Dave 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
Archive for the ‘Family’ Category
1983-12-19
Monday, December 19th, 19831984-08-11
Saturday, August 11th, 1984Most of my life is easy…distractions— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —
friends, peers, equals, sounding boards
those I’m defining myself with
and against.
But it gets harder when we press against
those unlike us in years or spirit;
our teenagers and preschoolers
and those we have to work with.
And yet how much of my energy do I spend
on the easy ground
and how sparsely do I meditate
on my sons and their growth.
gallagher
11 aug 84
san juan capistrano
1985-05-05
Sunday, May 5th, 1985 Sometimes like a vessel that just gets filled
I have to stay up late and pay my bills.
Open my heart all across the page
and let the pains and fears and love come rage.
Here, where the evening waits with me,
my family's breathing is love indeed.
And I'm here in a poet's home
with dusty memories and my heart, alone.
Oh, God, why did you give me these feelings here
so I ache from love and the passing years.
You gave me this vision and a hungry heart,
so I'm a mystic, a lover, and a father; part.
And here am I astride my years
stumbling from blindness and my gaping fears.
So, I bow my head and say, "Let the wind take all."
I will seek the truth behind it all,
even as I hear the sweet ground's call.
gallagher
5 May 85
— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —