*****

Recorded Reading (3:30): https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/ins9txr3fjzoqb5hxl4me/Beginning-Harmonies.mp3?rlkey=3yttg4r20chd0kfnsw95ceyw9&dl=0

*****

Beginning Harmonies

We wonder, worry, try and try again
Amel’iorate our circumstances to
Promoting growth, alleviating pain
But truly, there is nothing we can do

To dreamed-of outcomes certain guarantee —
We watch to know results, ever unsure
Awaiting always somewhat breathlessly
The crucial situation see mature

For fate is fickle, and sometimes unkind
Leaving our pleading seemingly unheard
To importunity remaining blind
However eloquent the offered word

However selfless restorative deed
However pure the motivation, one
Can never positively, from the seed,
Predict what sort of growth will be begun

So when, as now, always mysterious,
Success with harmony mine efforts crown
I offer up true heartfelt thankfulness
Following which I sit me, thinking, down

And look back on events recently past
To tell what part I played in their unfold
For good or ill, at open or at last,
That next I might fulfill yet better role

And, from this moment, when I look so back
Upon the changes in this place I be
And marvel at the nearly total lack
Of recent dismaying disharmony

And ask myself — Which gestures of my own
Did most to help to turn that threat’ning tide
To enormous dimensions might have grown
Finding my every hope at once denied?

The only action took I diff’rently
Than in more distant days I might have done
Was to refuse upon offense to be;
Admitting no war to be lost or won

Although committing much serious thought
To intricacies and potentials, I
Countenanced not by such becoming caught
Chasing mental preparedness to try,

But followed deep consideration by
Release of all detail to the Divine —
For, in my long experience, that Eye
Sees the conclusion far clearer than mine

I turned each mundane worry blessing to —
Affirmations of loving intent
Smiles of companions’ happiness to view,
Hope for antagonism’s banishment —

Well, whether it was help or it was no
(And that is something I may never know),
Through this day doth this poet peaceful go
Providing time for harmony to grow

*****

This poet presently lives at a fraction of her nation’s poverty level.

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