Song Tune

Song Tune

The song,
The song of life,
The song of life is played in the key of time.

Seconds tick minutes into hours for days to find,
As weeks couple, bearing months, that years combine
Into passing decades etched forever on the mind.
Friends, in chorus, help harmonize the melody Devine;

But,
But the tune,
The tune is ours,
The tune is ours alone,
But the tune is ours, ours, all alone to find.

Ronald C. Downie

This poem I cherish as my signature poem.

Song Tune,   www.thepostedpoet.blogspot.com
Song Tune is my signature poem suggesting time is the great regulator of each of our lives, segmenting periods of it at song, culminating finally in our own personal tune. It's the tune, stupid !  

Goal Intention - Score Goal

Caught again ! No ! Not with my pants down, but without a camera.( seems if my wife and I own a camera it's lost or non working ) Today, your just a minor player without pictures to show what your doing. So I took to putting words together to create a word picture which must substitute for camera shots.


Goal Intention - Score Goal

All these years laboring 
within an athletic constraint,
female lacrosse, a referee's  
bountiful whistle buffet,
Casey Downie languished.

On defense, a non sequitur,
constrained to 3/4's field,
not allowed past the line
which divides the play field
into we score or they score.

A few times she pasted it,
charging on in a run out,
but the hardened rule of
the game, female lacrosse,
sent her scurrying quickly back.

Destined forever with a goose egg,
Casey was a favorite of her mates.
They orchestrated a fine coup d'état 
by designing an offensive play for her
which went off neatly without a hitch.

As if a trained canine behind an invisible fence,
Casey, motionless, poised to respond, at ready,
waiting for her teammate to retreat back across
the line; in a flash, long striding, Casey attacked
straight at the goalie, stick up, the pass, and shot.

Score ! heard around her World and around ours.
The life of an unsung journeyman finally fading 
into an athlete's past. Let the record forever
state : Goals, Casey Elaine Downie (1), unless
before the career ends, more goals are scored.

Ronald C. Downie

Granddaughter, Casey Elaine Downie, playing her last season of College, Division 111, Lacrosse at Franklin and Marshall College ( F&M ), Lancaster, Penna.,
2012

Look At Music - Listen To Art

   Look At Music - Listen To Art

Spring mother, Dear, conduct your annual symphony,
Lead us to heights in primal song . Memory plays
Our pensive harp awake with color cords ablaze :
Golden daffodil yellow - crocus choir harmony .

Notes of sweet tulip red and smooth hyacinth blue
Await drum beats deep in the gold of forsythia .
Wake up world ! Your colorful cosmic orchestra
Readies again to play life's spring concert for you .

Look at the music of flowers swaying the breeze :
Like a string section in unison its visual sound
Silent, so brain supplies the score to music round
The mood we feel. One's self, only you to please.

Listen to the native art of unfolding leaves :
Slow but steady in a stretch enlarging their span
Reaching heavenly in canopy over common man,
Who, at song, sings of Gods in self image, not trees.

Concert master, tune the instruments true
To the pitch of the seasons : winter, spring,
Summer, fall . Movements composed are to bring
Life full circle as all living are compelled to do.

             Ronald C. Downie 

Universal Health Care - Single Payer Best

Universal Health Care - Single Payer The Best 

What in the World is having a country of origin or of adoption all about if it's not about keeping its citizens safe from outside invasion and safe from internal woes; such as, sickness, poverty, ignorance, hunger, pollution, and stagnant upward mobility ? 

Universal healthcare lost its direction when moneyed forces paid an army of lobbyists to scuttle single payer health coverage. These same lobbyist spend their bosses' money to skew the legislative process so laws become more favorable for the 1%res at the expense of all the rest of us. 

A pox on both sides is my reaction to both the Healthcare Law and the need for the Supreme Court to weigh in on its legality. It seems like the traditional smoke screen Washington always uses.

Ronald C. Downie

Thoughts From Then To Now

Thoughts From Then To Now

Our arteries are to us as rain is to the Earth;
Rain brings the fluid of water for Earth's use,

Our veins are to us as rivers are to this Earth.
Through them extra water veins out to the sea.

Born of the union of egg with sperm, we humans
Were cast over millions of years of trial and error.

We learned to stand upright sighting over savanna
Grasses, our "one ups man" over the prey at bay.

From tree, to cave, to waddle mud hut Man sought
A place to lay his head, build a fire for his family.

Is life a slow plodding advance, two steps forward -
One back ? Or, of giant steps, grand leaps ahead.

Thinking back, we live now in the very present time.
History records, prose depicts, graphs detail, poems ?

Do we drum as ancients did ? Can you hear them
Beating stout sticks against each other in rhythm ?

They beat to drive the herd in a desired direction, 
Not unlike the drummers in a parade, setting pace.

A drummer in a band plays each of his instruments 
Always keeping up the rhythm the others follow.

Remember "Drums Along The Mohawk" or "Tarzan",
Where the sounds of repetitive beats resounds.

The Great Apes pound their barrel chests drumming
Out a message to all who hear - beware of me !

Listen to a woodpecker rap out his beat in rhythm 
On an insect laden limb, to them, the beat goes on.

If you get a chance to attend a high school musical
Which has a percussion segment, best you go to it.

Ronald C. Downie

Ian : Ride, Develop, Cultivate

Ian :  Ride, Develop, Cultivate

Composed from Mother Earth, are we ?
Or, are we elements of a stellar dust ?
Does it really matter ? Maybe, the sea,
Or, byproduct of a primal stew's thrust ?

Captured and contained in this bodily form :
Short or tall, skinny or fat, white or tan,
Intelligent or dimmed, exceptional or norm,
Not how born, it's learning makes the man.

What is the length of an endless long line ?
When will time reach a point of no return ?
How will the clueless figure out how to climb ?
Why will rocks refuse to speak or them burn ?

Ride the strong waves of your musical talents,
Develop the strengths honed on a center stage,
Cultivate a healthy diet of words free of laments,
Root out the vulgarity of a ego's debasing rage.

Into the light, whatever the origin of your birth,
Lies a multitude of followers awaiting a leader.
In you, by your own devises, grab Mother Earth, 
Shake her awake, arrive to lead those needier. 

Step to the drummer, salute life, list to the fife,
Accumulate knowledge so it becomes unsurpassed,
Untamed, makes a difference when upending  strife.
The World awaits exceptional people to lead at last.

Ronald C. Downie

Words in verse to commemorate your 16th birthday, March 24, 2012 . Happy Birthday with love from Nanny and Pop Pop !





 

Color, Color, Everywhere

Color, Color, Everywhere

Spring energy :

Emerging, elongating,
Unfolding, budding, 
Coloring, flowering,
Wilting, dropping.

Enjoying ! 

Waiting for Summer flowers,
Their process is so similar, we
Usually forget from year to year
When Spring ends, Summer starts.

Enjoy !

Ronald C. Downie

The Emperor's Cloths

The Emperor's Cloths

When an overwhelming argument must come out
To bolster an awfully weak set of made up facts,
A candidate must keep a straight face, no pout.
Voice must not quiver or sound lower, stage acts.

Then, if the voting public has bought into the guise 
An artful candidate, though deceitful, may survive.
Today's voters, under assault of Big Money, a prize
For billionaires, the difference, voters are yet alive.

And then, if the time comes to govern the country
A charlatan starts to show weakness of an ingrate.
Core convictions fail the test of governance, clumsily 
Undoing that which made the Country so very great.

Voting must be an effort to best educate yourself,
So you see through the Emperor, who cloths himself.

Ronald C. Downie
An English Sonnet

Haiku 79

Haiku 79

Three lines - seventeen syllables - five, seven, five

Primary burnout,
Too many speeches, repeats -
Ideas are worn thin. 

Where's politicians 
Who put citizen's needs first ?
Those visionaries ! 

It piles up high,
Money begets big money -
As speech, money's loud.

Wake up, please ! Wake up !
Are Corporations people ?
Money, is it speech ?

Wanted, strong marchers,
An army taking to streets -
People's rights surface.

It is your rights lost,
If you don't resist assault -
They're your's, to keep/lose !

Ronald C. Downie

Return Its Reason

Return Its Reason

When Spring newly arrives this week,
It'll come spirited on wings of equal hours,
Spring Equinox, time ancients' wisdom seek.
They knew of energy pent up in flowers.

Days stretch out as dark of night retreats, 
The energy of Sun rays work their wonder :
Bud swell, leafing, unfolding, fruiting sweets.
Worlds over husband : clouds, rain, thunder.

Summer gives way to Autumn's harvest time :
Garden edibles, root crops, nuts, fruits, grain.
Setting earlier, rising later, Sun's lower climb
Ushers in the Autumnal Equinox, Fall's claim.

Orbits are on circular paths, as are our seasons,
Everything in motion, circling, return its reasons.

Ronald C. Downie
An English Sonnet

Occupy The Voting Booth

Occupy The Voting Booth

I have a nagging fear building within me that the youngest and brightest among us, those caught up in the Occupy movement will, in their zest for the big picture, forget that all politics is local. These activists need to hone in on those politicians who got our country into the mess we're in. As Senator Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican, stressed recently : congress needs term limits, but until that happens, voters must vote out the old bulls, those whose primary objective is to get reelected. I would add, voters must also throw out those newly elected who have obstructed rather than govern as required when they took the pledge to uphold The Constitution of the United States Of America.

History will probably record The Occupy Movement as a successful exercise of expressing disgust in the inequities between the haves and the have nots which were brought about by governmental actions. I only hope history will also record the movement spun off real change in how legislators adjusted to a new era of governance. Not all revolutions need to be bloody.

In the long history of Man upheaval happened often. Many were very bloody as each side shouldered their weapon of choice : a broad axe, a spear, a lance, a pitch fork, but mostly a gun. Gandhi, nor King, nor Jesus chose any of these weapons and their results seem much more lasting than any violent one's, even so, all three lost their lives trying to effect change.

Pottstown also needs to shoulder its weapon of choice and I contend that the weapon be a long handled broom accompanied with a sturdy dust pan and a hefty trash bag. Only an army of sweepers with their boots on the ground can make this sow's ear into a silk purse. 

The real test of the soul of a town is not in it's downtown main street or it's prime residential neighborhoods but it is found in how the condition of it's worst allies. If they are relatively clean and fairly well kept you can bet the main, highly visible areas of the town will also be clean. Once upon a time, Pottstown was that way, not from an army of cleaners, but from each and every household being prideful masters of their own domain. Maybe they didn't own the property they lived at but they took pride in the property they lived in. Pride is always an exercise in self worth and fulfillment, traits lost in our race to the bottom world we find ourselves in today.

It will be a tough campaign in the war to take Pottstown back from the entrenched profiteers who treat our town as a throwaway place. It will be extra tough cleaning up after them when they are cleaned out of our town, but it will be worth it. Shoulder your brooms, fall in, the spring offensive is creating a battle plan, 

Ronald C. Downie

Only The End Remains

   Only The End Remains   

Before light - the beginning - then light :
Then magma, and lava, and basalt rock :
Earth, water, and air : morning, noon, and night :
Cells, wigglers, swimmers, fliers, man : and clock,

Calendar and hour glass : to segment and measure,
To regulate and order, to plan and then design :
For goods and services, for necessity and pleasure :
House, factory, and store : and for cars made fine .

Highly speeding around a curve a car leans
Outward from center in an act of separation .
Quickening minds defiantly tug at pent up dreams
Waiting release to burst forth with new sensation .

Find hidden roads to distant horizons that you seek,
Move, sky line moves, sight it, fades another hue.
Awaken all your senses, act strongly not weak,
Be, rather then to just seem, forevermore be true .

Nearing the end, does fleeting time go faster,
Or, does awareness lost from aging veins
Deem doddering slowness become the master
Of the clock winding down ? Only The End Remains !

   Ronald C . Downie

Waves Of Sea And Sand

Waves Of Sea And Sand

Baked, cracked earth, shy of powdering, is dead
To life forces which once pulsated thru its pores. 
Sun caked, wind whipped, longing moisture, tearless
As persistent drought encouraged advancing sands.

Out there past the boardwalk's broad promenade, 
Over the groomed, washed sand of a typical morn,
They flock, feasting on leavings of a receding tide.
While birds battle, vacationers pitch sun umbrellas.

Sand makes not only playgrounds for sky worshipers
But blankets what was once The Golden Crescent, 
Site of The University of Agriculture ten thousand
Years ago, the initial Bread Basket Of The World.

Heating cooling, Earth's forces, in millennium time,
Of Man's own omnipotent God's nature, cares less.
The waves of seas flow as waves of sand marches,
Each in their own time, driven on by the same winds.

At their peril, Man occupies the sea's edge in mass
Heeding not the engulfing storms enraged by heat.
He dreams of green, flowering dessert water holes,
Breathtaking oasis respites, replicas of Eden's view.

But, a planet is not governed by the folly of Man.
It submits to Nature's Law set in universe time, 
Even when seen from space the concept of Gaia, 
Earth as a living organism, is not that implausible.

For burgers, he denudes rain forests
For water, he dams vast, deep gorges
For fuel, he drills and pipes and ships
For electric, he burns with choking soot
For food, he deployed harsh chemicals
For travel, he sends aloft dank exhausts
For escape, he blasts rockets to heaven
For redemption, he prays to graven images
For folly, he writes poems which no one reads

He, our Planet's only mental giant, poised to over populate this sphere sighting the right of Devine providence - Man given dominance over the Earth -forgets divinity is only a construct of Man's vivid imagination.

Ronald C. Downie

Past - Future

Past - Future

Prayer - sending a message to your God -
Poetry - sending a message to a stranger -
Each from within seeking an ear without,
One strictly personal, the other universal.
Taught prayer universal when young, while
Through nursery rhymes, are taught poetry.

Maturing minds grapple with their humanity ;
Many to an unknown pray, some seek expression.
Scripting words into phrases developing themes
Jogs mental synapses into action creating verse.
Then verse pulses Earth's vibrations as thought.

Thought, caught in both worlds, real or illusory, 
Is to each person's make up as breathing or seeing,
More deeply to some, but to others diversionary.
The pinnacle of thought is wisdom, original thought.
Prayer, touted as faith based, reinforces the past ;
While poetry, gleaned from thought, seeks a future.

Ronald C. Downie

Only Knowledge

Only Knowledge

When, looking into the mirror of hope
I find far too many so deep in despair 
Who willingly slough off a need to cope,
Leaving them vulnerable, requiring care :

Will it be epiphany that grabs the scene ?
Without something like that, what then ?
Do spots disappear, stripes fade, fat lien ?
From nagging disappointments, hope's when ?

Realizing a personal attitude becomes the key
To unlocking the potential energy now pent up
Awaiting release. Learning wisdom's old wise plea,
"Only knowledge sets Man free" to grab the cup.

History records, rewrites episodes sad or proud,
While shunning facts, destiny floats as on a cloud.

Ronald C. Downie
An English Sonnet

Haiku 78

Haiku 78

* Haiku expresses through simplicity *

We are like eunuchs,
Big, muscular, strapping guys -
Can't create, just duds.  

National W'mens Day,
What ignorance did Rush spout ?
Forked tongue venom. 

When will women act ?
Called over educated -
Where's the uprising  ?

War against women !
Rolls back time - women servants -
Viagra Nation !

"For whom the bell tolls",
High heals, sneakers, clogs, slippers -
When marching, you'll hear !

Takes critical mass 
For reaction sprouting
Action - march, vote, march !

Ronald C. Downie

Occupy Spring

Occupy Spring

I'm down on the lowest rung of the 99 step ladder realizing there's no climbing up for me anymore. Advancing age keeps most oldsters like me very close to the ground; although, if I was a 1%R my investment income would rise year after year.

I'm confused in understanding the makeup of these 1%R's. How many of them are truly working women ? These super-duper rich seem only to be populated by men often shown as the deep pocketed financiers of political elections. Some 1%R's, like Mitt Romney, appear at rallies with their spouses but did his wife or wives of the other super rich create the vast wealth their families now enjoy ? I would suggest the 1%R's are really an old boy's club reminiscent of medieval times when men ruled this World with an iron fist.

Neither do I understand the gender makeup of the 99%R's. I believe women comprise about 53% of the citizens of the USA, a substantial majority. Do females makeup over 50% of the members of the Occupy movement ? If not, why not ? The tide of change seem to be flowing against the struggle of women to finally get beyond the concept of submission. An alliance with the 99%R's would seem natural since both seem to be seeking equality from the powers which govern us. 

After all these long years I should know quite well that simple logic does not carry the day. The struggle for equality, in all its forms, has been going on for millennia. It's like trying to go up a grassy slope slippery from a morning rain ; two steps up, one back, a fatiguing exercise to say the least. Many begin the journey but only a few will finish.

If women allow the tide to carry them backward they may not recover in a lifetime. The battle lines have been drawn by men legislators who historically believe they know best how women should be kept in line. By Devine Right men are superior is a strong message that women must debunk. 

Women hold a numerical majority in America and they need to join with the minorities : the persons of color, the immigrants, the poor, the old, and the in-firmed so between these groups they gain a unified voice, played out with the ballot box, which may well change this World forever.

Ronald C. Downie

Not Your Normal Sewing Circle

  Not Your Normal Sewing Circle

The saga of working women in sewing factories a century ago depicting their trials and tribulations :

Women trudge to work before the dawn
Awakens slips of eastern peeking light .
They'll work to dark for which they're born
Only on Sundays will they daylight sight .

Clutching a meager lunch while dreaming sweets,
Shoulders hunched forward, black shawl draped,
Their children left home must fend for themselves .
Through cold and snow walk iced sidewalks caked .

Windowed high walls stand five stories tall ,
This building's the tallest to tower the town .
It draws them as ants to sweet nectar dew,
They'll squint at dawn by dark they'll frown .

Zig zagging up a stairwell all must climb to
Their sewing machines waiting them in the gloom ,
Settling in, as a tiring long day looms ahead,
Their bodily functions they need hold to noon .

Their rate a must six days each week .
Is there a song their hearts would sing 
Above the din of machine needle strike ?
It's family needs their wages must bring .

Bosses want window's low cost light .
Dust and lint encrusted, dirty they'll be
Worry not that sewers loose their sight,
Cause seekers, a job is really all they see .

A forgotten era, a time so long ago,
These windowed old buildings quiet, silent,
Echoes muted, walls still stand starkly tall,
To the wrecking ball, they remain resilient .

Is there a new tune that we hear being sung
By people who want to live in an apartment
That could be built behind these old high walls ?
Hope ! Please choose a date for your settlement .

  Ronald C . Downie

The shirt factory at South Charlotte and Cherry 
was part of the Smith Pie Complex .      

Haiku 77

Haiku 77

Haikus to illuminate the obvious -

Tornado victims,
Do you want government help ?
Government does work !

Rush Limbaugh's cigar,
Disgusting phallic symbol -
Will change women's vote.

To lose everything,
Tests strength through adversity -
The strong overcome.

Before the ship sinks,
Lifeboats lowered to water -
Women first, Rush swims !

"When going gets tough,
The tough get going", ahead - 
No's ! Turns us backward .

Put best foot forward,
To lead, to dance, to romance -
Daring rise like cream.

Ronald C. Downie

When Are We Going To Get There

When Are We Going To Get There ?   

Friends circle around the camp fire :

Lengths of downed trees flame within
The blackened iron fire ring where
Aged wood burns, wafting smoke 
To chimney up through the high
Canopy of tall pines .

Burning wood's cave ageless aroma
Escapes flames of carbon as hues 
Of white and blue, also shades
Of orange and red, that join crackling ,
Popping gases released finally from
Spent embers to seek again the 
Chemistry of union .

Before molecules, pre- atom, both ash and gas 
Were big banged into primordial birth
As quarks - positive and negative - then
Chaining over and over, again and again ,
Linking for how many times, maybe into ,
Even my own DNA .

A child sees a journey as a destination, as an ending,
" When are we going to get there ? "

But force and matter, not knowing beginning 
Or able to see an end, journey to connect 
Into granite, or possibly, into you and either by
Magma or by fire, they are released as
Ooze or as ash to again travel .

Stalking silently within me, multiplying 
And dividing, oblivious to the demands
For long life and old age, stealth cells , 
The aggressive minority demanding their
Pound of flesh cheat in line, as they become
The new order .

Downed trees or me makes no difference
To fire's finality of form .

I am, as is a child, as is ash to " there",
Release is to my continued journey .

Giving up their colors embers cool and
Die away, on the breeze ash drifts ,
There into darkness, depart friends .

   Ronald C. Downie
  

County Seat To College Town

County Seat to College Town

Some years ago on the front page of The Pottstown Mercury (its name then) a story like this appeared.

Pottstown to become a county seat in the newly carved out county made up of land taken from Berks, Chester, and Montgomery Counties with Pottstown at the geographic center. 

April Fools Day quickly showed through the intent, though, in fact, that image described was just what had been going on here for very many decades. Pottstown really was the industrial, commercial, professional, and banking hub of that designated area. We had little interface with Norristown nor Reading, each their County's seat. We felt as outsiders but we didn't object too much since we were self sufficient in our vibrancy. Pottstown's population rose above 30,000 finally topping out later at 32,000 before falling to 22,000 now. All walks of life inhabited Pottstown and lived in the surrounding townships. Though the poor were present, they seemed not to be totally destitute because an unorganized safety net operated quite effectively.

Up through the 1950's from Colonial Times the poor and needy were essentially disappeared into the community through the humanitarian work of the churches and, somewhat under the radar, by funding from social clubs. Clubs were allowed back then to operate games of chance overlooked by governmental authorities up until gambling became a no-no. The county had taxing power throughout the entire population and homelessness with its connection to the poor was not isolated to specific areas. 

Church parishioners began urban flight as the Green Wave of the effluent flowed to the suburbs, building homes there, while still maintaining church buildings in town. No longer did these parishioners need to be daily exposed to the poor so naturally many adopted an "out of sight out of mind" attitude. Once, what was a duty now was someone else's problem, the Town's  or the county's. During the grand heyday of Pottstown's industrialization, work was more than plentiful and money flowed even into the causes which helped feed the poor. When industry folded or moved away, jobs became non-existent, gifting ceased, and the poor and homeless expanded in numbers and needs. Tent cities cropped up along the Manatawny and Schuylkill waterways in Pottstown since it was here the county established numerous agency offices which administered to the poor. Agencies begot more agencies which drew  like a magnet those in need as their rolls burgeoned. 

All the while the county measured the number of those poor and equated that as a sign for more section 8 dwellings needed. The spiraling just continued as Pottstown declined and, along with it, rental rates dropped compared to other towns in the county. Section 8 became a better buy here for the county so they promoted its acceptance which enhanced the spiraling down. Though mostly ignored, it is the ultimate responsibility of the county to care for the homeless and protect the poor. The county is the agent of the state and federal government for the dispersal of grant moneys designated to care for them. One has only to diligently follow the money trail from its source to its use, to see if it's spent properly.

The continued concentration here of the homeless, the poor, and section 8 took an additional toll on Pottstown's economic health. High Street was once a hubbub of retail activity but, a slow decline in people with disposable income shopping, caused weak shops to close up. The sidewalks which used to be filled with working people shopping was now populated with the poor who had no money to spend. In fact, the art of pan handling started cropping up, the million dollar Town Center Park began to be their meeting place, and sometimes they chose to sleep there.

Just as High Street declined so did the residential areas once the backbone of the Town's tax base. The school district, which receives four out of every five tax dollars, continued to raise taxes yearly to 
defray the extra costs to educate students of the transient poor whose children's needs exceeded the norm. Retired home owners were caught with their fixed incomes while their taxes rose along with the
costs to keep up their property. Their "For Sale" signs joined those signs already erected on properties foreclosed on by banks when the mortgager, many out of work, could not pay their mortgage. The gross asset value of Pottstown continued to decline year after year; therefore, taxes must rise year after year just to remain even.

What would change this image ? 1-Bring back industry along with its jobs, 2-eliminate taxation based on property values, 3- demand the county to equitably distribute the care for the homeless poor throughout Montgomery County, 4- revitalize the High Street corridor to bring back retail, professional, and commercial vitality through an infusion of grant moneys, 5- embrace thoroughly the concept of Pottstown truly as a college town, 6- expect every public exposure of Pottstown, a college town, to be expressed in a positive light. 

Ronald C. Downie

Beyond The Senses

Beyond The Senses

Clambering for acceptance,
Mediocrity cast, bogged down,
Not understanding why I am
So serious while the World
Wallers in its superficiality.

Is my life a drama or a dirge ?
Can I accept universal song ?
May I see nirvana in the arts ?
Will I, the painter's eye, perceive ?
Is this me or is it a mirror of me ?

Ankles swelled, strong hands shriveled,
Eyes for sight clouded with tears,
More gum, not white what's left,
Like Spanish Moss grey, less hair,
Dropped chest rests like a flat tire,
Hobbling's more than a pain in the ass.

No longer pungent are tasteful smells. 
Where did my fine feeling fingers fly ?
Horizons, once sharp, bleed as if in mist.
Guttural rumblings mute my Earth's Song,
Flavors of a bountiful table have escaped.
Pre-eternity lives as an indomitable spirit.

Value acceptance of yourself
Within the boundaries society
Permits you're being a roll model. 
Be yourself, not that method actor
Slipping on and off center stage.
With issues grapple, set your goals.

Ronald C. Downie