In 1995, when Michael Jackson released “Earth Song” it evolved into a short film that features stark footage of Michael and native people around the world witnessing acts of natural devastation. At the beginning of this week, we celebrated Earth Day. No longer can we simply talk about how horrific conditions in nature and our environment are declining at record numbers, but we have to put up or shut up.
I featured this song previously on this blog, and it is worthy to be repeated. Today, I don’t want you to comment but if you have or have not heard this prophetic call to action, listen to it again. Absorb the words. Parts of the video can be disturbing but show a realism that we cannot turn away from. Open your heart and open your mind. The lyrics to the song follow the video.
Earth Song
Song and Lyrics by Michael Jackson
What about sunrise? What about rain? What about all the things That you said we were to gain?
What about killing fields? Is there a time? What about all the things That you said was yours and mine?
Did you ever stop to notice All the blood we’ve shed before? Did you ever stop to notice This crying Earth, these weeping shores?
Hey, what about yesterday? (What about us?) What about the seas? (What about us?) The heavens are falling down (What about us?) I can’t even breathe (What about us?)
What about apathy? (What about us?) I need you (What about us?) What about nature’s worth? (Ooh) It’s our planet’s womb (What about us?)
What about animals? (What about it?) We’ve turned kingdoms to dust (What about us?) What about elephants? (What about us?) Have we lost their trust (What about us?)
What about crying whales? (What about us?) We’re ravaging the seas (What about us?) What about forest trails? (Ooh) Burnt despite our pleas (What about us?)
What about the holy land? (What about it?) Torn apart by creed (What about us?) What about the common man? (What about us?) Can’t we set him free (What about us?)
What about children dying? (What about us?) Can’t you hear them cry? (What about us?) Where did we go wrong? (Ooh) Someone tell me why (What about us?)
What about baby boy? (What about it?) What about the days? (What about us?) What about all their joy? (What about us?) What about the man? (What about us?)
What about the crying man? (What about us?) What about Abraham? (What about us?) What about death again? (Ooh) Do we give a damn?
Visually organizing ideas, capturing information does it light a fire or burst into flames is it worth the stress of conceptual claims?
More often than not, I seek solace by decluttering my mind with wannabes vs. actual achievements. Who am I trying to impress anyway? We grumble about the annoyance and exhaustion of turning the volume down so we can hear our thoughts and lower our blood pressure. While mind-mapping is information shaped into a hierarchy, showing relationships among pieces of the whole, I find the practice useful for work-related illustration purposes, yet for everyday internalization and consumption, nah, I think for the sake of serenity and sanity, I’ll pass.
You know my friends, when you are bestowed the honor of having your work highlighted in a very special way, you relish in the essence of sheer humility and pure joy. We celebrated Earth Day this week and so many of us shared our passion and commitment to be the caretakers of Mother Earth (the only planet we have) and not squander our resources by allowing her to continue to fall victim to negligence. So it is with great pleasure that I share a heartwarming review from author Rosaliene Bacchus (Three Worlds One Vision~ Guyana – Brazil – USA) in her Poetry Corner April 2024.
Thank you a million times over Rosaliene for including me in this feature. After reading your beautifully orchestrated words, I had to question, is that really me? You should have been a publicist, my dear friend. Be sure to check out Rosaliene’s site and immerse yourself in worldwide storytelling communications that touch the pulse of who we are in this world we inhabit together. But seriously, I am verklempt by this honor and how the poetry of Rosaliene’s words brought me to joyful tears. I am truly grateful.
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“Earth Crisis” – Poem by African American Poet Kym Gordon Moore
My Poetry Corner April 2024 features the poem “Earth Crisis” from the poetry collection We Are Poetry: Lessons I Didn’t Learn in a Textbook (USA, 2022) by Kym Gordon Moore, an African American poet and marketing communications professional. The following excerpts of poems are all sourced from this collection.
Moore earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Criminal Justice and a Master of Business Administration degree with a concentration in Marketing. Born and raised in South Carolina, she now lives in Charlotte, North Carolina.
With over four decades as a writer and public speaker in marketing communications, Moore has become an advocate of using poetry in the fight against illiteracy and aliteracy among children and adults. She also mentors young and aspiring poets by identifying commonalities in their personal stories while exposing them to diverse opportunities that transform their experiences into creative development.
Moore’s latest book is not your regular collection of poetry. As noted on the back cover: “This book contains several components that serve as an academic complement giving creative insight into the poetry revolutionary movement. It functions as a dialogue engineer, designed to build and employ the application of poetry in the fight against illiteracy, functional illiteracy, aliteracy, and disparity.”
In the nine-stanza title poem, “We Are Poetry,” the poet draws attention to our shared human experiences and lessons learned that we bring to poetry. The excerpt below includes the first and seventh stanzas (p. 237):
We are children of the universe not an invisible species caretakers of creation, freedom seekers, and justice makers bridge builders not wall squads, converging on the path of love compassion emerging from our hearts like a phoenix rising
[…]
we are poetry, an opulent rainbow of luminous tribes melding in an earthly crockpot of multifaceted cultures mighty voices standing up for the marginalized and oppressed dousing the firestorm of hatred and infected sores of bigotry
The final three-stanza poem in the collection, “Let There Be Peace,” is a call for a peacethat surpasses all understanding (p. 277):
We echo, let there be peace on earth we pray for an end to conflict and wars emotionally charged anger and bitterness like a ferocious animal where bloodshed roars
The featured nine-stanza poem, “Earth Crisis,” is my selection for Earth Day 2024 celebrated on Monday, April 22nd. Manifestations of our planetary crisis, covered in the poem, are stark: environmental degradation, intense storms, climate change, deforestation, rising sea levels, melting polar ice caps, floods, scorching wildfires, and industrial waste. Yet, we continue to go about our lives as though all is well. We’ve got this. Technology will make all things right again, we tell ourselves.
I would be honored if you clicked below to read more!
While I am not a fan of dating or finding a date through an app, I try not to judge those who do. But every day I see evidence of the danger presented when the heart overrules the head. Dating apps have been gaining momentum from extortion through fake profiles and photos, to death and criminality.
Sometimes, people think this only occurs with the young and naïve believing in a state of alleged reality that those individuals masquerading as the real person depicted in the photos on these apps are tried and true. But we also find that people over 50, 60, and 70 are being spammed, scammed, and flimflammed. Victim exploitation occurs when prime candidates want to get back out on the dating scene, but are oversharing information about their loneliness, that they are a widow or widower, they are isolated and lonely, or these scammers detect obvious neediness. Bingo! They check into your life and don’t check out, at least not that easy anyway, and without repercussions.
Often I wonder how these people can live with themselves, taking things so far and threatening their victims because their victims have unknowingly fed them all they need to know to take advantage of and manipulate them to financial ruin, criminal prosecution, winding up on a missing persons report, or even death. I’ve known of a few people who are considered smart, with educational achievements, and appear to have good common sense who vow to the validity of some of these dating apps, only to come out on the losing end of the deal because they were played like a monopoly game, resulting in no love and no satisfaction.
While there are some success stories with these dating apps, you must be careful about who you let into your life and personal space when they knock. I’m sure that the developers of these dating apps designed their objective to connect like-minded people looking for love or companionship. But as always, when something has been developed for good, like social media in general, we find that shady characters look for ways to manipulate a person’s trust and see where such individuals are desperate by offering too much or all of themselves before realizing they are in too deep.
If you are using one or more of these apps, please exercise caution, because these exploiters are seasoned by what they do. They could care less about your hurt feelings or pride, they just care about how much they can extort from you.
A couple of weeks ago we were so enamored by the solar eclipse that occurred and is predicted to occur over America, projected August 23, 2044. This totality is expected to occur in Europe in 2026. But can you imagine if people, the citizens of this world had the same type of excitement and admiration every day for embracing and protecting Mother Earth?
Earth Day reminds us to honor and celebrate ‘our’ planet through the importance of environmental conservation and sustainability, encouraging us to come together and take action for a healthier planet and brighter future. Today, as millions of people worldwide are celebrating Earth Day, my opinion piece about this day will not come from a scientific angle but a spiritual thought.
While my mind is perplexed about climate change deniers, I think many of us, especially poets who garner much of our inspiration from nature, know otherwise. We see the changes occurring. I love the amazing world of our universe, and our home galaxy, the Milky Way. I am blown away that there are between 100 and 200 billion galaxies in the observable universe, and between 800 billion and 3.2 trillion planets.
Planet Earth is like a huge house with many family members inhabiting its space. What affects many, who many don’t think will affect them, actually does. But when I think about the effects and after-effects of such things as war (the bombings, the mass destruction, the chemical warfare), air pollution (creating the increase in chronic health issues, water, and air quality), littering (air, sea, and land creating dangerous scenarios for marine life and soil contamination), and deforestation (causing homelessness and migratory displacement for wildlife, as well as, over-population problems for many towns and cities), the cause and effect is alarming and mindblowing.
Image Credit: Mohamed_hassan
On the spiritual side, however, I think about those who want citizenship on the moon, mars, or in outer space. I applaud their curiosity to understand the worlds beyond, but exploration is one thing and habitation is another. While I am intrigued with the art and science of what’s beyond our planetary borders, if we can’t take care of the planet God designed for us to live in, and we are careless and wreckless with how we take care of Mother Earth, then what makes us think that we can be successful living beyond our planetary border so intrusively? “To much is given, much is required,” but somehow so many are looking past or ignoring the requirements of what we have been given while seeking more, more, more without any thought of compassion or empathy. If we don’t take care of what we already have, how do we expect to acquire more?
Without changing our patterns of behavior, the domino effect with be catastrophic. Seasons seem to be confused about their appointed time. Many of our trees that typically begin producing buds in March or April, began budding in late January or early February. Butterflies and bumble bees started showing up weeks ago. While the earth and universe have their natural course of life and evolution, humans have also contributed to the pains and unusual behavior nature is experiencing these days due to years of abuse and neglect.
If we continue to ignore the needs of Mother Earth, it is with certainty that Mother Earth will stop meeting ours. For more information about the Earth Day initiatives, click here.
So many of us are heartbroken after learning about the death of 47-year-old singer Mandisa, who was born in Citrus Heights, California, as Mandisa Lynn Hundley. On Thursday, April 18, 2024, the American Idol alum was found dead in her home in Nashville, Tennessee. The cause of her death is unknown. Keep her family and loved ones in your prayers. The following song, “Bleed the Same” is one of the many songs she recorded, and this one features TobyMac and Kirk Franklin. It is a poignant reminder for us to love one another, no matter what we look like, where we come from, our religious or political beliefs, or how much money we have. We all bleed the same.
Until you touch the pulse and understand the plight of individuals who are marginalized or have been thrust into unspeakable circumstances they never wanted to be in, one cannot be so judgemental about a person’s unfortunate situation they never thought possible. After I finished reading the third book on the list for the 2024North Carolina Readsstatewide book club, American Refuge by Diya Abdo, Ph.D., there was a deep sense of sadness that sunk into my spirit after reading about real people, real refugees, and their heartbreaking stories as they fled danger and death from their countries. Almost every day we hear or read something in the news about people escaping horrifying conditions to find a place of acceptance and refuge for themselves and their families. Thank you NCHumanities for including this selection on the reading list, so we can raise our level of awareness and understanding of those who seek a safe place for resettlement.
I am pleased to share a portion of my review of Diya Abdo’s book regarding support for refugee resettlement in the U.S. She is the founder of Every Campus A Refuge (ECAR) on the campus of Guilford College in Greensboro, North Carolina.
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Anybody can become a refugee.
The terms refugee, immigrant, migrant, asylum seeker, and undocumented are used interchangeably, and the conflating terms result in ideological stances that have real and negative consequences. This ideological framework gets extended to refugees fermented by the political rhetoric that can forcibly displace individuals seeking succor at our borders as bad. Such dangerous linguistic cries ‘worthy of extermination’.
If we would put ourselves in the shoes of a refugee, having to flee a home that we love but has become dangerous, hostile, and deadly, we would understand the barriers we would face if we sought a safe haven in a new country foreign to us. We couldn’t comprehend the scope of adjusting to ‘everything’ new.
Human beings have always moved – and they have done so largely to survive. The story of human migration is twin to the story of humanity. This book left me in a pool of tears. The stories compiled by Diya Abdo are real. The refugees featured in this book once lived in homes and countries they loved but left against their will to relocate to foreign territory which was never something they chose to do. There are cases where one can be a refugee in their own country. One does not always become a refugee, many times they are born a refugee.
Diya Abdo introduces us to refugees who carried trauma by reluctantly leaving their homes, families, and countries and relocating to new homes, which led to cultural misunderstandings as they resettled in the United States. The stories of the seven refugees who were welcomed by an organization Diya founded, Every Campus A Refuge (ECAR) which leveraged resources at Guilford College in Greensboro, North Carolina.
Not everyone is welcoming of the influx of refugees who have been exiled. It is horrible that those who have become refugees have been racialized. To flee your home country to save your life and that of your family because of your race, religion, nationality, sexual orientation, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion is traumatic. Having no idea what to expect on the other side of their long, arduous journey is difficult, scary, and exhausting for these newcomers.
Diya Abdo, Ph.D., Founder of Every Campus A Refuge
The arrogance of assumptions does not recognize the challenges refugees face when they first arrive in a new place or country where language barriers make it even more difficult. Mistreatment, abuse, exploitation, and racism are elements that leave them feeling traumatized and helpless. The story of human migration is twin to the story of humanity. This book brings those faces of escape and hope to look at our hearts and allow our empathy and compassion to overflow with understanding. You can pick up your copy of American Refuge on Amazon.com, or Barnes & Noble. You can also follow Diya on Facebook or Emerson Collective.
April is Jazz Appreciation Month and this music genre is classical and timeless. Originating in the African American communities in New Orleans, jazz is a storyteller, a musical griot. Pull out your favorite jazz album, or grab your favorite instrument and groove to the hypnotic sounds that have a language and style of their own. Jazz is a class act. Do you have a favorite Jazz artist or band?
Poetry originally posted on From Behind the Pen 2019
There will always be people, as alarming as it is, who are interested in more power than justice, in overstuffed bellies than hunger, and in their wealth more than the suffering of those who are poverty-stricken. Such people will find ways to manipulate your money if you don’t watch out.
Nowadays, we find fewer people who give without a reason than those who give if only they get something in return. It seems like everyone is out for themselves…”I got mine and I got yours.” Those with an empathetic heart and a good conscience wonder how people can be so uncaring, selfish, and greedy. We ask how can they go to sleep at night or live with themselves. It appears that sadly such individuals have desensitized themselves and what we think matters to human decency doesn’t to them.
In his book, “Where Do We Go From Here (Chaos or Community),” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr mentions that the powerful never lose opportunities because opportunities remain available to them. The powerless, on the other hand, never experience opportunity because it is always arriving at a later time.
The disparity between the rich and the poor seems to produce a greater divide than we think. It has been this way for centuries and the method to bridging this gap only gets bigger, more sophisticated, more cunning, and more widespread. While this does not vilify all of those who are wealthy, it’s the means of more take and no give which cries out foul play that so many who can do something simply choose to ignore. Don’t sell your soul for the love of money because the consequences are costlier than the money itself.
He who rides the horse of greed will arrive at the destination of shame. ~African Proverb
I know that I’ve played this tune time and time again, but I am grief-stricken over the fact that due to the insane surge of modern technology, the art of handwriting and good penmanship has disappeared from schools. I am dismayed we are now living in a world where penmanship is becoming a lost world of beauty, art, and hand-written communications. The good thing is that there is a handful of schools, teachers, parents, and tutors who are implementing the technique and practice of handwriting with their students and children. I applaud that.
There is an even brighter light shown on the importance of handwriting and its connection to neuroscience pointing to the benefits of writing by hand.
One recent post on Psychology Today, for example, notes that “handwriting stimulates [the genesis of] complex brain connections essential in encoding new information and forming memories.” Studies employing high-density electroencephalogram technology point to the conclusion that note-takers, grocery-list compilers, and those who make calendar entries by hand are more likely to better retain the information. Entering information by hand also heightened the speed of recall by as much as 25% (not relying on a smartphone or personal information management” software).
The act of learning to write handsome, fluent calligraphy, and personal letters expresses creativity, individuality, personality, and communication skills in an artistic and regal way. Since cursive writing was required to be learned by second grade, my mother would always have us practice our writing, especially when she would tell us it looked like chicken-scratch. UGH! But you know what? I am so glad that she did. Perhaps that’s why I do a lot of writing, doodling, and journaling by hand every day, for the fringe, health, and lifestyle benefits.
Still, we can find balance in traditional handwriting instruction, coupled with digital literacy. It doesn’t have to be one without the other.
From Behind the Pen 