Morning Blessings

I am grateful for my body, even when it fails me,
for my life, even when it’s a misery and doesn’t feel like real living.

I am grateful for my strength, even when it fades; my wit, even when it flags;
the heartbeat that keeps me alive, even when it races.

I am grateful for my sight, both inward and outward, even while it blurs;
the lungs that allow me to breathe, to laugh, to talk, to sing, even when my voice cracks with exhaustion and emotion.

I am grateful for feet that bear my weight and move me forward, even when they cramp, and the muscles that keep me active, even when they ache.

I give thanks for teeth that allow me to speak, smile and chew, even though they are both sensitive and chipped; the backbone that keeps me upright, even when my shoulders hunch in frustration and my neck aches with tension.

I give thanks for my tears that sometimes pour like rain —
or sometimes dampen like dew, because they show that no matter what,
no matter how I might physically feel—
or the manner in which I might think about myself or others — I still care.

Ronda R. Scott-Marak
© 21 April 2018

Push Me Pull You

Black white 

blue red 

green;

It’s all grey 

You can’t fix one without fixing the other.

Tug of war

High tide

Low tide

The water is all the same;

It should all have the same set of rules under the Moon.

Tug of war is normal as long as both sides have equal rope and equal strength.

Tug to war should never be business as usual. 

Ronda R. Scott-Marak

© 21 October 2020

Cloud Illusions

 

(with thanks to Joni Mitchell)

April skies

Grey palette striae of layered travertine

July skies

Dandelion sails drift in  cerulean seas

October skies

Silver-blue moiré backlit with ermine trim

January skies

Downy overcoats and snowy, grizzled beards

Mutable illusions

The ceiling changes light, 

textures, hue and chroma

Ronda R. Scott-Marak

©️31 March 2025

Immigrants or Allotments

Remove the migrants, the waitstaff and farmers; kick out the gardeners, nannies, and maids. What do you get?

Are you going to do it: grub around in dirt all day, dirty faces, nappies, and houses?

Who is going to clean your resorts, mow your golf course, work your slaughterhouses? You? Your children? Your unemployed, needy retirees?

Or should the low-wage grunt work be passed along to veterans, with no benefit K. P. duty for life, cleaning up after and feeding their lessers and taking orders from bone-spurred millionaires who have never had a non-golf-related callous or injury in their lives?

Are the hiring class going to create jobs for us lesser souls doing the work of serfs, slave labour and wages, taxed their employer’s share and eating the leftovers off their plates or arrested for dumpster-diving?

Are we to eat only what we can plant in rented allotments, unwatered by rain, drowned in floods, burnt by flame or run-off, and unpollinated due to climate change and dead bees? Or do we beg for crumbs from the master race and pray for global annihilation to succeed in wiping humanity out?

Ronda R. Scott-Marak

©️ 10 January 2025

Cyclic (Persephone’s Dance)

With thanks to Cosy Sheridan for the mental prompt

Brown Seeds, Bright leaves, Green Boughs, Berries; Shoots and Blossoms, Blooms fruit and swell

Cool winds, snowstorms, fresh’ning breezes;

Grey rains, Ice rinks

Puddles, Swimsuits

Dusk and bonfires, 

Dark skies and hearths, Dawn and snowdrops, 

Day, Sand and Surf

Spinning, Turning, 

dried leaves to snow; Circling, Whirling, 

Live, dance and grow

Ronda R. Scott-Marak

©️ 6 August 2023

We March

Like the Burning Bush, 

we burn but are not consumed. 

Neither drive nor ire. 

I have been considering this week which burns brighter: 

Does love or hate, determination or stubborn will, fury or desire flare up and become embers that glow and last? 

Do our flares of intention become firestorms that destroy everything in their path or burning bushes that draw others to the flames, warming and fanning our intent while not burning out and flaring to a blinding flash?

Ronda R. Scott-Marak

© 14 October 2018

Compassion, Affinity, Neglect, or Rapport?

How many people actually pay attention, are truly aware of their surroundings, feeling other people’s joy, pain, wonder, and confusion?

 

How many notice the fragrance of nature’s growth or inhale the stench of human-made refuse;
assuming that ordure is all that there is?

 

How many well up with tears over a stranger’s sorrow,
smile with pleasure at the sight of a smiling dog or a laughing child;
not too self-absorbed to react viscerally to someone else’s emotion?

 

How many care about anyone other than themselves,
every other living thing in the world,
accepting the sentience of others unlike themselves?

 

Who among us worries as much for strangers
on the other side of the world, the other side of the tracks as we do for the things we want for ourselves?

 

Is empathy a lost art, a word with no longer any valid meaning,
has the reflective bubble in which we now exist replaced the faces behind us in the mirrors of our own egos?

 

Ronda R. Scott-Marak

© 11 August 2017