A Happy Reflection

 

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An unexpected gift or hug
alleviates the stress
like a flower along a walk
that provides happiness.
 
The focus of a bee
on the pollen of one red rose
gives me pause in my walk
no matter how far I must go.
 
The unexpected moments 
of multiple harmonies
makes the walk still sweeter
than simple melodies.

For Mary's open link at What's Going On? 

My blog poems are rough drafts.

Please respect my copyright.

© 2025 Susan L. Chast

Being Human

 

I’m too happy to write about whales,

our eroding environment, and displaced refugees today

except to say that I hope all can have days like mine,

safe and relaxed with family, Chopin playing in the background.

 

Yet tears trickle down my cheeks intermittently, unprovoked

by any specific event, roll out like the ooze of a stream at its source,

a small disturbance in the landscape that means the stream will gather

and flow as a stream, and I will act as a human being.

 

I send love out from my stable day into the universe to

those who need it and those who give it,

helpers who rise up to meet the time

despite the governments of the world.

 

For Sherry's prompt "Saltwater and Whales" at What's Going On? 

My blog poems are rough drafts.

Please respect my copyright.

© 2025 Susan L. Chast

 

 

 

Magnolia Buds

 

I’d forget about spring.

if it were not for the magnolia

waking outside my study window.

This spring watches the US President

demolish our democracy, his one man’s

revenge in action, as he ignores the courts,

strips Congress of its power, and dismantles

protections for citizens and for our environment. 

He’s destroying alliances with neighbors north and south

and with NATO, abandoning the free world to befriend dictators.

 

But the magnolia tree exists, and its buds are already two inches long.

Its backdrop is sky so blue and shiny that it invites birds to nest,

and asks sleeping animals and insects and seeds to wake up. 

I’d like to wake, too, as day equals night and the spell

of darkness lifts.  I planted love in my heart and it’s

ready to burst into bud and color.  It’s ready

to shake off idleness and stand up with

other citizens to do what it takes to

reach the equality and diversity

our country once promised.  

For my prompt "March Equinox: Signs of Spring or Fall" at What's Going On? 

My blog poems are rough drafts.

Please respect my copyright.

© 2025 Susan L. Chast

Beauty in our Times

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How beautiful is a door whose
hinges work well and also
has a home attached to it.
 
How beautiful is each tree
in the woods. Standing
together is double beauty.
 
How beautiful is strength
to survive the onslaughts
of man and nature.
 
How beautiful are people
striving to right the wrongs done
by dominance and inequality
 
More beautiful still would be systems
built better moving forward, with
respect for each and everyone.

  For Sumana's prompt "Beauty" at What's Going On? 

My blog poems are rough drafts.

Please respect my copyright.

© 2025 Susan L. Chast

The Possibility of Heroes

 

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All of us righteous US citizens
go about our lives like birds in a tree
when not commenting on the immanent death
of democracy.  We who ask(ed)
Israelis to stand up against destroying Gaza;
we who judged German citizens for standing by
and letting genocide happen, we who . . . —
 
What are we doing now that clueless oligarchs
destroy the rights we US citizens
built slowly over the years?  And sentence
people to death by neglect?  We twitter
in our trees, those of us with little to lose
other than our community, our humanity,
our integrity, our safety, our authority,
our youngest looking out from their nests
and watching us to learn how to fly.
 
The trees whisper, let us calm you,
lovely birds, you who, like us,
have so much to lose.  Let us calm you.
Come home to rest and then go out again. 
Be heroes: do not stop until you have saved something,
stood up for something even small, and grown
weary in the fight.  Trees will shelter birds
as long as they can.  Will stand up with us
as we stand for them, remembering
that they too, have much to lose.
And we are not birds, but humans.

 

For Mary's prompt "Heroes" at What's Going On? 

(With apologies to birds and trees.)

My blog poems are rough drafts.

Please respect my copyright.

© 2025 Susan L. Chast

 

Darkness in Peacetime

 

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How rare to find total darkness—
the kind in a closely draped room with a firmly locked door
or the kind with windows but no moon
the kind behind gently closed eyes
the kind that heightens other senses beyond sight.
 
Especially if you know where you are—
so panic doesn’t prevent movement and break your breath
so you aren’t waiting for blasts and sharp lights and pain
so you aren’t caught between calling out and utter silence
so you aren’t mourning loss too harsh for words.
 
In the dark, when the outlines are familiar and
when you can touch, hear, and smell comfort
when you can imagine what is outside and
can meditate on what rises inside
then creativity flowers.
 
How I love the comfort of darkness
with you helping me to feel myself
or alone, tasting the words that rise up and say
remember me until morning, remember
me until tomorrow, plant me and let me grow.

 For Sherry's prompt "The Dark" at What's Going On? 

My blog poems are rough drafts.

Please respect my copyright.

© 2025 Susan L. Chast