WHY DID I CHOOSE THIS GAME?
I completed my tour in the Black Land, played the game
Did honor my parents and the one God
Did honor work — did honor play
Did raise up children to be strong in kindness
Who knew compassion was their greatest strength
Who knew that man and woman both partake
of godliness, who knew the rule of life.
So now my tour of duty was complete, I did my best.
So now I had to choose the next game; I
Surveyed the twirling globe of swirling blue
Surveyed the golden kingdoms raised and razed
Surveyed the weary lands in despot hands —
I read the rules of many a fair land
from pole to pole, from ice to tropic seas —
At last my eyes beheld a noble script
“We hold these truths to be self-evident...”
And so this was the game I chose to play,
the rules I chose to live by. “Life
Liberty and Pursuit of Happiness.”
Into this new game was I born.
Alas, I came with my Kemetian skin
and so the noble rules were not for me.
What was self-evident was not for me.
Life and Liberty were not for me. I
No longer choose to play this game.
MICHAEL
We long to see God face to face.
No, we expect it, muddy boots
notwithstanding.
Semele, bless her soul, just this
demanded; burnt her to a crisp,
did the Glory.
And Arjuna on bended knee,
the radiance of Krishna’s form
could not he bear.
But Michael whispered in my ear
the secret: how to recognize
the face of God,
The One who walks incognito
among us, yearning to be known
for our own sake;
Who wears a mask to shield our flesh
from immolation; beaming love
through human eyes.
How will we recognize tomorrow
the face we dare not see today?
Our reflection...
This is my late brother, Hale M. Smith, MD, whose book "Religion Reinterpreted" is soon to be released by Penmore Press.
THE WORD FROM THE BIRD
I guess that’s all for now.
Some other time
we’ll talk about the sky
of Hartwood Road
and the little bird within it,
on a wire
above me, singing out
his little heart
to show me how it’s too
impossible
for Life to exist in Not-Life.
How he sang!
and sent the fierce vibration
of his song
into the future, through
the medium
of my poor memory,
and of my joy