A One Sentence poem.

Some things can't be changed

but maybe
when a bramble fire rages
weeds are burnt away

or when blue-black clouds billow
they bring rain and sweet new growth

and even bitter cyanide
poured over low grade ore
removes the dross and what remains
is gold

but it just might take some time....

If I ( A Silver Birch Press prompt)

If I had a wand to wave over this world
for what then would I wish?

The first: for warring humanity to beat
swords into plow shares and turn hearts to peace.

The second: for government to free its shackled mind,
rule in justice for the poor,
and seek equity and equality of opportunity.

The third: for the relentless plundering of the earth to cease,
for every acid stream and every gaping ruined landscape to heal,
for water to be clean, the glaciers full,
and forests free in their glorious diversity.

The fourth: that all creatures could have their place
on this life-filled planet,
that soft-eyed orangutans
could hang unharassed in their forest homes,
that no more rhino or elephant
would ever again lie bloated and fly blown,
killed for horn or tusk,
and the tiger could rumbling purr
in sleepy peace in the flecked sunlight.

Yes, like prophets, dreamers, visionaries, poets,
if I could I would wave that wand

but I must settle for what I can do, so
if I can re-make this heart,
step by step, day by day,
in gentleness and kindness,
in tender, merciful love for all things,
if I can be slow to anger and quick to forgive,
if I can live in harmony and peace,
if I can tread lightly on this earth,
this must be sufficient for me,

though I will still lift my eyes heavenwards,
hoping, dreaming, desiring
so very much more
and thinking as well as "If I"
"If we".

Recovery.

Your world shrinks.
You have no thought of death,
although it breathes on you fiercely.
Pain fills the morphine bubble
in which you float in strange detachment
on the edge of alternative consciousness.
It consumes you.
Nothing else.
Just pain.

Then comes despair.
That night when she bends to kiss you,
turns and walks out the door
you are alone in darkness that is absolute.
Is it morphine that drifts your mind?
You are who-knows-where, far, far from your body,
that tubed, monitored, wounded thing
lying stiffly on a bed that is not yours.
You feel too alert for morphine's dulled half life.
Somewhere in the darkness
comes a connection so strong it surges through you,
an awareness of a much greater consciousness
to which your small life is somehow connected.
Despair lifts. There is hope and peace.
The darkness comes again
but it is not unconsciousness
or the numbness of morphine
but the blessedness of sleep.

You wake.
There is a small window.
In it the leaves of a tree are swaying in breeze
and glittering with light.
Have you never seen this before?
How have you missed this window,
this play of light, these bursts of colour?
Have you been blind?
How could you have taken this for granted?
This picture framed by the small window,
is beyond beautiful.
It is miraculous.

Finally, she takes you out, down the corridor,
opening the door, holding your elbow
and you limp out into the world.
Is this rebirth? Everything is new.
That blue of sky.
Those wisps of cloud.
The beauty of those trees.
And down there, at the end of the street,
is Constitution Dock and the Derwent,
light and water combining in sparkling dance,
surge of boats, white sails filling with wind,
gulls rising, floating, raucously begging,
noise of children, crowds of people,
the old sandstone buildings lining the dock,
all colour, light and movement.
The beauty shakes and overwhelms you.
It shouts its glory. It waves its wonder.
You grasp her hand. You stand in awed silence.

Your eyes will never be the same again.
You feel you have seen into the sacred,
grasped at the miracle of life.
Both for the moment are yours to embrace again

for you, who have been in darkness,
have now come out again into the light.

A Little Bit of Gold.

Bad things happen.
Can you change them to any degree?
Then deal with them and move on.

I'm not talking about Syria,
with whole cities bombed,
gas shells, murderous factions
and a population displaced,
or someone detonating a truck
filled with explosives
in a market place in Bagdad

but just your usual run-of-the-mill disappointment,
bad luck, extortion, loss, grief, betrayal.
What's done is done. It can't change
so move on

and maybe, just maybe,
that bramble fire that swept over your mind
can burn a few weeds away,
or the dark cloud that covered you
will bring some rain and sweet new growth,

or that bitter cyanide
poured onto your low grade ore
can remove some dross
and look, what remains is
a little bit of gold.