What do you think about technology, and where it is leading us? To me it feels like we are being dazzled, mesmerized by a Siren’s song that has the power to dash us upon the rocks, if we’re not careful.
Loving the Land © Susan L Hart 2025
Quietly they wait
at their table, with
exquisite little bowls
expectantly displayed,
etched with eternal
secret lines of a
fading language of
the jungle, Earth’s
echoes lost on a
distracted herd
just passing thru,
rapt in thoughts of
dwindling diesel,
soon the boats
from distant shores,
bearing cheap baubles,
shopping trophies,
may not arrive
at all any more,
“What will they do?”
The ladies of the
Amazon, who fight to
stop the cutting of
trees to drill the oil,
(when they’re not
making bowls to
try to sell to the
we-don’t-care-crowd),
doing their best
to understand, but
surely they cannot;
there’s a sadness
beneath bold tattoos
that frame cautious eyes
and wan smiles, as
they wait for customers
who are just killing time
’til slow boats arrive
with plastic throwaways
stamped “Made In”.
What kind of world
is this?
I wrote “Ladies of the Amazon” in November 2022, due to a fleeting fuel crisis. Now due to tariffs, the poem is coming true. The boats aren’t coming. It makes me wonder about the shift that will happen in the world, not only in an economic way. Perhaps we will start to carefully examine what humans are producing, and the value of it.
© Susan L Hart / Photo is courtesy Bill Salazar, Pexels
Journey
River winding to
the sea, my soul searches for
answers in ripples.
Puzzle
The problem
with trying to
fit in
to society,
you see,
is that
every part
of the puzzle
that does not
fit you
chips away
at the edges
of your
very soul.
Then one day
you wake up,
frayed
and afraid,
because you
don’t recognize
who you are
any more.
Be careful
to not let
the puzzle
destroy you.
Ripen
Life is a journey
from urgent to poignant
self-realizations.
Sacred Ground
Fiercely I protect
the place within
that cradles my
brightest dreams
and deepest truths,
that precious locus,
where my soul
whispers wisdom
of lessons learned,
eternally echoing
across all of time.
My heartaches,
and yes, heartbreaks,
over many lifetimes
hammered and
tempered the line,
beyond which now
none are allowed
to trample upon,
or desecrate my
hard won ground, my
sanctuary inviolate.
Tally
In the final act,
what will your answer be to,
“Did you live your truth?”
Today’s poems are selections from my free ebooks Humanity’s Lament: Poetry for Our Times, and Soul Journey: The Poetry of Life. They tie into my Humanity’s Future post yesterday, The Dissonance of Our Souls.
© Susan L Hart 2025 / My eBookstore / HartInspirations.com / HumanitysFuture.net
Fear has a way of dissolving our resolve, when it is strong and threatening enough. Discernment, critical thinking and our wise intuition go quickly out the window. The black ooze of fear grips us in a stranglehold. To say fear is uncomfortable is an understatement. It undermines that which we long for and value – comfort and safety.
But as Franklin D. Roosevelt famously said in his first inaugural address, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
When we are gripped by fear, we become very vulnerable to the manipulations of those who like to control others. We just want relief in the fastest way possible. The controllers are only too happy to spoon-feed it to us in order to gain their advantage.
When we are fearful is exactly the time when we should not succumb to the “easy and fast solution”. It’s the time to stand back, take a deep breath, and look for the way that makes sense logically, does not undermine our own moral compasses, and perhaps most importantly, what ultimately feels right at a gut instinct level.
As individuals we vary in our resolve to face the ugliness that the world dishes out. History shows that “good times” and “bad times” revolve in a continuous loop, and the meaning of these words varies widely for each of us.
However, when push comes to shove, we all have something in common. There is a core of fearlessness inside of each human being. When what we hold dear is threatened, we step up to the plate.
One of the huge lessons humanity is learning at the moment is personal responsibility. We work very hard to build that which others are so eager or careless to throw away. It is our own responsibility to protect and stand up for what is precious to us.
Inspirational Quotes:
“Becoming fearless isn’t the point. That’s impossible. It’s learning how to control your fear, and how to be free from it.” ~ Veronica Roth, Divergent
“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.” ~ Nelson Mandela
“I believe that anyone can conquer fear by doing the things he fears to do.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
“Through every generation of the human race there has been a constant war, a war with fear. Those who have the courage to conquer it are made free and those who are conquered by it are made to suffer until they have the courage to defeat it, or death takes them.” ~ Alexander the Great
What is your greatest fear, and what do you do (what have you done) to overcome it?
There are also free ebooks for you here
© Susan L Hart 2025, HartInspirations.com
Everything fades to dust
eventually,
the wheels of progress turn
inevitably.
The elders of the tribe
woefully,
remember times not lived
respectfully.
History hides secrets
illicitly,
of the big lessons doled
cruelly.
The past is only known
truthfully,
by the ones who lived it
successfully.
If young people listened
graciously,
to the old wisdom learned
painfully,
together they could build
splendidly,
a new vision that’s forged
lovingly.
Melding is an excerpt from Humanity’s Lament: Poetry for Our Times. It’s free here.
Melding builds on yesterday’s post about Great-Aunt Nelly and her gumption. There was advice she gave me many years ago, and through my arrogant youthful eyes, I assumed she was a lady (although very nice) that could not know a whole lot about the subject we were discussing. After all, she had never married, so how could she? A whole lot, as it turns out. I should have listened better!
Although I grew up in an era where we were taught to respect our elders (and I did), we weren’t necessarily good at appreciating their wisdom. Perhaps given the state of our world, we should be embracing the wisdom of our elders. Real change, I believe, could be better accomplished with a broader inter-generational perspective, accomplished through conversation, cooperation, and intentional action.
Susan L Hart / Author 