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The Rain

The rain falls with gentleness
on the parched earth,
giving hope and worth.

Now the grass is green again,
death is baptized with life,
banishing doom and night.

Growth springs forth all over,
fruits and vegetables galore,
the hungry want no more.
18/09/2000
-Lo Gos

Summer Thoughts

The ball of red fire hanging like a noble flag
in a sky of white and blue. All is burning here,
including my skin, punishment of the greenhouse
effect. Yet, we madly go about our business as if
oblivious to our responsibilities in this space-
time continuum. We harness nature's resources for
an endless circus of instant gratifications. In
the process, do we see, taste, smell, touch, hear
the beauty all around us? Eden is still falling
out of balance, as we worry about world economies,
higher gross national products, freer trade, less
environmental controls over corporations. Ah, summer,
you're pulse and grandeur astound me, in defiance of
all humankind's comings and goings, you still celebrate!
18/09/2000
-Lo Gos

Waiting

It's wait, wait, wait
as I watch everyone
around me jump ahead
of me. Why me? What
did I do to deserve
this eternal waiting?
Supposedly, it teaches
one patience, builds
character, keeps one
humble. But what happens
when waiting leads to
nothing and nowhere?
Is life on hold
forever for some
while others are
oppressed by the
fast lane for
too long?
Waiting, waiting, waiting:
is it ever going to end?
Why do I always seem to
have to be at the end
of my rope before
anything happens?
Coming in last
is not easy.
Someone once said
the last shall
be first, could
that be me?
18/09/2000
-Lo Gos

Coffee (Coffea arabica)

Keffa/Kaffa/Coffee/Java/Et. Al.

Keffa/Kaffa, from Ethiopia
"discovered" by Arabs, then
taken to southern Arabia.
Legend has it that goatherd
Kaldi noticed his goats were
acting up, so he tried the
berry and had an exhilarating
experience. There is record
of cultivating coffee in
southern Arabia during the
15th century. The Qu'ran
prohibited it ~ reason:
too intoxicating. Yet Arabs
loved this stimulating drink.
By the 16th and 17th centuries,
coffee spread throughout Europe.
There it was either prohibited
or approved for religious,
political, and medical reasons.
Coffeehouses became all the rave
as literary and social centres.
The coffee plant (an evergreen-like
bush) spread to Java and the
Indonesian archipelago in the 17th
century, the Americas in the 18th
century, and the Hawaiian Islands
in the 19th century.
So all ye coffee drinkers,
join with me and
raise your cups to toast
this heavenly fluid, which
starts each day off right!
Remember to buy Bridgehead or
other "fair trade" brands,
grant justice to the workers
in Two-Third World lands!
18/09/2000
-Lo Gos

Lure of Oceans

I've never sailed that much,
but there's something that
lures landlubbers to oceans.
Maybe it's the spirit of
adventure ~ sailing 40
leagues below the surface.
Or is it the eternal battle
of primeval stormy chaos
against calm and order?
Perhaps it's the mythopoeic
ancient mariners' rhyme
of passages uncharted
where dragons and other
foreign creatures dwell.
Most of all, could it be
a metaphor for living
and dying largesse?
18/09/2000
-Lo Gos