poetry

Nurturing the Seeds of Consolation in the Soil of Desolation

Don Grier

This week’s Change Well podcast, Episode 26, is available on my company’s podcast page. It provides insights and practical tips on maintaining wellness, whether you are experiencing joy or sorrow, by reviewing ten rules for living. Written by Angelo Roncalli, better known as Pope John XXIII, the Decalogue for Living provides rules for living a good and kind life regardless of your current season.

The podcast also includes a recitation of this original poem that I wrote on the topic.

The seeds of consolation are nurtured,
grown ans formed in soil of desolation,
waiting for the appointed time,
to spring forth to renew
both body and soul.

We do not know the day or hour,
when like the sun rising on a new day,
our darkness will be pierced 
and hope renewed.
Nor do we know if it will be in this life
or the next.

But, we can have faith that it will come,
hope that our hearts will be set afire,
and charity to all,
in the time of waiting. 

Don Grier 2024

I Don’t Know Everything

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“Why did the bird die”,
asked my young daughter,,
the small bird with the fading yellow breast,
near our outside table.

Strange –
I never saw a dead bird in nature
without my cat lurking around
with a smirk on its face.

Why is that?
with the billions of birds that die
every day.

Where do they go?
Do they dissolve into the earth?
Or are the lifted up on the breath
of God.

I digress. So I answerd my daughter.
The birdie was flying home to its family
when it got caught in a storm and flew
into a tree and died.

She looked sadly at me,
much as for my weak answer as he lost bird.

“But why was Goldie,
away from her parents with a storm pressing
and the skies turing grey?”

Boy was I in trouble, now!
She had named the bird.
I should have know better,
with a precocious five-year,
and me not even knowing
where bird bones go.

So, I said that
Goldie was late from her
appointed time home after flitting
around with her friend Rocket Robin.

BIG MISTAKE!
Now she said, “Why did Mr. and Mrs. Chirpy let
Goldie fly to see Rocket when a storm
was coming?”
The parents were now involved.

I did not know what to do
with my wayward story as much as
I did not know where all birds
go when they die.

So I finally got smart,
Or seemingly so, and asked Kate
“What do you think was the reason,
poor Goldie died?”

She answered rightly and without hesitation.
“I don’t know everything!”

Don Grier

Lost, Then Found

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We wander our lives,
With purpose unknown,
Our minds half-formed,
Our souls half-grown.

In a foreign place,
That is far from home,
We seek the forgotten,
Untethered, we roam.

God is watching us,
But we refuse to see,
The person and blessing,
We were meant to be.

We seek but are lost,
Oh, the games we play!
Where we’re going, what direction?
Not one of us can say.

So snatch us, Lord,
from the jaws of death,
Give us new life,
Give us new breath.

Help us to seek,
So we can be found,
Our sins all broken,
Our hearts unbound.

And with Your help,
It is not too late,
To find the good,
Forgo the great!

So Stop! Listen!
Forget the strife!
Find your purpose,
Breathe new life,
Find the person,
You were meant to be,
With soul unfettered,
With our spirit freed!

Don Grier

Unfettered Wings

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There was rain in the forecast for Duluth,
the day after our glorious trek along the North Shore,
spying Lake Superior from a hill near Gooseberry Falls,
seabirds floating over the inland sea.

We decided to find an indoor attraction,
longing for rain, we still did not want to get wet,
since so much time had passed,
and we feared being soaked so far from home.

The aquarium was just this side of the Aerial Bridge,
where barges from around the world,
floated unrestricted into their temporary home.

The fish and aquatic life in the tanks mirrored those,
swimming freely in the depths of the Greatest Lake,
Lake Trout, Walleye, and Sturgeon, some that lived over 100 years.

We had finished the first floor and were moving to the second,
when something curious caught our eye.
There, in the gift shop,
was a solitary, plush Eagle.

My wife said, “Oh cute. Can we get it?”
But I thought, Eagles are majestic birds of prey,
Not to be sold as toys.
Eagles must fly!

We proceeded to the second floor
until, at the last corner,
a lone Eagle with a heavy beak and piercing eyes.

It perched on a miserable little limb,
staring wantonly through a screen at the wooded hills outside.
It never turned toward us but only looked dejectedly at its former home,
where we had roamed just the day before.

Eagles are meant to fly, to soar up toward the sun!
To carry us to freedom and spread the word.
What would St. John or Moses say
to see nature’s herald trapped behind such a paltry barrier?

You can’t put God in a box, nor an Eagle behind a screen.
Eagles are meant to fly!