LAX and Chris— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —
Little people holding big people’s hands
hands wading through a sea of faces…
so vulnerable, so precious.
I imagine him here
and a cherishing feeling sweeps through me.
gallagher
03 nov 83
– on my way to Vancouver
Archive for the ‘Chris’ Category
1983-11-03 LAX and Chris
Thursday, November 3rd, 19831983-12-19
Monday, December 19th, 1983Dave said it today…— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —
Pictures of starving children
our cupboards full of non-essential luxuries.
So what can such as we do
to stem this world’s insanities?
Each week more money and energy flow thru our hands
than many people in the third world see in a lifetime.
This moment…THIS moment, someone starves
some child cries out in that utter well of despair
that only the young and innocent of this world have to bear.
That endless moment of terror
that waits without cause or remorse
to prey on their young lives
crushing their attempts to understand and be loved
staining their innocence and corrupting their trust.
Generations turning like wheels, children issuing forth
into war and poverty, sickness and pain
and sometimes, …sometimes into love.
More than our imaginations could hold or our hearts believe
they live in far away places where people
are different and, somehow, less real.
Our perceptions of these places lost between
the stock market quotations and furniture sales.
My Chris is four and when he hugs me and says, “I love you.”
the love and cherishing wash thru me so poignantly
He knows he’s loved and safe and secure
and his love and innocence can burn in their full flowering.
He lives in this world we’ve made him
between his naps and meals and tickling
and being told he’s a good boy.
He grows strong and whole, here.
Can he really be living in a world where people are gambled
for money and power?
gallagher
19 December 1983
1984-04-29
Sunday, April 29th, 1984
Today I was shaving
and putting in my contacts
and Chris sat on the sink watching
like he's done a lot this last two months.
Suddenly, from this random behavior,
came pattern and purpose.
if I were making a fire or tanning leather
or stringing a bow or gathering herbs
there...it was...
there he would sit, receptive
to what he would need to live;
the transmission of learning
parent to progeny.
Wolf cubs, seals, monkeys and man
all the same...small eyes learning.
And in our plastic electronic world
where this has little validity
the instinct still lives.
he looks to me to show him the way.
gallagher
apr 29, 84
San Juan Capistrano
— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —