WHEN HARD TIMES TAKE EVERYTHING

 

 

May you and your neighbor never turn

Against one another

When hard times take everything.

 

The late afternoon sun is hottest.

Who can judge another’s happiness?

Unbroken gloom is all over the world.

 

Deep canyons, abandoned mines.

Some things you never get over––

The not-known unknowing.

 

Others just leave you scarred.

They come up like giant twisters.

You remember rolling in their arms.

 

Many life forms have evolved beyond us.

Although their transmissions are murmurs,

They grow within our children and transform who we become.

 

There was great sacrifice among the people.

It’s not simply that the moon

Thinks about things the rest of us haven't.

 

 

24 April 2011

 

 

 

Spoken word version from Venerable Madtown Hall, copyright © 2013 by Jim Cohn.

Video clip from The Making of Venerable Madtown Hall, copyright © 2013 by Jim Cohn.