John Hastings' Poems

CRAZY HORSE REMEMBERED
John M. Hastings

mighty warrior spirit running free
    riding bareback
       your hair and horse’s mane blowing together
          through the plains winds of Dakota

‘til blue cavalry swarmed, tethered your people.
   less land, less buffalo, more rules, more white lies
      not little ones either…
         like the promise you’d be safe
            if you’d come to their fort to surrender.

how could they let you go when they had you in their grasp?
   you wanted to believe.
      in your soul you wanted your freedom back.

but going to the blue lair of blue liars
    you were betrayed by a bayonet in your back.
      their deceit won over your faith, your trust,
         your wishes for your people.

hearts still weep at Wounded Knee.



GOODBYE
John M. hastings

I see less of my family now
   cousins, aunts, uncles...
I call less often.

It’s not that I’m too busy.
    just...well...
just feeling more remote
   from those I love.
not less loving nor feeling for them
   but much less getting together.
Are we all drifting apart or just me?
Is it my way of saying goodbye
   while I am still here?


ONLY AN INSTANT
John M. Hastings

it takes only an instant
to tell you I love you.
it will take a lifetime to prove it.

it takes only an instant
to say the wrong thing.
it will take forever for you to forget.

it takes just an instant
to fall in love with your smile.
even a lifetime with you will not be enough.

it takes years to grow our children
but only an instant for them to leave.

it takes years to learn to live and love
yet only an instant to say goodbye.



The Illusion of Meaning
John M. Hastings

from the time we knew
   the sun was God
      then knew that it wasn’t

to the time we knew
   it revolved around our earth
      then knew that it didn’t

to now when we know
   our galaxy spirals a black hole

search for meaning in our existence
   has been endless and oh so imperfect

but what is meaning?
   atoms mostly empty
     support floors we stand on
chairs we sit on, buildings we occupy
   only sensed solid as molecular oscillation
      creates a hard wall of space

yet meaning based upon knowing
   provides little comfort
      for we cannot define the colour red
         describe beauty nor measure goodness
without a reference point, itself learned
    through limited sensory group-think acceptance
      remember our sun Gods?

and is life itself illusion?
   for our past exists only
      in memory and matter
then it exists no more
    its meaning lost...
                  in eternity