“The dark, moonless sky
Might have made the night spooky,
But there were the stars.
Twinkling and shining on us,
Making that night magical.”
RonovanWrites #Weekly #Haiku #Poetry Prompt #Challenge #173 Spooky&Night
Month: October 2017
Categories
Gratitude
Source: Gratitude
Categories
The Daily Prompt : Gratitude
I think we are lucky if we remember that we have so much to be grateful for. The other day we were telling each other that whenever we feel sad or feel dissatisfied with what comes our way in life, we should make a list of all that we have that fills us with gratitude.
When I read about all acts of violence happening in so many parts of the world, I am filled with gratitude that I am living in a place where the violent world seems far away. But along with this feeling, the thought keeps coming to mind that I should not be feeling grateful when people elsewhere are suffering so much. This is the dilemma that we face in different ways in our lives. The other day I had been to our hospital for the yearly check-up . There were so many patients from different parts of our state. Looking at them I felt that good health is our most precious possession. I was filled with gratitude that I was not part of the hospital world. Again, am I being very selfish? I don’t know. The ‘gratitude’ list is a long one. The minuses are really of no consequence when there is so much to be grateful for.
Gratitude is the music of the heart, when its chords are swept by the breeze of kindness. ~Author Unknown
Gratitude is the fairest blossom which springs from the soul. ~Henry Ward Beecher
“A wrong move indeed,
Trying to touch the insect
It hurried away.
This human would not hurt it.
But how could it know that fact ? ”
RonovanWrites #Weekly #Haiku #Poetry Prompt #Challenge #172 Wrong&Touch
Categories
The Daily Prompt: Release
What would life be like without trees ? Long back I had read a Science fiction story which was set in the far future and there were no trees then !! I don’t remember the name of the story.
One of my favourite poems is The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein. Trees give us so much but we are set on killing them. One of the most important thing that they give is when they release oxygen. How can we live without oxygen ? But still we destroy the ‘giving trees’. What are we leaving behind for the future generations?
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The setting sunlight
Painted the sky and water
A romantic pink.
The calm and beautiful lake
Touched the heart with its beauty.
RonovanWrites #Weekly #Haiku #Poetry Prompt #Challenge #171 Lake&Calm
Categories
Going to School (Slice of Life)
“Are you an Ayah?” asked her daughter. I was told this by the young lady who works as a care-giver in a Home for the Mentally challenged. She said she did not know how to answer the question. But after a moment’s thought, she replied that her work involved looking after a little boy. With sadness in her voice, she confided in me that if she had been able to continue her studies, her life would have been different.
She is just thirty-three years old, but has studied only up to 7th grade. Long back, about two generations ago, girls completed only primary school and were married off at a very young age. But now that is not so. I asked her the reason for her dropping out of school so early in the present times. She told me that she and her parents had lived with her maternal grandparents. Her grandfather had been a very strict person. He believed that education was not necessary for girls. They were agriculturists, and he said that education was not needed for working in the paddy fields. She was married off early, and her two children are studying in primary school. She is determined that they should get a good education.
Listening to her, I was reminded of my paternal grandfather. He grew up in a hamlet. After completing his primary education, his father took him out of school for two reasons: he had no money to provide education to his only son; and the high school was in the city far away from the village. After a few years, financial problems forced his father to move the family to the city in order to find work. This was a turning point in my grandfather’s life. At the age of 17, when he was much older than his classmates he joined school again and went on to complete BA Honours in Mathematics and English. This was in 1916. He writes in his memoirs that he would always be grateful to his father for making it possible for him (his son) to continue his education after the family’s move to the city.
My grandfather was a teacher and a very good one. During his time, many students would drop out of school for one reason or another (usually financial problems). He encouraged his students to study well and continue their education. Due to this encouragement most of them went on to acquire good jobs. He also succeeded in providing very good education to his children. That legacy continues in our family to this day. Now my grandson, that is my grandfather’s great-great grandson is going to school.
‘You can’t cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water.’
Rabindranath Tagore
The need in all hearts
Is for someone to listen
To what their heart needs.
All of us want to be heard,
And believe that someone cares.
RonovanWrites #Weekly #Haiku #Poetry Prompt #Challenge #170 Heart&Need
“Soft jasmine petals
Feel like pure silk on the skin
Both Nature’s bounty.”
RonovanWrites #Weekly #Haiku #Poetry Prompt #Challenge #169 Silk&Skin
Categories
The Tragedy of Life (Slice of Life)
The tragedies of life seem far away when I am sitting in our verandah listening to the birds calling out to each other. We have put pieces of ‘chapati’, and the birds are coming to eat them. Except for the chirping of birds it is a quiet moment but acts of violence and the resulting tragedies are happening at the same time almost everywhere. I wonder why is it that there is security for many people and no safety for countless others.
At the other corner of our country the Rohingyas are streaming in from Myanmar and Bangladesh. They are not wanted by anyone. They are labelled as illegal immigrants, security threat and are not considered as refugees. These are just labels. They are human beings who are suffering. What must their lives be like, specially the women folk ? Why do such things happen?
Some time ago we read about very young girls sold, in the name of marriage, to old sheiks from countries around the Persian Gulf. The parents of these girls and their other close relatives are committing this crime. It is as if being a girl is a crime. She is not wanted by her parents, sold off to be abused by the ‘husband’. Children are raped and many a time killed. Nothing happens to those who commit these offences. The victims are ones who suffer. Why do such things happen? There are no answers to so many questions.
As I am writing this, I am hearing news from Las Vegas, America, about the mass killings. So many killed and injured by one gunman! Why were all those people killed? What did the killer hope to achieve by murdering people who were enjoying music? If you remember a similar thing happened at a concert venue in Manchester in May this year.
History is full of such incidents. People killing for its own sake and enjoying the act has always been a part of human life. That is our tragedy.
The Tragedy of Life (Slice of Life)
