Perseverance

All down, failed up low?
then fail on, without ceasing
so much edged beyond normal,
failing onward into victory
instead of ceasing--
quitting
without fail

--Daniel Wilcox


Famous example:
*The inventor Thomas Edison made thousands of failed attempts at creating a successful light bulb. When someone asked, "How did it feel to fail so many times?"

Thomas Edison said, "I speak without exaggeration when I say that I have constructed three thousand different theories in connection with the electric light, each one of them reasonable and apparently to be true. Yet only in two cases did my experiments prove the truth of my theory. My chief difficulty, as perhaps you know, was in constructing the carbon filament, the incandescence of which is the source of the light." Harper’s Monthly Magazine, 1890 interview

Then in Edison’s failed efforts to create a good storage battery, Edison failed by conducting 10,000 experiments, too.
One of Edison’s friends said: “Isn't it a shame that with the tremendous amount of work you have done you haven't been able to get any results?”

‘Edison turned…like a flash, and with a smile replied: “Results! Why, man, I have gotten lots of results! I know several thousand things that won't work!”
Edison: His Life and Inventions, Frank Dyer and T. C. Martin

Each failure, eliminated one possibility, and brought him possibly closer to the right one.

Brilliance, hard work, and PERSEVERANCE!

And, last but not least, make sure that what you persevere toward is the Good, the Compassionate, the Beautiful.

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

LIVE BRANCH REACH

Live Branch Reach


Writhing twists of growing
Corded effort stretched
Out westward

From the knotted
Leaning
Shadow dark trunk,
Bright sunlight
On the contorted
Slow-year braided flow,

Tribulating
Over
Dry boulders,
Stone-strewn
On the sand-creeked streambed;

Stretched wooden waves
Driftwood wrenched,
Intertwined effort
Convoluting,
Live branch reach

Tributaries
Flowing west with
New green growth
Behind and above
The under shadows
On the barred river sand,
Living driftwood river

--Daniel Wilcox

First published in
Western Friend Magazine,
also in Willows Wept Review
and selah river poetry collection

The Thinking Class

Here’s a friendly satire/parody of a great song lyric
by a fine country singer Lee Bryce
and songwriters Frasier, Hill, Kear.*

Some drinking has bad side effects*;
so I changed a few words.
--

The Thinking Class

We're up when the computer glows
Clock in when the Internet micros
Eight hours pixeling fast
And then tomorrow we'll do it all over again

I'm a member of a tech collar crowd
They can never, nah they can't keep us down
If you gotta, gotta label, label me in the cloud

I belong to the thinking class
Monday through Friday, man we bust our brains
If you're one of us, raise your facts
I belong to the thinking class

We laugh, we cry, we love
Go hard when the going's tough
Push back, use reason it’s enough
Knock us down, we'll get back up again and again

I'm a member of a good reflecting crowd
We get rowdy, we get wild and loud
If you gotta, gotta label, label me in the cloud
I belong to the thinking class

Monday through Friday, man we bust our brains
If you're one of us, raise your facts
I belong to the thinking class

We all know why we're here
A little analysis, a little music, a little logic, a little beer
We're gonna shake off those long week to-dos
Ladies, break out your dancing shoes
It don't matter what night it is, it's Friday
It's Saturday and Sunday
I just want to hear you say
I just want to hear you sing it
Y'all sing it with me

We belong to the thinking class
Monday through Friday, man we bust our brains
If you're one of us, raise your facts
We belong to the thinking class

Yeah, we belong to the thinking class
Monday through Friday, man we bust our brains
And if you're one of us, raise your facts
We belong to the thinking class
--

*My parents were strongly opposed to any drinking because their relatives
drank their lives, and that of their families, away:-(.

Some drinking has very bad effects; so I changed a few words, emphasizing, instead, thinking.
I've worked blue-collar jobs as well as other collar jobs in my long life.

Drinking in moderation, thinking to the limit—that’s the way to go.

Raise your glass,
We belong to the thinking class.

Original Song:

https://youtu.be/ZV1oQiRdoPc

Original lyrics written by David R Frasier, Ed Hill, Josh Kear
• Copyright © Warner/Chappell Music, Inc, Round Hill Music Big Loud Songs, DO Write Music LLC

Critical Thinking photo from
https://accountingprofessor.wordpress.com/cat…/class-isssue/


In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

a short true story for when one is overwhelmed by the world's troubles

a true account for when you are overwhelmed, when events are going wrong,
from Swanee Hunt:

"Sophia...an old woman...lived in a little town in Croatia.

Every day she had one job, to go at noon to the church, to take the ropes
that were tied up on the wall, untie them, pull on the ropes,
and ring the bells in the tower.

During the war [Serbia-Kosovo-Croatian War] in village after village, when the Serb forces came in tanks, they would shoot up all the houses of the Catholics, the Croats, and then they would end up at the church.

They would go to the church and shoot up the church. At the very end they would shoot the tower.

Then they would roll out, and it would now be a Serb town.

This old woman whose church had been shot up, every day you would find her in the churchyard at noon.

There was wood splintered everywhere, but in the middle of the debris, the big bell
that had been in the bell tower
was lying on its side on the ground.

Sophia, this eighty-year-old woman,
was bent over with her old gnarled hands
grasping the clapper
and swinging her arms,
ringing
the bell.

I carry Sophia inside of me,
and I hope you will.


No matter what the circumstances
in which you are working,
in which you are living,
your job is to keep
your hands on that clapper,
ringing the bell."

by Swanee Hunt, diplomat, ambassador, founder of Hunt Alternative Fund,
for advancing innovative and inclusive approaches to social change
at local, national, and global levels, and professor at Harvard
from Global Values 101: A Short Course Edited by Kate Holbrook,
Ann S. Kim, Brian Palmer, Anna Portnoy
--

Remember the classic words:

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
--
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

by John Dunne
--

And here's a little throw-away punning for those who need a laugh,
as well as a wing and a prayer:

To misquote the old Zen question--
What is the sound of one hand clappering?

In the light of hope and truth,

Daniel Wilcox

The Perseverance and Hope of "How Much is a Person Worth?" by E. A. Kersnovskaya

http://www.gulag.su/album/index.php?eng=1&page=1&list=1

How did this book come to be written and painted?

Euphrosinia Kersnovskaya, spent many years in Soviet prison camps, exiled to Siberia.

Don't miss this powerful, illustrated autobiography of one individual's experience in the Russian Gulag, her perseverance, and continual hope.

For more extensive background, read the powerful histories, Young Stalin and Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar by the historian, Simon Sebag Montefiore.

And visit Quaker Johan Mauer's thoughtful, reflective blog at http://johanpdx.blogspot.com/

Live for the Light,
despite the abyss'd ocean of political and religious darkness
that George Fox wrote about,

Daniel Wilcox

Paradoxical Truths to Live By

Love and Loss and Lasting

A Song of Songs Into Olding


Intense clangor—the joyous movement

of rod and belle
of the brash and the subtle

caroled with rubied passion,
they ring with joy their supple skin.

Fertile in consummation, in oneness

these two-to-one
jewel their future

days with melodic movement.

Appealing with rings that couple gold,
One circle—
unending,
endless,
eternal,

They spangle their handed time with madrigals.

The chiming lyric of the sapphire
adorns their sensuous
moments.

Embellishments of gemmed time

lay close

jeweled bare on their skin,
on circular strands


Down

the

years


Turning irritants, trials, and struggles

Into pure spheres
of visioned music,

Shimmering pearls of perseverance

(Unlike the coldness
of the bland flatness,

the flaked shale
of many a marriage's mediocrity).

He and she chime in their aging,

wrinkled skin, touched creases,
caressed emeralds of cherishing,

lasting into the soft opalness

of Olding, their souls flow
warm with mellifluous serenity.

Precious
the seasoned-round

romancing,

the ringing, rubied

Song of songs.



—Daniel Wilcox

First published in Word Catalyst Magazine

--



The Essence of Software


Why is the metal-cased T.V.
fine, structurally sound,

but my loving wife of 60 years

Slowly...

dies?

What repair man can I call
to have her tinkered with

so her inside will remain vibrant and joyous—

that we might share another year together

in our odyssey

through this hard land?

Why isn't there a warranty for her?

"Guaranteed, Call 1-700, Zenith Lasts!"

Already I picture the scene,
the day coming soon like a tsunami

that will roar through our lives

and

drown us all.

I will stand

Lone

without
an umbrella

in the soft, vicious rain

and stare

down

at the immaculate metal coffin

that will endure for centuries—stainless steel, you know—while

my wife

's corny word play
(like the time she pretended
a hot dog was a cigar)

will be gone.

How obscene...the coffin will gleam with color--

the little blue angels

in the panels and the chrome handles—long lasting like the T.V.

But
my wife will not

endure,

not even appear in syndication.

And the only reruns
will be in my head

until my own show
is cancelled.

The T.V. will remain—

Well, maybe not...

It too will wear out
and be dumped

into some landfill

to corrode and rust
to oblivion.


Is there Netflix for humans?



--Daniel Wilcox

First pub. in La Fenetre, France

--

Their Beekeeper's Moon



Their beekeeper’s moon lasted only several phases

of love’s eternal sphere;

too quickly the warm honey of fired passion,
the illumined glow...

—all those amorous-vesseled words

emptied,

no wined days
or champagne-giddy nights

only

pain-flask-jarring
loss;


then

broken with dishearten
their lacerated lives

scattered into

loose shards,
glass-chasmed


and w i d e n e d---

a barren landfill
of middle years,

their debris-ed evenings...


his wandering looks,

her sidetracked eyes,

their mangled conversation


meant
seemingly
no keeper's hope remained. No communion...

However

graciously in elder-oaked age,


old scars healed and new buds came,
a fresh phase of shine

shone in their faces,

the nectared honey of freely choosing

chosen love
—their lasting
passion.



--Daniel Wilcox

First pub. in the The Greensilk Journal


--


Ever After


Waking up close to you,
Your ‘presence’ covered in our morning’s lips caress

Like the shimmering, luminous night's seal to a sleeping princess,
We’re warm, luscious honeycombed lovers,

Deeply treasured in life-long mellifluous romance
Truly our cherished delicious passion,

Chorus
And the moonlight on the water,
Moon shimmering on the lake
And the stars shine in our room
Through time to time to time

Cherishing
Our heart-welling felt vow

Spectrumed rainbow of our arrowed heart,
Protecting our intertwined soul and body
Not tempted, nor wayward

But delivered from every
Disloyal fragmented moment.

For an eternal now choosing
True love so royal streamed

From time to time to time,
Through the first falling sky-up

On mount passion's verdant peak
High above the desert of briefness,

We begin newly blessed, giving life;

Chorus
And the moonlight on the water,
Moon shimmering on the lake,
And the stars shine in our room
From time to time to time

With the snapping of the corked top
And the delicious splash

Of champagne on a sun-covered table,
And the burgundy bottle never empties
And our two communing glasses shine,

In the shimmering, luminous union
And the moon lights our room

And the stars’ shine on the lake
On our wedding night over and over and over,

You all in white lace
Warm in my embrace
And ever after.



By Daniel Wilcox

First published, different form
in The Shine Journal,
and in selah river





In the Light of commitment, kiss your true love,

Daniel Wilcox