Archive
Tuesday following Memorial Day; a Poem
I wrote this as part of my Morning Pages yesterday, Memorial Day here in the US. It came out as a “prose-poem” but as I keyed it in it feels better in verse form. It is about remembering. It is about freedom. It is about sacrifice but more about living.
Memorial Day
Have the fallen died in vain?
Are we no longer free?
Have we ever been truly free?
Is the “home of the brave and the land of the free”
Just a relic of the past?
Brave or foolhardy?
Free or continuing under the yoke of tyranny?
Here we are again;
Did we ever leave?
Or are these concepts, words, deeds, creeds
Just so much chaff blowing in the winds of change?
The only realm of freedom
Is the inner realm.
If we cannot be free of our tyrannical minds
We can never be free.
Free countries are an illusion.
The outer can throw up a mirage of freedom;
The spoken or sung words can create a sense
Of belonging, power, courage, pride.
None of it is real; none of it is lasting.
It is all fake news.
I am at the threshold of letting it all go.
I choose to focus my mind inward:
The only view of some deeper reality
Hidden from most of us,
Often hidden from me as well.
I know it is there.
I have witnessed it;
I can sometimes catch a glimpse of it.
When I do I am convinced it is
The only “thing” that matters.
This “thing” is the only true Reality
Beyond all other senses of reality.
It is the spark of Light,
Not born,
Never dying,
Here before the beginning,
There after the ending
Which can never come.
It is forever free.
And I hold that spark within me,
As all beings of Light do.
We can never be bound;
We are forever free within this Light.
Memorial Day is this knowing;
It is remembering who we are.
May we all awaken
To this reality
And set ourselves free.
©2025 Richard W. Bredeson. All rights reserved.
A Happy Friday poem: Fear and Flow
It feels easy to fall into fear these days. In my daily pursuits with people I sense many have fallen, succumbed to the “Mind Killer” as Frank Herbert would name it! I get it: there is a lot out there to drag us kicking and screaming into fear. The corruption, degradation, depravity and lawlessness seem rampant in this “land of the free.”
Approaching Memorial Day weekend and Monday, what are we to “memorialize”? What have the “fallen” sacrificed for? For me I’ll remember to remain free of fear!
Fear and Flow
The river flowing
Has no fear of the sea.
The Moon glowing
Has no fear of the Sun.
He will lose himself
As the sea engulfs him.
She will sink into Him
As she wanes to emptiness.
Hold on to the flow
As it meanders, ebbs floods.
Let go of the fear
It has no power to embrace.
The expansion of Love
Can never be dammed.
The brilliance of Light
Can never be dimmed.
©2025 Richard W. Bredeson. All rights reserved.
Divine, an inspired poem for the day
Contemplating the meaning of the word, Divine I explored many things that it is not. It’s an easy word to look up, to think about. Words like God, Heaven, Saint, Sage, Mystic, Beyond come to mind. These are not enough. And this poem is not enough. But it’s what I have for today:
Divine
A visit from beyond
A channeled murmur from
Some deeply hidden, unknowable
Dimension out of time.
Inspiration: an inflow
Into openness, acceptance
Trusting to wisdom
To know in time.
The dark mystery of Light
So bright it blinds
So full in demands
An expiration of Love.
It is All, it is Nothing:
Float on the gossamer wing
The insignificant complexity
The extraordinary Presence just here.
©2025 Richard W. Bredeson. All rights reserved.
Men and The Goddess 