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