hope – Knot to Be Undone

On Quarks and Quirks

“There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” – Albert Einstein

When stardust, quarks, and mystery combine
to make a human, nothing can compare
to possibilities. Some say beware
of ultimate betrayal to confine
the breath of life where tangled roots entwine
with evolution. I can only stare
in utter wonder, blinded by the glare
of dazzling supernatural design.

For wedged between the elemental ash
and sentient entity, surprises lurk
in hidden crevices of every hue
across the spectral plane, and in a flash
all heaven is exposed. It’s but a quirk
the miracle of promise can renew.

2022 Mary Boren
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Steve Jobs Reflects

A digital encyclopedia
finds followers who cling to shifting ground
above the swirl of social media
where fabricated adages abound.

With Morgan Freeman’s name below the quote
or what the Dalai Lama might have said,
a circulating myth could stay afloat
in perpetuity when they are dead.

The final words attributed to Steve
concerning wealth and power don’t ring true
about a man compelled to take his leave
exhausted by disease, without a clue.

In truth, as heaven broke across his brow,
he simply said, “Oh wow, oh wow, oh wow.”

2022 Mary Boren
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Fact check: Final words of Steve Jobs were not about wealth (Reuters)

The Heartbreaking Last Words of Famous People

Cosmic Connection

“Not the ones speaking the same language, but the ones sharing the same feeling, understand each other.” -Rumi

The music doesn’t echo in a void.
It travels on a transcendental plane
that cannot be distorted or destroyed
and enters through a universal vein.

The magic doesn’t happen on the stage
when eyes alone are focusing on smoke
and mirrors, tricks impossible to gauge
when realism hides behind a cloak.

For only in the space between the realms
that camouflage the planets on their course
can kindred spirits forge a bond that whelms
our senses with connection to the source.

Communion recognized throughout the spheres
will ring when stillness penetrates our ears.

2022 Mary Boren
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Don’t Let Go the Rope, America

While the churches keep turning a back
on compassion, condoning the pack
of unholy behavior
that summons no savior
for immigrants under attack…

and the health of the nation’s in peril
because of increasingly feral
resistance to glean
benefits of vaccine
to encompass the whole human barrel…

and the workers are saddled with debt
by the predator class who abet
exploitation of minions
by driving opinions
that fairness to all is a threat…

and with few on alert to the whiff
of the greedy tyrannical skiff
that’s engaging the motors
to overthrow voters,
democracy’s over a cliff.

Lest we lose any semblance of hope
while unrolling the last foot of rope,
tie a knot in the end
and let’s try to pretend
that we’re not on a slippery slope.

2021 Mary Boren
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Mary Boren 1 · Don’t Let Go the Rope, America

Resilience

There’s a corner in the basement
where nocturnal creatures spawn
mortal fear that renders optimism sparkless,
but the balance born of nature
in the crucible of dawn
is reserved for those who waited through the darkness.

Human history is littered
with unspeakable events
that would justify eternal condemnation
but a nucleus of dreamers
rising up to love’s defense
can emerge from any faithless generation.

As the curtain falls on freedom
through the apprehensive night,
may a unifying spirit find us banded
with rejuvenated purpose.
Let it lead us to the light
where impossibility is countermanded.

2021 Mary Boren
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Cracked Pot on a Broken Road

(with a nod to the timeless fable and
apologies to Leonard Cohen, Rascal Flatts, and Joan Baez)

Democracy, your waterbearers’ burden
is woefully unbalanced as the schemes
of lords and ladies on the hill have hoarded
the vessel that contains our common dreams.

It may appear America is leaking
the essence of the best it might have been,
but “there’s a crack in everything”. A trickle
can nurture hope, “that’s how the light gets in”.

Your promise of equality and freedom
for all has languished in the hands of few
for centuries. We’re ready for our blessing,
“the broken road that leads (us) straight to you”.

As trampled seeds of progress line the shoulders
along the path, replenishment relies
on sharing distribution of the bounty
that longs to shower down from cloudless skies.

Let sunshine pierce the depths of every crevice
and justice flow like water to replace
the field of opposition in obstructing
“the president (who) sang Amazing Grace”.

2021 Mary Boren
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What the Tree Taught Me

When I witness your existence
as you navigate the distance
from the origin of purpose to the peak,
I am humbled by persistence
past the line of least resistance
in your resolute pursuit of what you seek.

While invincibly curtailing
paralytic fear of failing
you are crushing obstacles along the path.
Does the mountain you are scaling
lead to summit views unveiling
the reward for struggle in its aftermath?

Let us climb the hill together
as we both escape the tether
of conditioning that binds us to our birth,
for the thesis isn’t whether
we are made of wood or leather
but how feathered faith can soar above the earth.

2021 Mary Boren
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Cascadia, 2025

Shades of Twenty-Twenty vision
lie beneath abandoned cities
packed with disregarded lessons
of the centuries before.
Finally the veil has lifted,
there’s a purpose in tomorrow
and the memories are fading
from the year that brought the war.

Looking forward to commencement,
parties, proms, and lazy summer
leading into jobs or college,
we were only seventeen.
Some of us were undecided,
some had mapped a certain future
in the pattern of their parents.
Others saw behind the screen.

Since we entered kindergarten
we’d been tested, used, and herded
for political agendas
on the nation’s shrinking stage
so it wasn’t unexpected
when democracy imploded
in a world already reeling
from the chaos of the age.

Virus after virus followed,
claiming half the population.
News from other countries filtered
slowly through the riot zone
’til the power grid was severed.
While democracy imploded
we were scrabbling for survival.
Now we live on wits alone.

Here I stand, the single remnant
from a family of seven,
flanked by unified companions
whose intention can increase
coexistence with the planet.
Taking only what is needed,
with the help of one another
we will make a lasting peace.

2020 Mary Boren
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Stand Up and Be Counted!

Once to every thinking person
comes a moment to decide
whether to improve or worsen
life for those who share the ride.

In a culture populated
equally by right and wrong,
half are glorified; half hated.
All must rise to get along.

Those who choose the path of kindness
have a duty to the horde
lacking empathy whose blindness
simply cannot be ignored.

Never will the sound of silence
in the wake of cruel deeds
be acceptable. Nonviolence
doesn’t mean “abandon needs”.

Standing up for truth and justice,
quell the panic, lest we fall
for a web of lies that thrust us
straight into the devil’s thrall.

Citizen of earth and nation
striving for the common good,
raise a thundering vibration
over every neighborhood.

Only in a coalition
born of passionate desire
can a movement gain volition
going forward through the fire.

2020 Mary Boren
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The two opening lines are borrowed from a hymn written by James Russell Lowell in 1845.

Halt, Who Goes There?

I see you coming, melancholy mood,
descending like a demon eighteen-wheeler
from out of nowhere racing to occlude
my passage through perception’s truth-concealer.

I’m drifting in bewildering terrain,
white-knuckled now, my eyes are turning glassy.
As wretched shocks dislodge me from my lane,
I can’t escape the damage to my chassis.

With wanderlust careening off the road,
it takes a heap of strength to hold the center.
The labored engine threatens to explode
before my awe-struck psyche starts to splinter.

But wait—I have a built-in safety pillow—
I’ll stomp the brakes and let the airbags billow!

2020 Mary Boren
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Hello 2020

A fading dream’s elusive silhouettes
dance softly on my window shade at dawn
to remnants of a half-remembered song
as if to nudge awake what time resets.

So down a labyrinthine corridor
I chase the animated shadow’s tail
with pure intentionality, yet fail
to reinvent the guise it wore before.

You say the pragmatist within me knows
its visage drips with jewel-studded strands
parading on the stage with sick demands,
but I reject the path that poser goes.

For January brings a reckoning
in rituals to renovate the soul.
With White Stone Medit ation / Burning Bowl
the decade waits, its promise beckoning.

2020 Mary Boren
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The Long View

“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it–always.” ― Mahatma Gandhi

Unanswerable questions plague the minds
of all who yearn for justice in the world.
Why must the battle rage relentlessly?
How can it be we never seem to learn
from all the brokenness and suffering
humanity inflicts upon itself?
Will any of us live to see the day
when sanity prevails across the globe?

But earthly eyes are not equipped to view
the picture from the timelessness of space.
Our singular assignment in this realm
of fitful dreams is training to connect
with love in all its forms. If Gandhi could
experience and witness all he did,
yet cling to the belief the universe
is ultimately kind, I’ll do no less.

2018 Mary Boren
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Pilgrimage

“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.” -Rumi

The hills are steep, the climbing’s hard.
If you would persevere, it
may leave the body deeply scarred
and dissipate the spirit.

But when you scale the furthest crest
and overlook the valley,
abrasions suffered on the quest
will yield a grand finale.

The gift of elevated sight
revealed as you continue
will radiate the path with light
that’s coming from within you.

Mary Boren, 2018
View discussion on this poem.

Resemblance

(in response to Lord Byron’s “Remembrance“)

I, too, have felt devoid of hope
while trapped within the narrow scope
of vigilance between the dreams.
When pessimism runs amok,
it’s difficult to stop and pluck
a thread of reason through the seams
that bind the soul’s imaginings.

But past the point of “All is Lost”
exists a realm where Fear is crossed
with Love, and there resemblance ends.
Forgotten soon, life’s petty woes
reveal themselves as beggar’s clothes
unfit to touch the royal skins
of you and me and all our friends.

2013 Mary Boren
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Unseen

When Hope has nowhere else to go
through withering attacks,
she gathers strength from roots below
to rise between the cracks.

When Patience, buffeted by wind
is prone to pull up stakes,
he finds the buried grace to bend
before the auger breaks.

When Courage has forgotten more
than cowards ever knew,
it taps a hidden reservoir
to see the battle through.

Forgiveness, waiting in the wings,
unshackled from the past,
is summoning the peace he brings
when amity is cast.

And Love, in all her glory, holds
the power to dispel
alarm. Within her apron folds
we know that all is well.

———

2013 Mary Boren
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All is Well

Before the firmament was hung
as backdrop for the galaxies,
the spirit of creation stirred
and murmured, “All is well.”

Behind a white primordial screen,
the painter of the universe
was mixing colors, shades of light,
and smiling. All is well.

Between the oceans’ ebbs and flows,
the peaks and valleys, rocks and grass,
a changeless matrix is revealed
as proof that all is well.

Beyond the fundamental set,
the king of choreography
assigns the species to their marks
with purpose. All is well.

Because the players blink and fade
like stars in love’s connecting ring,
eternity’s a running show.
Forever, all is well.

———

2013 Mary Boren
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Voices Clamor

Voices clamor for an ear
open to the faintest note of
pessimism, doubt or fear
harboring a secret motive
poised to drive the spirit down.
Hope’s the nail and hate’s the hammer.
Songs of love alone will drown
voices’ clamor.

———

2012 Mary Boren
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The Missing Peace

Missing-Peace-Found-36x36-2010 — *Painting by Dario Campanile, 2010, to commemorate the 5-year traveling exhibit:*
*“Missing Peace Found: Artists Consider the Dalai Lama”*

A field of energy surrounds
exhibit halls, artistic grounds
where wisdom flows. A soft wind blows
from Mexico to Greece.
In joining hands around the globe
to touch the Dalai Lama’s robe,
the threads connect; hearts intersect
at avenues to peace.

Emerging from the planet’s core,
the whisper soon becomes a roar —
a rising tide to cast aside
suspicion, hate and fear.
With absolute impunity,
the world embraces unity
when chaos ends. It all depends
on everybody here.

Compassion for our brother’s plight
must hold a candle through the night.
All cannot rest while one’s oppressed.
Conditions inhumane
erode our fundamental soul.
Each person fills a vital role;
we’re called to be the change we see
in dreams. Let kindness reign!

———

2011 Mary Boren
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Supermoon Meets Vernal Equinox

I had an energizing dream about a peaceful morning
when everyone alive awakes renewed.
The air is pure, the water clean, no hint of global warming,
and no one lacks for shelter, clothes, or food.
The planet is awash with gratitude.

What happened to the weary world and all its weight of sorrow?
What monumental, unforeseen event
could render feuds forgotten as an ominous tomorrow
became today? By mutual assent,
nobody even wonders where it went.

But as the dreamer, watching from a cloud at twelve-eleven,
I saw exactly how the shift occurred.
It’s not like everybody had to die to go to heaven.
The earth turned upside down, imbalance blurred,
and in that moment, inner vision stirred.

So now it’s spring in Perth and autumn in the Rocky Mountains.
Affluence is devalued, hope annealed.
As fear is toppled to the bottom, overflowing fountains
of love ascend to trump the sword and shield.
The veil has lifted; heaven is revealed.

———

2011 Mary Boren
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Behind the Storm

A tentative relationship
lies ribboned, sliced in pieces.
With each destructive, callous clip,
the agony increases.

Tomorrow will undoubtedly
find raging storms subsided,
but, for today, what’s left of me
feels conquered, twice-divided.

As waves of raw emotion crest
and anger wells within me,
engulfed in seeming nothingness,
assurance flickers dimly.

While in the desert of despair,
I’ll cease redundant weeping;
my soul, impervious to wear,
is safe in heaven’s keeping.

———

2003 Mary Boren
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Fleeting

When the daily news reporter
talks about the changing weather,
that’s our cue to sigh together,
“Years are growing ever shorter.”

Store the fans, unpack the heaters;
nippy mornings grace October.
Then, before the month is over,
stock the shelves for trick-or-treaters.

Holidays in quick succession
fill the calendar thereafter.
Giving thanks with food and laughter
leaves November’s last impression.

Autumn’s vivid colors given
like a sign of nature’s sequence
fade to grey. The shopper frequents
Christmas sales, consumer-driven.

Fall, my energetic season,
though I wish you’d linger longer,
still your buried beat grows stronger
in the hope of sense and reason.

———

2010 Mary Boren
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