Aaron – Fifty Shades of Jazz

wordplayIII

We cannot always choose our circumstances. However, we can change the way we think and respond to those circumstances. This poem is a metaphor to life’s challenging circumstances. It is all about perception and the depth of that perception. Breathing transforms us in so many ways. I realize that timing and shadows and light influence the way we confront and deal with the challenges in our life. Listening is the key. Are we really engaged in our life to perceive the true reality of the situation or circumstance? If we are engaged in a mindfulness improvisation it is important that all of our sensibilities are involved. There is always an opportunity to find the lesson in the mirror of life and to transform something that is perceived as frustrating, financially challenging and emotionally draining into a circumstance that will benefit not only ourselves but others. The jazz lessons I have learned have taught me that we have absolutely no control of our circumstances, but on the flip side, it can become an opportunity to influence and grow in such a way that it will expand our compassion and love for one another, our family and our community at large. Who needs an agenda when we have the opportunity to make a difference and bring God’s grace into our lives. I hope that you enjoy this poem and the sounds that were selected. At the end of the day, improvising problems in this manner reduces stress, increases motivation, and releases a flood of positivity that opens up new vistas to overcome difficulties and Thrive. Peace and Love Out! JBC 😎 & ❤

Objects In This Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear

by Richard Jackson

Because the dawn empties its pockets of our nightmares.

Because the wings of birds are dusty with fear.

Because another war has eaten its way

into the granary of stars. What can console us?

Is there so little left to love? Is belief just the poacher’s

searchlight that always blinds us, and memory just

the tracer rounds of desire? Last night,

under the broken rudder of the moon, soldiers

cut a girl’s finger off for the ring, then shot her and the boy

who tried to hide under a cloak of woods beyond their Kosovo

town. Listen to me, – we have become words

without meanings, rituals learned from dried

river beds and the cellars of fire-bombed houses.

Excuses flutter their wings. Another mortar round is

arriving from the hills. How long would you say

it takes despair to file down a heart?

When, this morning, you woke beside me, you were mumbling

how yesterday our words seemed to brush over the marsh

grass the way those herons planed over

a morning of ground birds panicking in their nests.

When my father left me his GI compass, telling me

it was to keep me from losing myself, I never thought

where it had led him, or would lead me. Today,

beside you, I remembered simply the way you eat

a persimmon, and thought it would be impossible for each

dropp of rain not to want to touch you. Maybe the names

of these simple objects, returning this morning

like falcons, will console us. Maybe we can love

not just within the darkness, but because of it. Ours is

the dream of the snail hoping to leave its track on the moon.

we are sending signals to worlds more distant

than what the radio astronomers can listen for, and yet-

And yet, what? Maybe your seeds of daylight will take root.

Maybe it is for you the sea lifts its shoulders to the moon,

for you the smoke of some battle takes the shape of a tree.

On your balconies of desire, in your alleyways of touch,

each object is a door opening like the luminous face of

a pocket watch. Maybe because of you the stars, too,

desire one another across their infinite,

impossible distances forever, so that it is not

unthinkable that some bird skims the narrow sky where

the sentry fires have dampened, where the soldier, stacking

guns in Death‘s courtyard, might look up, and remember

touching some story he carries in his pockets, a morning

like this blazing through the keyholes of history, seeing not

his enemy but those lovers, reaching for each other, reaching

towards any of us, their words splintering on the sky,

the gloves of their hearts looking for anyone’s hands.

Meaning

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