who are enduring harsh winter weather while still keeping their protest going.  This is the second…