The Three Legged Stool

The Three Legged Stool

The young of our generation need, desperately need, all three legs of life's proverbial stool. They have their physical presence embodied in youthful statures that forms one leg of the stool. That's the easy one, stemming from the union of a male and a female that has happened for millions of years, the striking of the flints of flesh creating the spark to fire a breath of life.

One third of the legs of the three legged stool is set,
it's the other two legs that I'd like to think about, I'd like to write about, I'd like you to read about.

I suggest the other two legs are life factors of each individual's personality that makes them particular to themselves as they maneuver through life. They are aptitude and attitude.

Aptitude is the inherent ability of an individual to perform at a level commensurate with their physical makeup. Their ability, their capability, their instinct, their power has an individual's imprint on society that I call another one of the legs of the stool.

Attitude, though, is a mental state. It is the third leg completing the integrity of our stool involving beliefs and feelings and values and dispositions to act in certain ways. It, too, defines an individual by that person's brain waves. Attitude seems to be, not only the crucial third leg, but also the glue that holds a stool together.

I contend most of our youth have the physique complete with a goodly amount of aptitude which bolsters them as individuals as they grow into adulthood. They grow along with their ability and power to physically improve at all visuals of their lives.
This is certainly meaningful but woefully inadequate to enter into a competitive society with all its varied
innuendoes.

Attitude becomes paramount to our youth's survival. It is the the educated youngster with an expanding mind who can weigh alternatives to the rigid norms which stagnates our adult society. We find in our youths, as in all advanced generations, the hope inherent in a future worthy to pass on to our descendants.

These descendants will honor this generation for constructing stools that, not only withstand the riggers of time, but become the standards for future societies.
Body, mind, and spirit is the bulwark of some institutes. I am encouraging stature, aptitude, and attitude to be our pillars, or if you will, our legs of the proverbial stool. Upright and solid, the tripod that can hold up a whole universe.

Ronald C. Downie

A Reason For Being

A Reason For Being

A poem like a story, or a song, a yarn, a tale, a communication, or just a conversation has a reason for being. Thoughts come to mind that need to be, are itching to be, amplified.

The following poem, A Cry From Mid-Space, was written at a time in my life when those things I dreamt about doing were not going to happen. In a long life, unrealized dreams are commonplace moving on in spite of desires being unfulfilled enabling a person to dream anew. When we lose the capacity to dream the flames of hope flicker out as the path to fulfillment blurs until a new spark lights the way for dreams to reoccur.

What's the old adage ? "It's not the number of times you are knocked down, but, it is the number of times you get up, that counts."

* * *
Cry From Mid-Space

God damned you Dreams, whore no more to me, release me
To covet grayness bleating from a sullen sky .
Don't show me violets pure nor roses gay that cry
My inter soul awake . No ! I must not think free .

Chain my mind, please stem that emotion swell
Within this hide so I do not hope in vain .
In image of his maker, common man can train
As oxen are yoked to circle around the well .

I can not define mid- space where dreamers dwell ,
Far sight a scene then slowly squint it into
Mental pictures, like a frosted pane looked through,
Is it real ? Is it heaven ? Is it ? Well, is it, hell ?

Theater must be hell for a lost dreamer's soul :
Not in dance around soothing flames and crackling sounds
That flow the senses' veins ; but of grey ash mounds
Staged of choking soot waiting to fill a dreamer's hole .

Accept the young, they have not traversed the gorge
Left by dreamers old whose torrent thoughts erode .
Fill the young with placid manna lest they explode
With alien notions thinking they're their own Saint George .

Dreams - damn you ! Lay not your head on my breast this day .
Free me, so I may see what our Nation antes up :
Those dull, brow bent cast of actors who hold the cup,
Which keeps America hostage and wastes a dreamer's play .

Ronald C . Downie

Inconsequential

Inconsequential

Contrary to a popular notion, that
A person like me is indispensable,
I'd like to put this thought to rest.

My willingness to write is quite commendable ;
My ability to write may be truly questionable ;
But, on and on I go, writing words of valued trash.

I question authority without due cause,
I refuse to listen to reasonable chatter.
I am an icon of an ineffective communicator.

Those like me are seen daily on Facebook,
Always posting their image, good or better,
They feel images are better than new ideas.

Impervious to reticule, their facial expression
Shows they're the real deal, truth exudes.
All's alive, not from information, but by photos.

Narcissistic are our own Daphne's and Adonis'
Capturing their faces, not in pools, but on line.
Angelic are spirits of the super self important.

There I go again - King of the Hill - that's me,
Over stuffed, overly old, too unimportantly brash.
Don't listen to me, I am really inconsequential.

Ronald C. Downie

Look At Music - Listen To Art

Look At Music - Listen To Art

Spring mother, Dear, conduct your annual symphony,
Lead us to heights in primal song . Memory plays
Our pensive harp awake with color cords ablaze :
Golden daffodil yellow - crocus choir harmony .

Notes of sweet tulip red and smooth hyacinth blue
Await drum beats deep in the gold of forsythia .
Wake up world ! Your colorful cosmic orchestra
Readies again to play life's spring concert for you .

Look at the music of flowers swaying the breeze :
Like a string section in unison its visual sound
Silent, so brain supplies the score to music round
The mood we feel. One's self, only you to please.

Listen to the native art of unfolding leaves :
Slow but steady in a stretch enlarging their span
Reaching heavenly in canopy over common man,
Who, at song, sings of Gods in self image, not trees.

Concert master, tune the instruments true
To the pitch of the seasons : winter, spring,
Summer, fall . Movements composed are to bring
Life full circle as all living are compelled to do.

Ronald C. Downie

The Art Of Listening

The Art Of Listening

When we lean on the cluttered din of the day
Few sounds can escape chatter's deafening wake.
Sharp piercing sounds squeal loudly, far away,
The rest, cloud like, low muffled sounds make :

Then in conversation which guides this very day,
From clouds back to Earth, beckons our own reply.
Uptempo, finding why's and wherefores, we may
State truths and falsehoods out loud to the sky :

And then, do we really wait for an answer returned ?
Or, have we retreated back into the heavens cloudy,
Not hearing the din nor if the responder's concerned,
Which has bearing living silently, if not, then loudly?

Lost is the "Art Of Listening" basic to Earth as sod,
But, grown so closely, are we just "Pees In A Pod"?

Ronald C. Downie

The Jilted Suitor

The Jilted Suitor

Never to be the jilted suitor,
DEATH, lifelong your cell mate,
Treads in that parallel universe
Whether you're asleep or awake.

Forever twins to the final end,
Inseparable as a mirror image,
In comedy, mime, or dire tragic
Events, traces one's own linage.

In a spiritual world, this unbeliever,
Creeping beyond shadow's inky image
Sweeps in on wings of dreams denied,
Its dank pallor casts dreaded luggage.

Found napping is the progenitor of CANCER,
Which stews in a fluid bile of harsh pollutants,
Spewing nameless poisons into weakened bodies
And finds an endpoint, death, from vile mutants.

DEATH seeks its very own pound of flesh.
Never will our own Grim Reaper be denied
It's place in the shadows, caring ever less
About prayer to a God deity, Heaven skied.

Ronald C. Downie.

The Last Hurrah

The Last Hurrah

When crippling becomes the coin of the realm,
When cane and walker ease some wiggly wobbles,
When a chair only substitutes for comfort in a bed,
When death creeps beyond all horizons of hope,
I challenge myself to keep writing, by plugging away;
Writing is cathartic, essentially cleansing, healthful.

I write for myself, as my number of followers, shows.

We organize our mind's eye, to envision, to synthesize
A subject so it unfolds for our own inward emotions :
As sure as waves embrace all shore lines, ebbing and
Flowing, with moon inspired tides, crashing or baying,
Oblivious to only, but Nature's Law. Our wants are left
On paper for all others to per rouse at their pleasure.

I write for more than myself. Readers are my targets.

Does an artist wish only his art to replicate his vision ?
Does a potter wish only his vessel carry cool water ?
Does a dancer wish only her movements to spin ?
Does a writer wish only his words to tell of the past ?
The human instinct is toward expansion, fulfillment of
The unique essence of continuous folds in the brain.

Why do I write ? Why do you read ? Who are we ?

I am compelled by an internal clock to record myself.
You are drawn to see my written thoughts exposed.
Mine is a must, yours is by chance, our's different.

Ronald C. Downie