Newspaper Angels

Hello All, 

I have been out of touch for a while... I hope everyone is well and that things are going smoothly for you.

Here is a poem I wrote today as a reaction to the war in the Ukraine and Covid. Have a wonderful day.  

 

Today again I saw

The wind pushing recycled newspapers

Turning the pages with lethargic grace

Pages stamped all over with dried leaves

And human footsteps ...no matter...

Anyway nobody is interested in yesterday’s news

 

One glimpse at the headlines

Chilling blood and quickening pulse

Lines screaming of diseases, wars and hunger...

Horror, pain and misunderstanding

With the overall message

 

Nothing to live on, nothing to live for...

 

But I like to think that perhaps

Perhaps someone could invent

A better use for newspapers...

Perhaps there are already

Out there entire armies of newspaper

Angels....

 

Just look at the sky...

Angels dressed in perfect

Print, ink-stamped, copyrighted gowns

Carrying torches or magic wands perhaps

With lofty glow-in-the-dark tansies for tips

 

Yes, we can read...

Read the nightmarish news as we

Finish yesterday’s rice

Dressed generously with

Crisp napa cabbage and fresh ginger

 

A blessing indeed for those of us who

Don’t routinely suffer

From indigestion and if we do... no matter

It’s habit, you see... every day to look

Yes to look at the updates

 

Of x number of Covid cases

In y number of countries

How many times a day

To pore over this painful

Information so important

 

Of x developments in recently started wars

Of thousands of suffering refugees

Desperately looking for shelter

Stories filled with border closures, sanctions

And heart-rending calls for peace...

 

Stories so important yet recycled

Once again only in our heads

Better to close the pages

Of these newspapers stamped all over

With dirty hands and eternally salty tears...

 

Better to close them and turn off the TV

Instead let us start making

Newspaper Angels... yes with our own hands

Make them with x-shaped wings

Carved with the utmost care

 

Perhaps we can design them

With letter-shaped eyes so luminous

Eyes that have already learned

To search the sky and read

The apricot sunrise and fiery sunset

 

Perhaps those angels will even learn to fly

Yes, fly of their own accord...

Sprinkling light and love all around

Just a little bit of love to melt the

Most frozen of hearts

 

For once perhaps let us gather

Be it in crowds or small groups

Gather all together on the lawn

Just to greet the tapestry sunrise

Yes just for once to do it together....

 

Holding hands to see every heart

And soul in this sunrise...

I see yours one of us would say...

Do you see mine?

Oh yours looks blue like evening snow....

 

Every soul on the planet in this sunrise...

Why the pain and the bloodshed then?

Please better to make our newspaper angels

And find more souls like stars in a constellation

Some blue, some red, some yellow and some simply white...

 

Yes... just make the angels and spread

Love in bursts of fireworks all around

And let us paint the pages of yesterday’s

Newspapers all over with angelic footsteps...

Just in case...

 

We should after all note that

Not all of our angels

Have yet learned to fly...

Perhaps it is up to you and me

To teach them as we sip our morning coffee...

 

But perhaps we should first

Yes first remind ourselves how much we

Love Life truly... I love it... Do you?

Every bit of it with all its contrasting colors...

And disheveled tumbleweeds of ideas

 

So today let’s close our eyes then and send

Our newspaper Angels into the sky

And learn to identify our souls in the sunrise...

The tapestry is so wide you see...

All of humanity is there and what is more

 

(I promise)

Every soul is luminous...