Past, Present and Future Reside, a poem.
How do you feel when you see things that don’t sit well with you?
Do you go and talk to you friends and say what a shame things are?
When you see or hear about an injustice being done to a fellow human being do you sit and take a moment to think about how that makes you feel? Do you let it stir and simmer? Do you use that passion to move you forward and take action?
Are you aware of yourself and the passion that burns inside you? Do you make a difference in the lives of those around you? Do you give back to community? Do you volunteer? Do you make a difference?
If not……
……..WHY NOT?!
http://ambitioninthecity.com/2013/02/04/if-not-now-then-when/
“My life amounts to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean.
Yet what is any ocean, but a multitude of drops?”
David Mitchel, Cloud Atlas
Past, Present, Future Reside
I get inspired deep inside me
By the things around me
The past the present and
The future reside in me
A vessel of spirit and time
A release of rhyme
To bring time to your clock that’s ticking
To clear the way from your mind that’s always thinking
About yourself
Your self centered self
Center yourself
Pace your self
For this race of life
Then get into motion
Like a locomotion
Clickety clacking
Over the tracks of life
And rhythmically rocking
Full steam ahead as were talking
I’m full of the past, present and future that reside in me
The past meets the present and the future combined
I live for them, I live for me and I live for those to come
For our young
Voices yet unheard
Being yanked and pulled and lugged around
Like baggage
Your own pushcart, no longer a carriage
Replaced by bags
And dressed in rags
While parents are dressed with designer tags
The little people who will be glorious kings and queens
Of their own land, help them stand
Show them your hand
For our feeble and old
Sitting in homes, always being told
What to do, after a life of being the teller
It makes we want to get all old yeller
Up in people’s faces
Talking to the elderly with such distaste
While they sit humbly with an old school grace
Oh these challenges of the lives that reside in me
The past the present and the future combined
Quiet yourself make it still
So still that you can’t move
Until it makes you move into motion
Smooth and powerful like the ocean
Don’t pace yourself
Race yourself
Clickety clacking like a locomotion.
http://www.engrailhistory.info/r016.html
Do you have a passion or a cause that you support? If so tell us about it in the comment box below. Leave a link also if you’d like so people can take a look for themselves.
Thank you for reading.
Jennifer
Writings of a Mrs 
Well done friend! Set my mind to thinking.
Thank you. Thinking is good. 😀 Let me know what you come up with!
A small request, Jennifer…would you consider a poetry page for your site?
In what way? Explain a little more. What were you thinking?
The problem I find is that I often mix my poetry with my writings, musings, thoughts and photos.
Prefacing your poetry, with a series of questions, tends to direct thought rather than allowing the poem to be itself.
I don’t have the same reaction, when you reveal your source of inspiration as preamble, and artwork/photography is
not a problem…But I sometimes think you limit your poetry by saying too much about it.
I see what you mean. That makes sense. I will take that under consideration. Thanks for taking the time to shed some thought on it.
Cheers,
Jennifer
😉 nice jenn.
Thank you Jim.
I have many things I am passionate about, poverty, homelessness, hunger, social injustice, inequality among the other plagues of their time… For example in Canada we have a government pushing the capitalist agenda at the expense of the people and the environment…they have spent over $20,000,000 in what they call action plan ads which is and outright lie and nothing more than propaganda… To date this year the Canadian Economy has lost more jobs than it has created, unemployment insurance is more difficult to receive and one in ten Canadians live in Poverty…These ads also claim how much we are doing to protect the environment when we have taken the protections off almost all our lakes and rivers so pipelines can be laid without environmental studies and we pulled out of the Kyoto Accord.We are going to be able to sell our blood here in Canada, putting our confidence to the corporate world to ensure the safety of our blood supply…who do you think sells their blood… the poor the homeless and drug addicts needing their next fix… if you live in Canada a blood transfusion will soon come with a higher risk of AIDS Hepatitis and any other disease that can be transmitted this way. But all this is all right because Stephen Harper and his cronies have decided Canadian History needs to be re-written to emphasize our military achievements so at the same time they can write out the damage they have done while in power. This is no joke, this is in the works within a few years the textbooks in the classroom will have been written by politicians and not historians… isn’t that a scary thought…
Thank you for sharing your passion. It comes forth boldly through your words.
I feel it best that I do not debate politics and leave this to be a free platform of expression so with that I say thank you for sharing your passion and may it continue to compel you to move into action for the very causes that shine brightly through your words.
Continued success!
Jennifer
Lovely poetry, and thanks for stopping by my blog.
Thank you for taking the time to read it.
Cheers,
Jennifer
I really appreciate your poem, Jennifer, because it hits on something I’ve always believed……that there is so much more we can DO to help others. I really believe that as individuals, we have so much power and ability to change the world, but we’re all disconnected, carrying on with our own lives. We do need to stop and think of the small gestures we can do and if they were all combined, it would make an amazing difference in this world. I think God gave us everything we need, it has just become distributed unevenly. We need to spread it around! We could bring many out of poverty if we shared more of our goods and services.
I have a huge passion for change in the area of mental health. So many other problems branch out from this……homelessness, divorce, unemployment, not to mention the effects on family members. Nothing will change in this area until we educate the world of what mental illness really is. I was standing in line at the grocery store and one of the tabloid magazines jumped out at me with a headline and picture of Catherine Zeta Jones. It said, “Back in Psych ward, What went wrong?” All I could think of was…what if she had cancer? Would they say, “Back in Chemo, What went wrong?” It is so strange to me that so many people think that mental illness is something that people can just control. They fail to realize that anyone can become mentally ill just as anyone can become physically ill. That stigma need to disappear.
Another passion I have is directed at violence in the media. We are desensitizing our children and then wondering why they are videotaping with their cell phones horrible events or injustices instead of calling 911 or doing something to help. There needs to be stricter regulations for movies, video games, etc. When we were young, we had no way to see movies that were rated beyond our age. It floors me that now they think if a parent is present with them in the theater, that some how there will be less impact on them. That is ridiculous. Add that to the fact that these movies can come home and parents allow their young children to watch them. I think society is profoundly influenced by the media. It is raising many of our youth to be oblivious and insensitive to others pain.
Ok, I’m done. I could go on………Thanks for stirring that up in me. 🙂
Thank you for sharing your voice in regards to mental illness. You are very right that there is a stigma attached to mental illness and people treat it in an unequal way. In my post Butterfly Box I write a little about children’s mental illness.
I agree with the violence issue as well. I am constantly shocked at the amount of young children, let’s say 6 years old, playing video games that are rated for 18 years and older with guns, nudity, language and gore.
People rob children of their innocence from such a young age now, it will be interesting and sad to see where society takes the lives of children over the generations to come, sadly I won’t be around to see it and share my 2 cents on the issue but I do my darndest to bring about awareness!
Thank you for sharing.
Jennifer
One thing I’m passionate about is helping with literacy issues. I volunteered this year at a local elementary and helped tutor a couple kids for whom English is their second language; it was so fun to become their friend and help them learn how to read better, a pasttime that I thoroughly enjoy! I’m going back again after the summer break is over when they need volunteers again. It’s nice since I don’t have kids yet (crossing my fingers!), and I like to think that if my children need help with literacy, others will step in like I have so they’ll get all the extra help they’ll need 🙂
Thanks for visiting my blog. I just started and trying to find my niche. I am passionate about education, civil rights, veteran rights, homelessness and mental illness.
I still don’t know what my niche is, I’m just moving forward and holding my breath every time I post.
Those are very important issues to be passionate about.
Are you actively involved in your community?
Jennifer
No I am not….I am searching to find a home. I am a piece of a puzzle and I have yet to find where I fit in. But I will continue to search. Any suggestions?
Jenn, this was really thought provoking. I loved the weave of imagery, prose and poetry as it came together to make something that was more than it’s parts. It was powerful and moving.
I find my passion in so many things but it often comes down to working with youth. I try to “help them stand” and avoid the “designer tags” when I do 🙂 Thank you for your passions and for sharing them.
Thank you. I know that it’s not the ‘typical’ way to present poetry but I like to think of myself as not typical.
I’m glad to hear that it had a positive effect on you. I try to stir people into feeling things in an issue that may not have moved them emotionally in the past. I feel that with emotion comes passion and that is what compels people to act with compassion.
I have worked with youth in quite a few different faucets. I am happy to hear that you are helping the young people in our world learn to stand. 😀
Thanks for taking the time to share and comment.
Cheers,
Jennifer
Reblogged this on Writings of a Mrs and commented:
Make your passion move you into action!
My activism was born of reading volumes of political science and history. It has also helped my writing by learning the shape of human societies and their behaviors. With age, I have learned to focus on the matters that are not only close to my heart, but also the things that can be changed by adding voices. This post was inspired by a friend and also the organizer of our local March Against Monsanto. I love your poetry too. (My blogs are all mixed up as well. No worries. )
There is method to my madness… 😉
I read your post and enjoyed it.
Thanks. 🙂
And now… the link.
http://johnnyojanpera.wordpress.com/2013/05/20/march-against-monsanto-non-violent-protest/
Reblogged this on Sterling Welsh and commented:
Motivation doesn’t easy. So dance until it comes.
Dance until it comes!