Week of January 12th

When the Hunger is Real

"Pain is fleeting"
This we often hear.
It is a butterfly flying,
Careless on a warm spring breeze.
It is no more on the mind
Than the hungry in a distant land.

When Hunger strikes at home,
And darkness shrinks the heart.
The air is invaded by darkness
And the Butterfly falls under the oppression.
Defenseless, it will lie down forever.

What shall we do then?
Should we not grab the Butterfly through the polluted air?
Should we not place it in a bubble in the epicenter of the darkness?
Should we not show the Pain the beauty in the intricate wings?
The Butterfly must stay afloat,
Or Darkness will always command its domain.

What is Poetry?

Poetry is an extension of us all.  It is the words that we cannot express in prose when we suffer through a tragedy, or when we are trying to pick the pieces of our lives back up again.  It can be a message, a call, from the author to the reader, or simply the expression of the beauty and simplicity of a dandelion at the foot of a Redwood tree. Sometimes it comes from the most raw parts of our soul, or from the rambling thoughts we experience in a 7 a.m. shower.  It can pulse to the beat of our favorite rhythm, or it can be cryptic in its rhythm.  In essence, poetry can not be determined by a prototype. Poetry is a unique look into the world, and into each one of us.

Description Activity

At night in front of the Campus Center

   

     In the campus center parking lot, snow falls all around.  The snowflakes, great fat ones (the kind that if you looked closely you could see the intricately designed pattern in its structure) fall lazily to the ground, like a teenager trying to get up from bed on a Saturday morning.  The snowflakes gather with their kin on the ground. Much of the snow has not been disturbed yet. With only a few indents in the snow from the four tires of some vehicle, there is a seemingly even coat across the ground.  It looks too perfect even to be random.  I would not be surprised if a laser’s light shone unobstructed into the trees across the lot.  The brightness of the snow contrasts starkly with the dark sky.  It is the kind of blackness you see when you look straight down a very long pipe.  While staring you start to lose the sense of how far you are staring.  You know you are staring through hundreds of miles, but at the same time you feel as it might just be a large flat black surface just in front of you.  This error in my perception is due to the streetlamps that shine in the corner of my eyes, blinding me from seeing any faint lights in the steady blackness.  The snow seems to form dozens of concentric circles around each light.  A trick of the eye makes it look as though the snowflakes’ paths actually bend away from some two foot bubble around the slightly orange tinted white light.  The steady pattern of the unhurried snowflakes curving around the indiscernible light is mesmerizing.  Especially with the bare popular tree next to the campus center illuminated.  Its barren branches curve in unison skywards towards the void-less sky in a manner akin to a crowd at an emotionally powerful Christian concert.