Looking into 2024, here's my last Life-Stance views in one page about Reality, Life, and History

MY LIFE-STANCE in one page --JANUARY 2024

1 REALITY—is MEANINGFUL--the Cosmos, Life, Natural Laws, Moral Truths, Math, Reason, Scientific Method, Technology, Creativity...

All humans have worth within themselves!

And to a lesser degree, other primates and sentient animals, worth in themselves...

I suppose one could say that plants, bugs, rocks, asteroids, planets, solar systems, quasars, Black Holes, gravity, relativity, etc. have worth in themselves, but since none of those are conscious, aware, rational, etc., it’s probably a category error to make such a huge judgment about inert things or unconscious processes.

Despite the ruthless, impersonal nature of Deep Time evolutionary change over at least the last 3.7 billions years of survival of the fittest, and the luckiest...

And the large number of human thinkers who advocate atheism, naturalism, materialism, anti-realism, and others who claim revealed religions, ideologies of extreme left and extreme right...

Those are false, bind alleys into nihilism, denying all human worth, purpose, meaning, morality, reason, math etc.

2 Instead, Like many brilliant famous scientists have emphasized (including Albert Einstein), Ultimate/Essential/Transcendent Nature of Reality is unknown to all finite, limited humans-FAR beyond anything we are capable of thinking or concluding.

Who knows if there are advanced species in the Cosmos like the science writer Carl Sagan speculated?

HOWEVER, many brilliant thinkers have SPECULATED on possible answers, one of the most recent being that the nature of REALITY is PROCESS, Not substance, Not Irrational, Not Chance...

And that seeking the ultimate doesn’t come by reductionism down to only tiny particles like theoretical physicist and atheist Brian Greene states (in The Elegant Universe) and others such as Sean M. Carroll.

Other theoretical physicists think we need to focus upwards to the possible Multi-Verse for finding ultimate significance.
Different views come from other famous cosmologists such as Paul Davies, George F. R. Ellis, the South African theoretical physicist “who is considered the world leader in relativity and cosmology. He co-wrote the book, The Large Scale of Space-Time with Stephen Hawking.”
https://royalsociety.org/people/george-ellis-11396/....

3. When all has been said and done in my 77-years-of-life, I realize now that Family, Friends, etc. don’t care as much as we old guys would like.

BUT, I do know that Life isn’t about me.

Heck, over a million Americans AS IMPORTANT AS ME died in the COVID pandemic in only a couple of years. Does anyone in particular care?

NO!

Many current American leaders even deny social distancing, masking, and the vaccinations’ worth and claim, instead, that COVID was all a “Democratic scam” and the completely false huge lies about alleged massive fraud in the 2020 election (of which there is not even a single shred of evidence. Even some Republican leaders such as those in Georgia emphasize there is no basis for the false claims)!

--

I’m just one of billions of humans inhabiting this tiny planet in a minor solar system on the edge of a galaxy among billions of galaxies...

And, I know for a fact, though I can’t imagine it, that my brief important time is almost up. Like my beloved dad 10 years ago, I will in the not to distant future, breathe my last.

And 2 undertakers will arrive like orderlies, will wrap my corpse in a winding sheet, bag my body onto a rolling cart, and haul it out.

BUT I AM THANKFUL FOR ALL THE WONDERFUL TIMES I’VE EXPERIENCED, THE OTHER HUMANS I’VE CARED FOR, AND THE AMAZING FACTS I’VE LEARNED IN MY LONG LIFE.

HOPEFULLY, the TRUE GOD WILL REMEMBER ME, and some humans I’ve known will think of me once and a while as they continue to live on into Reality’s FUTURE.


Dan Wilcox, the aged stroked mutant;-)

12/27/23

Senator Mark Hatfield to Congress on THE FALLACY OF "PEACE TROUGH STRENGTH"

The current leaders of Congress and Presient Biden need to hear these words of warning from 1989 against excessive spending on weapons and war preparation. from Address to the President and Congress from Republican Senator Mark Hatfield in 1989
Short Bio:...a Lieutenant J. G. in the Navy, Mark Hatfield commanded landing craft in some of the bloodiest battles of World War II. He was one of the first U.S. military personnel to enter Hiroshima after the atomic bomb was dropped in 1945.
These experiences, coupled with a deep religious faith and steadfast belief in the progressive principles... [and] Despite warnings of political suicide, as Oregon's Governor, Mark Hatfield cast the only vote at the 1965 National Governors Conference in opposition to a resolution supporting President Johnson's Vietnam war policy.

In 1981, Senator Hatfield cast the lone vote in the Senate against enormous increases in the Department of Defense budget.

Known as the father of the Nuclear Freeze, Senator Hatfield joined with Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA) to force a halt to the nuclear arms race.
In 1981, he sponsored the first prohibition against U.S. combat troop involvement in El Salvador and in 1984 authored the amendment which successfully deleted funds to conduct the so-called "secret war" in Nicaragua.

In 1984, he was credited with single-handedly preventing renewed production of nerve gas weapons.

WASHINGTON, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 2, 1989
Vol. 135 No. 107
Congressional Record

"Peace through strength is a fallacy..." Senator HATFIED: “People wanted to believe that victory was right around the corner, and they wanted to believe that our massive war spending would one day end. And so at least for a couple more years the money kept flowing into the military.

Mr. President, from the Revolutionary War to the Civil War to the Spanish-American War through World War I, through World War II, through Korea, through Vietnam, and through the cold wars in between:

At no time did the spending for military purposes reduce or diminsh after those wars. They reached a peak during a war, and then remained at that peak following the war. No build down-only a build up. And no peace dividend, Mr. President. None at all.

And as we entered this decade, the clarion call went out: despite one of the largest and best trained militaries in the world, despite a nuclear arsenal of unprecedented destructive power, we're somehow vulnerable. A spending gap is what they called it and so we began a massive buildup; bil- lions and billions of dollars to catch up.

Nevermind that this spending gap was a phony as the bomber gap of the 1950s and the missile gap of the 1060s-Democrats and Republicans alike dutifully lined up and marched to the drummer of higher military spending.

And so it is that we have gathered here every year since only to play on. the margins. Oh, we sound reasona- ble-and we like to think that we sound responsible. We go to hearings and briefings, we have long debates over this program and that program, this weapon or that weapon, and we cast our votes on amendment after amendment.
But when it comes right down to it, Mr. President, we are only playing on the margins. This Congress-a bipartisan majority of this Congress-has approved $2.2 trillion of the $2.3 trillion requested for defense spending during this decade alone.

We have played on the margins for so long, Mr. President, that I am afraid we do not even know what the real issues are anymore. We seem to have lost sight of the fact that many of the programs we have authorized- and are authorizing again here today- are intended for one purpose and one purpose only; mass destruction.

We seem to have lost sight of the fact that every dollar we spend on bombs and bullets means that we are underfunding programs to meet the Nation's desperate human needs: health care, education, our war on drugs, low income housing, prison con- struction, AIDS research-all of these things are part of our national defense.

Sometimes, Mr. President, we even lose sight of the margins. Several days ago, the Senate considered an amendment earmarking money for the devel- opment of more lethal weapons for our ground troops.

More lethal? Even the words have begun to lose their meaning.

what is more lethal supposed to mean when some of our troops already carry tactical nuclear weapons on their backs? But nobody else even raised an eyebrow: the vote was 98-1.

I remember, back in 1981, when 10 subcommittees of the Senate Appro- priations Committee were forced to make $9.9 billion in cuts from domestic spending-so that defense spending could be increased by $7.4 billion.

We can no longer afford to fool ourselves, I said in the full committee markup- but oh, how wrong I was. The Nation's defense budget has almost tripled in the past decade with our bipartisan blessing and spending to meet the desperate human needs throughout this country has been cut and cut and cut again to pay for it-some 33 per-cent reduction in the nondefense discretionary programs in the last decade.

Could somebody tell me if there is some secret strategy-some finite figure that we will one day reach and then suddenly be secure? Will we ever have enough?

I do not think so.

We are, Mr. President, like the thirsty man in the desert who thinks he sees an oasis ahead but when he moves closer, it moves too. Further and further-or for us, higher and higher. And as his thirst finally kills him, our lust for bigger and better weapons of mass de- struction is going to destroy us one day too.

Peace through strength is a fallacy, Mr. President, for peace is not simply the absence of a nuclear holocaust.

Peace is not a nation which has seen its teenage suicide rate more than double in the past two decades. Peace is not a nation in which more people die every 2 years of gunshot wounds than died in the entire Vietnam War. Peace is not the town in Pennsylvania which last year was forced to cancel its high school graduation because officials believed that a group of students planned to commit suicide at the ceremony. And peace is not here in Washington where
after leading the Nation in murders last year, children are beginning to show the same psychological trauma as children in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Can we really believe that the decisions we have made--and are making--do not have a direct relationship to the violence which plagues our Nation? I suggest that we consider changing the motto on our coins, Mr. President.

It now reads: In God We Trust-but by blindly pursuing the nuclear arms race, by putting the destruction of life over the preservation of life, we have foresaken our trust in God. We have shaken our fist at God as E.B. White once put it, we have stolen God's stuff. Our motto ought to be:

In Bombs We Trust. That is our national ethic-that is the example we are setting here, on this floor.
...is there no ethical dimension to the arms race, to our abuse of our natural and human resources, to our waste of scientific genius, to the bankrupting of the Federal Treasury to pay for weapons of mass destruction?

Is there no ethical dimension to our decision, our conscious decision, to add more and more weapons to our stockpiles, while millions of people in our own country have no roof over their heads,

when we cannot fund our homeless programs, when we cannot fund our war on drugs?

Is there no ethical dimension to the violent examples we are setting for our children? Is there no ethical dimensions to the definition of national security that we are passing on to the developing nations of the world, where arsenals are now as bloated as the bellies of the Third World's children?

... who accept the twisted logic which says we must produce nerve gas to negotiate a treaty; which says we must continue nuclear testing to ensure safety. A safe nuclear weapon? Mr. President, I wish George Orwell could sit in on these debates.

...the United States and the Soviet Union deployed more nuclear warheads than will eliminated under the treaty. That is right. We spent and spent and spent, so that the adminis- tration could negotiate from strength. For all our money, all our weapons, the only thing we received in return was a tiny little dent in the stockpile we had just created.

... To those who may suggest that I am naive, I respond: I have been there. As a young naval officer, I walked through the rubble of Hiroshima-a month after the bomb was dropped. I saw the death-the slow, agonizing pain-and the charred bodies.

As we stand here playing on the margins, Mr. President, as we stand here voting 98 to 1 for the development of more lethal weapons, the stench of death haunts me still.

Forty-five years ago, we could legitimately say that we did not know. Now we do. Let me read just a few lines of John Hershey's "Hiroshima:" He found about 20 men and women on the sandspit. He drove the boat onto the bank and urged them to get aboard. They did not move and he realized that they were too weak to lift themselves.

He reached down and took a woman by the hands, but her skin slipped off in huge, glovelike pieces. Then he got into the water and, though a small man, lifted several of the men and women, who were naked, into his boat. Their backs and breasts were clammy, and he remembered uneasily that the great burns he had seen during the day had been like: yellow at first, then red and swollen, with the skin sloughed off, and finally, in the evening, suppurated and smelly.

With the tide risen, his bamboo pole was now too short and he had to paddle most of the way across it. On the other side, at a higher spit, he lifted the slimy living bodies out and carried them up the slope away from the tide. He had to keep consciously repeating to himself:
"These are human beings. These are human beings."

SDI, Asat weapons, the Midgetman, the MX missile, the Stealth bomber, nerve gas, the D-5 missile, the Trident submarine: I will cast my vote against them all.

Since 1980, Mr. President, I have given more than 30 speeches during our annual consideration of this bill: 7 against nerve gas production,

5 against underground testing,

3 against ASAT weapons,
3 against the MX missile,

3 against the draft,

2 against SDI.
The list goes on and on. But I have felt over the years like I am speaking in a vacuum; we have approved them all.

And I speak in a vaccum today; my colleagues will listen politely and then vote for it all. I will feel that way too-as I have for many years now-when I cast my vote against final passage of this bill. For I too am playing on the margins.

In the absence of political will-on this floor and across the country-in the absence of the kind of political will we seem to be able to muster when the Department of Defense needs another increase but not when children go hungry, anything more is impossible.

Mr. President, unfortunately we only have had one President of the United States who, in my view, understood national security, national de- fense. He was a five-star general: Dwight David Eisenhower.

Mr. President, these are his words:
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is hu- manity hanging from a cross of iron."

This was the man who led the Allied troops in World War II; he understood war, but he also understood peace.
We are kidding ourselves, Mr. President. Today we are vulnerable. The national defense of this Nation, has left us vulnerable, but not because we lack an arsenal.

The vulnerability of this Nation today is that we rank at the bottom of the list in math and science, and that at least 20 million Americans cannot read or write. The vulnerability of our Nation is the deterioration and the erosion of our infrastructure, our highways, bridges, air- ports, our ports.

Our vulnerability today is a nonproductive economy, noncompetitive economy. Our vulner- ability is the people who are without homes, nutrition, education, health care.

Ultimately , the security of the Nation is not found in its materialism. It is found in a spirit. It is found in a strength of heart and mind. It is found in its people-we the people.

We the people are vulnerable today. Let us at least be honest: we are not addressing those vulnerabilities with this bill or any other bill."



BIO: As a Lieutenant J. G. in the Navy, Mark Hatfield commanded landing craft in some of the bloodiest battles of World War II. He was one of the first U.S. military personnel to enter Hiroshima after the atomic bomb was dropped in 1945.

These experiences, coupled with a deep religious faith and steadfast belief in the progressive principles... [and] Despite warnings of political suicide, as Oregon's Governor, Mark Hatfield cast the only vote at the 1965 National Governors Conference in opposition to a resolution supporting President Johnson's Vietnam war policy.

In 1981, Senator Hatfield cast the lone vote in the Senate against enormous increases in the Department of Defense budget.

Known as the father of the Nuclear Freeze, Senator Hatfield joined with Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA) to force a halt to the nuclear arms race.
In 1981, he sponsored the first prohibition against U.S. combat troop involvement in El Salvador and in 1984 authored the amendment which successfully deleted funds to conduct the so-called "secret war" in Nicaragua.
In 1984, he was credited with single-handedly preventing renewed production of nerve gas weapons.

3 Sons OUGHT NOT SLAUGHTER each other's families!

Three Sons OUGHT No Longer Fight

Disking the rock strewn
Objected earth near Bet Shean,
Underneath the Middle Eastern sky
Rows of mean earth riven by the blades,
We cut away our anger, hate, and pride,
Stopping to drink, not from the liquor

Of fanatic corruption but from
The precious water welling up,
Our oasis of Jacob'd sharing,
In this Hanukkah season
Of Christ's mass after
Ramadan.

Allah

We three sons of Abraham,
Muslim, Jew, and Christian,
Fight the true battle
Not each other but
To be found worthy
In compassion
Giving,
And purity--
The true Submission
To God
Over
All.

Selah



First pub. in
outwardlink.net

Review of The LAST CALL: RISE and FALL of PROHIBITION--1870 to 1933 by Daniel Okrent

A meticiulous, highly detailed accounting of how PROHIBITION came about along with other Reform movements in during that dramatic, controversial, and tragic period of time. What odd bedfellows though.

The huge effort to ban the importation, making, and using of acoholic beverages in the U.S. came about along with the Progressive era efforts at Moral Uplift by government force, for the restricing of immigration of eastern Europeans (Italians, Poles, Slavs, etc.), and Asians, Jews, and so on, many efforts to 'clean-up' corrupt government, attacks against other modern reform movements...

And, weirdly, a very strong support for the Ku Klux Klan (since it also was against alcoholic drinks, Roman Catholics, Jews, Blacks... The 1920's beginning in about 1914, there was an incredible 20thc century rise of that racist organization! The KKK was strongly
supported by Methodists, Baptists, even some Quakers (such as a large Quaker meeting in Indiana, where the lead pastor, a woman, invited about 30 white-robed KLANSMEN to the front of the meeting house!)

Of course, even President Woodrow Wilson supported Jim Crow laws! As a southener, when he came to power, he quickly SEGREGATED the Federal Government and soon violated 'freedom of speech' rights, etc.

Very strange. If you want to understand how all of this could happen, read this tragic very suspenseful 60-year history, The Last Call by Daniel Okrent.

Photos:

Will You Back Me Or Booze?” Propaganda Poster; with a photo of New York City Deputy Police Commissioner John A. Leach, right, watching agents pour liquor into sewer following a raid during the height of Prohibition
Women’s Holy War, published by Currier & Ives, 1874, via Library of Congress, Washington D.


Before settinly into weeks of intense reading, I had already known quite a bit about Prohibition.
But I very quickly learned how little I actully knew of the specifics--how it came about, of why it happened, and of why it so woefully failed--the only time an admendment to the Constitution was later repealed!


Another shocking

Door of HOPE, Gaza Children's music video 8 years ago; Warring M.E. leaders need to stop and seek that hope Now!

https://youtu.be/sBpjIyXktPw?si=2yXcXL_jFovbbrAZ
Lyrics: "...With forgiveness and a big heart we eliminate darkness
no matter how long it lasts
Together we overcome hardships
and the hearts are comforted with love,
We light our ways with goodness,
it's within us and we are the torch."

"Inspired by the children at the Child Friendly Spaces in Gaza, the idea to compose a song and create a music video was put together in order to emphasize the importance of hope, peace and a better future for children in Palestine.

Forty children from the CFSs sponsored by the Government of Germany, with the help of seven staff members, worked together on writing the lyrics, composing the music and designing the choreography for the music video. This music video is a testament to the resilience of the children in Gaza and their love for life."

World Vision Gaza had to be paused because the right-wing government of Israel falsely accused the WV leader of Gaza of terrorism!

World Vision has been working in the Holy Land since 1975 serving the poor and marginalized and is committed to advocating for the improved well-being of children as well as empowering Palestinian and Israeli voices that advocate for peace and justice. World Vision is currently working in Jerusalem, West Bank."
http://www.wvi.org/jerusalem

--

Work in the Light of Peace, Justice, Equality, and Human Rights, Daniel Wilcox

Concerning the Crisis in Gaza and Southern Palestine-Israel--TRAGIC!

This short meditation on GAZA and Palestine-Israel was written 15 years ago during another war:-(

But, here now, in the 21st century, both sides are even more extremist, more self-centered, prideful, intolerant, unjust, war-gung-ho, abusive, dismissive of civilians' lives--all in the name of orthodox Judaism and orthodox Islam or at least cultural religion...

Please stand up for the True and the Compassionate when it comes to Palestine/Israel,
where the slaughtering by both sides is punishing the innocent as well as the guilty.

Photo of Ramallah Friends School

Hold all people in the Light.

The whole situation of Palestine/Israel in the last 150 years is so very convoluted and complicated.

NO ONE has any quick answers or solutions for the extremely complex tragedy.

NO HOPE IS POSSIBLE UNTIL BOTH SIDES CHOOSE to FORGIVE and agree to compromise!

The ultimate irony is that both the Palestinians and the Israelis genetically come from the same ancient peoples of the region!
What divides these multi-millions of haters isn't biological but religious and political and cultural.

It was tragic when I lived in Palestine/Israel in 1974, worked on a Jewish kibbutz, stayed briefly with a Palestinian Muslim family who befriended me in Nablus. And for many years since, I've followed the daily news there and read many books from the perspective of both sides.

Please support some of the groups that seek to bring light and reconciliation there-- the Quaker/Friends School in Ramallah, Palestine for the last 100 years.

And in the past, Christian Peacemaker Teams and Brother Andrew's involvement in bringing Jew and Palestinian Muslim together, even going to HAMAS to share his perspective with its leaders (when the government of Israel had dumped them midwinter into Lebanon years ago.

Support Eli Chacour a Palestinian/Israeli Palestinian priest who shares the true, the good, the kind, the just with both warring sides. Chacour has worked with and started a school/university for all peoples of the area--Christian, Muslim, Druse, and Jew. He has also befriended seculaerists and non-theists.

That is a start.

Here are several books that might assist in helping everyone to better (and more historically accurate) understand the complexity, hatred, intolerance, of the area:

Once Upon a Country: A Palestinian Life by Sari Nusseibeh and Anthony David

Blessed are the Peacemakers
by the former assistant mayor
of Ramallah, Audeh Rantisi who co-wrote it along with Ralph Beebe of George Fox University and Northwest Yearly Meeting.

Blood Brothers by Elias Chacour
We Belong to the Land by Elias Chacour

Chacour's father, a Palestinian Christian said that they needed to love
the Jews (when the Jews were escaping lethal violence in Russia and Europe to the M.E.).

Yet later
the Israeli army kidnapped him and Chacour's brother
and dumped them in a foreign country.

Then the Israeli Army blew up
their Palestinian Catholic church and drove all of the Palestinians
out of their homes and town.

The Israeli government has never allowed Chacour and other Palestinians to come back to their home.

Yet Chacour still shows love to the Jewish people, and to Muslims, Druze, and all others.

Sounds like the "Lamb's War--a war of love, justice, and peace! --the only war worth having.

Peace in the LIGHT--the Caring, the Good, the True, the Just,

Dan Wilcox
http://infiniteoceanoflightandlove.blogspot.com/

selah river: Poems of reflection, remembrance, transcendence

"I've known rivers...my soul has grown deep like the rivers."* Langston Hughes

Yes, travel rivers of the world
and rivers of the soul
and rivers of the mind.

Selah.


Presence transcends

Drowned in family tragedy, despairing, distraught--
that morning earlier;
thus down encumbered,
he came to Quaker meeting, but not speaking
of his family’s severe circumstance, kept hidden;

But in the midst
of open expectant communion, Transcendent Light
shown forth in a stranger’s sudden
a cappella spiritual chorus--
a deep songing deepening within;
intense meaning lifted us gathered in communion--
vivid encouraging Hope;

That sacred chorus didn’t take away our shattered glass
lives, nor end many distraught
circumstances and tragedies--
but
Oh, what Hope fulled within.

--Dan Wilcox


a beachcomber of Beauty

a why-ing kid
up
with go-vision eyes stretching and out,
rambling
meandering rocky-rubble farm roads
and roaming over creeks, through timber strands,
brief forest, and out across pasture lands--

I discovered beautiful bits and lumps that matter
--pebbles, stones, and rocks
(especially when wet)
and odd ugly ones, to boot

on fun nature hikes
wide-eyed adventures--
outside of our minor village
in 50’s southeast Nebraska;

Put those bright objects, small hunks, in my pockets
where they lay heavy
or in my overloaded baggish hands,
carrying them home,
my free treasures of early/pre-youth

enlarging my throng of wonder
in my pine-walled basement room--
Yes, I became a rock-mongrel mutt;

And later found others, mostly bits of minerals,
my boyhood keepers
in the Black Hills, Rockies, Sierras,
and a small chunk of copper ore
from an open pit mine in Bisbee, Arizona,

and a few parched white bones from
a long-ago bison jump
near Lame Dear, Montana.

I became a boarder of pebbles, quartzes, feldspars, agates,
granite bits, and mica, sea-glass, iron pirate,
and who-know unknowns,
and fascinating shells and other sea life from 3 coasts--

a life-long beachcomber of minor Beauty,
a voyager through this washed-up-n-down of life,
Adrift explorer, searcher, curious wanderer.

But now in receding elder age, mutated
by a stroke of bad luck,
I hesitently hobble about with a rolling walker alone
along Pismo sand dunes and Morro Rock shores
still searching, seeking for more special riff-raff,
to add to my ‘treasured things,’
our rooms’ shelves;

Here they still lay waiting
inert for another
I/It encounter...

Oh, the aesthetic depth of minor things,
bits that matter which sometime
transcend
into present
WONDER!

Yes, objects of beauty that exist in Deep Time...

In not too many years,
I will leave them behind;
and those long-enduring things will
exist others of the future.

And this long rumination of my life-long collections
Reminds me of a pebbled thought of beauty for present living--

We humans get washed up
on this shore of existence,
surrounded and crowded

by things and circumstances
we didn’t choose--

We all get roughed down and polished by adversity…

But the wonder of our human brain’s neural plasticity--
is we all get to choose
how we respond to life’s circumstances,
harsh trials, and horrific tragedies--

Yes, until our death, we get to create anew
Each moment,
If only briefly
--
Conclusion:
What has washed up on your shore today?
What beautiful pebbled moment of wonder?
Or what irritant, ache, troubling circumstance, or tragedy
has gotten lodged in your
oyster mind and heart?

What can you do to turn this troubled moment into a precious
gem/pebble/stone/agate?

-Dan Wilcox


Awake at dawn

upending my camping mug
for a drink,
at dawn,
but no water slurp;
almost empty--

except for a gray web’s net
rim to rim;
below, a dark spider
silent dwelling
--


Retreaded, not yet board and carded

I’m retreaded but road-tired,
Rolling across cantankerous land
Though, thank heavens—knock around
On pavement
And redwood,
Not yet sent off to a ‘board and card’ mansion,
Rehearsing...

You know where decks and bingo
“Was a dog…” chips or
Markers
Define the tokened measures of your/our life--

Or where, too
Reclining and breathing entertain you/us.

Or tipped-wobbly with 4-wheels and unfeeling-ed feet
I walker along the wet sand at Morro Strand beach
Staggering in wonder at this breathtaking coast...
Here
Until my brief spark of awed experience embers out

Gone...

Yet
Reality Ultimately
Transcendent
--


Meditation on Shimmering Palms

On more days and nights, an invalid,
In pain and loss, I often just want to go...
Unconscious;
But then, again, I stare out
To the wind and sun
From our upstairs
Window;

There tower above, 2 lone palms
In sight from my weak haven,
Swaying in that blue expanse
In a lively coastal wind,
Their mop-tops of slender fronds
Shimmering
Like flashing magnesium flares
From brilliant reflecting
Sunshine.

Those two undulating sentinels dance
over/above my fading consciousness,
Ailing awareness--
A duo/two unconscious guards,
While I lay here filled with sacred
Remembrance, mindful
Of my former festive living,
Becoming, and doing….

Yes, the wonder of being a human primate
Living, but finite, so brief, and this
Gift, this Present
Shimmering--
Then we’re gone.

-Dan Wilcox,
--

FLOATERS--a poetic reflection on autumn and life

I’m spent to despair,
For lost hope yearning,
Tried for years to rescue others
Caught in tangled news hours
Of hellish hate, intolerance, despair,

Wrong right-leftist spinners,
Those creedalists and secularists
Both deniers of the morally real--
Their abyss of modern sheol winter
Stop!
Abandon this somber cellared lament!

Instead,
My sweetheart suggests, Let’s visit
A coastal winery,
Say, I do,
We do.

Driving along a winding river valley,
We arrive, expectant,
Hoping for respite;
Then, listening to soft music,
Sipping small glasses of moscato and merlot

Enjoying a glad lackadaisical day,
Mellow and casual,
Light of heart,
Carefree, contented
In California’s autumn’s wonder
Below tall sycamores and elms;

After Thanksgiving before winter;
We bask in 86-degree warmth,
When unexpectedly a slightly curled
Leaf floats down before
My eyes,
And lands gently on my lap,
A died wonder for us to behold;

Then another drifter
Lets go from a large limb above,
A deep rust-brown leaf spattered
With light tan highlights and vein-lines,
Descends in front of us,

Swaying back and forth,
Languid,
Lightly
Floating down
Inches away from us,
Landing nearby
On the lawn;

I lay with my head way back,
Gazing up to the sky's azure blue,
As other gifts let go every few moments
From high above,
Swinging wide and gentle,

Falling beauty in slow motion,
Floating, swaying;
I realize—here, now--
With this Present--
I could die free, released.

-Dan Wilcox


Color Me Fiery Intense Red

As a kid, expressive, creative, rambunctious,
something of a wild card
long into adulthood
I loved vibrant Green--
for abundant life, for exuberant energy, vividly alive
for beauty like in colors, emerald or jade,
for the natural world from creek to patch of woods
behind our house on the edge of Adams village,
to verdant forest green glens of the Sierras, Sequoia and Yosemite

But--
then, suddenly, unexpectedly, without conscious why;
spontaneous, impulsively one day in middle life,
I awoke
not liking green anymore...
viewing green instead as dull, insipid, sickening, repetitious, odd, over-done, humdrum...

Color me instead--RED riveting, intense, striking sparks of light
cardinal, crimson, scarlet burst into my eyes and consciousness
—passionate, dazzling, blazing, heated, different...

as in exploding firework sky rockets,
as pulsing red coals in a bonfire,
as an amazing psychedelic quilt by my sweetheart
like an Impressionistic painting, luminous in our house
to ruby red lava in Hawaii’s volcano,
intense sunsets, and Utah’s red rock

RED forever

--Dan Wilcox


A Psalm of Late Life

Pessimist of my oldering years
Preyed upon by lamentable loss
I find no balmy psalms to lyre
But after discovered liars
Only this harp
of yawps and howls,
I pray for transcendence,
​This my modern yelled holler
My psalm of life end's exit
Dance in this sorrowing starred night



bidingTimeabiding

bite my teeth on famous lines
a hole lot of fragmented shells;
hunger hollows within--
deepening abyss
of lost longing
lone-ranging, reigning the distance
of a round heartless night

of a round heart-last light
lane-ranging, raining the day-stance
of last longing
steepening a-bless
fulness hallows within--
a whole lot of fragranced shalls;
bide my heart on famous lines
--


a time for…

in the fall a time for springing
childhood,
festivals of Monet-splashed leaves
that my sister and I raked and piled high
in the deep ditch in front
and jumped down into,

and our large garden behind the parsonage
with pumpkins, melons, and withered corn rows...
and lightning bugs on the wane,
flashing on and off

full of fall...
--


bolder utah

utah boulders,
eye widening rock
pastels bold in harvest's sun--
basalt garden wonder
--


at the park's bat box

my grandson scooping up handfuls
of dust
and swinging it loose--
fogged clouds
lighted by sunshine
that disperse
back to cleated ground

--

gull wings

gull wings
lightly spraying over gray clod fields
6-year drought--
so 'irrigating'!

--
Experience the awe-widened beauty of the Columbia Gorge:

MORNING GLORY

http://infiniteoceanoflightandlove.blogspot.com/2017/10/morning-glory.html
--

Want to be conundrummed? Live in the starbacked night?
Visit Clockwise Cat Poetry Magazine: Klox and Katz Ink Issue, for my two new poems:
conundrumming
Starbacked
https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/59489337/klox-and-katz-ink

Check out a brief poem on summer gloom, a haiku at vox poetica:
http://voxpoetica.com/dripping-rain-drizzles/

Then leave sorrow and war and memory behind. Journey love and romance in "Moon River" at Poetry Pacific.
http://poetrypacific.blogspot.com/2015/02/2-poems-by-daniel-wilcox.html

Need a little bit of humor in the midst of so much human tragedy and political chaos?
Try "The Pullout Coyote" at the fine poetry magazine, vox poetica.
A true but funny poetic story of our encounter with a wild critter in Yosemite last year.
http://voxpoetica.com/pull-out-coyote/
-

For Daniel's previously published writing visit http://www.psalmsyawpshowls.com/
Also, check out his new speculative novel, The Feeling of the Earth.

Get caught up in the joys, trials, and tribulations of 3 alienologists who warp into our solar system in 1842.
They become deeply involved and a mutation occurs in the human species. Journey through the years with them to 2074!
Available now at Barnes Noble, local bookstores, libraries, and Amazon.

Deal with the moving film over your eyes in "Film Over Our Eyes."
Is it easier for a camel to go through the eye of a poem....?

Experience Hollywood's wild ire, the roller-coaster excess of youth,
growing up fundamentalist Baptist, all that rollicking rock crazy Oz of the 60's, and Life itself.
http://thecamelsaloon.blogspot.com/2013/11/film-over-our-eyes.html

There are 3 collections of Daniel's published poems,
Psalms, Yawps, and Howls,
Dark Energy
and selah river.
All 3 areavailable at Amazon, Barnes Noble, local bookstores, and coffee shops.
For Daniel's speculative writing, futuristic poems and stories warp over to
http://lastthings.weebly.com/.

Other websites include
http://lightwaveseeker.weebly.com
http://planktonpelican.weebly.com/


Do a Google sleuth and find washed up pieces of his poetic driftwood on the vast shores of the Internet.

His wild lines have fallen to print in many magazines including vox poetica, Fish Food Magazine, Contemporary American Voices, The Camel Saloon, Ascent Aspirations, Poetry Pacific, Dead Snakes, Paradise Review, The Mindful Word, Enhance Literary and Art Magazine, Knot Middle Eastern Literary Journal, Mouse Tales Press, Mad Swirl, Ancient Paths Literary Magazine,hotmetalpress.net, Front Porch Review, The Greensilk Journal, Bigger Stones, Lyrical Passion Poetry, Eunoia Review, The New Verse News, Decades Review, Quill and Parchment, Poydras Review, Counterexample Poetics, The Copperfield Review, Rubber Lemon, amphibi.us, Poetry Super Highway, Three Line Poetry, The Clockwise Cat, Liturgical Credo, Willows Wept Review, vox poetica, Structo Magazine #4, Four and Twenty, Gloom Cupboard, Clutching at Straws, The Centrifugal Eye, Wild Violet Literary Magazine, Lyrical Passion Poetry, A Handful of Stones, Haiku Journal, Right Hand Pointing, The Bicycle Review, Leaf Garden, The Recusant, Calliope Nerve, Static Movement, Unfettered Verse, outwardlink.net, protestpoems.org, Word Riot,
and
Moria Poetry, MediaVirus Magazine, Lunarosity, Hanging Moss Journal, The New Verse News, ocean diamond, The Writer's Eye, Mad Swirl, Abandoned Towers, Writer's Ink, The Scruffy Dog Review, Oak Bend Review, Crossing Rivers Into Twilight, Tipton Poetry Journal, The Cherry Blossom Review, Word Catalyst, The Houston Literary Review, Lucid Rhythms, Identity Theory, Halfway Down the Stairs, Frame Lines, Full of Crow, The Externalist, The Driftwood Review, Western Friend Magazine, Flutter Poetry Journal, Frostwriting, Words-Myth, Ink Sweat Tears, Erbacce Print Journal, Sentinel Poetry Online, The November 3rd Club, the poetry warrior, The Shine Journal, Mississippi Crow Magazine, The Cerebral Catalyst, Anthrozine, Ink, Sweat, & Tears, Stylus Poetry Journal, Idlewheel Literary Friction, The Indite Circle, The Rogue Poetry Journal, The WriteSideUp, La Fenetre International Literary Magazine,The Other Side Magazine, Gambit, etc.

Photographs by Dan and Betsy Wilcox

​