charity

My Poem ‘Please give generously’

Mark Hastings Poetry , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Anything is better than nothing;
time is our greatest currency;
compassion is something special
that not everybody
is instantly capable of feeling;
being there for those in need
when they need a hand to hold
and no other form of hand-out
should be the core principle
of every charity.

It isn’t until you are personally
touched by a tragedy,
or by a shock to the system,
that you start to look at the world
and realize how important
and how much another human being
can make a profound difference to your life;
it isn’t until you look for support
from someone else that you realize
there are other people out there in the world
who have at one time
been where you are
and have gone through
what you are going through;
it isn’t until you struggle
to put into words how you feel
that you realize how important it is
to have someone to wish you sweet dreams
before you fall asleep at night;
it isn’t until you accept
that you do not know every-thing
that you can have your own breakthrough.

Our loved-ones are always those
who we see and who we think about the most;
our emotions for those
who brighten our lives
are always the closest to the surface;
our memories of people we used
to know and love are our ghosts;
our time with others is precious,
and sadly there are few things
in the end that last.

In my opinion,
100% of all that is given
to a cause should make it
to the intended-recipient;
in my opinion,
the act of giving is diluted
when it becomes a means towards an end
for someone who is not directly effected by
and who knows nothing about
what it means to be someone
who feels ashamed
to ask for help from anyone;
in my opinion,
you can’t help to save a life until you see
why everybody to everyone is important;
in my opinion,
there are some people who do not realize
that if we do not all share responsibility
for the continued survival of our species
and our planet then some fights
and some struggles will never be won.

We don’t truly think about something
until it gets personal;
we don’t truly act on something
until we are effected emotionally;
we don’t truly know how hard life can be
until we are made to feel vulnerable;
we don’t truly know
how much we can contribute
to saving a life until we try –
so, whether you do it by-hand,
by using your feet,
or whether you choose
to make your mark to help others
in a way that is wholly anonymously,
give whatever you can
to someone else in need…
and, please give generously.

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My Poem ‘Survivor Instinct’

Mark Hastings Poetry , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Once the mist has lifted,
once the dust has settled,
once a new day begins
and the dark clouds have drifted,
and the frozen time has melted,
once the sunlight breaks through
and showers to the ground,
once people find a way to say something
to fill the void of silence
once again with sound,
once everybody no longer feels guilty
for showing a smile –
everybody can learn to accept and to move on
without constantly living every hour in denial.

Some people do not blink,
some people do not know,
some people do not think,
some people care so much
that even the thought
of something tragic
happening to someone else
anywhere in the world
feels like they are
carrying a heavy load.

There are people
who would do anything
and would give anything
to someone who was in need
more than them;
there are people
who get up out of bed
hoping to help someone in some way;
there are people
who feel a need to give to charity
in the form of a donation;
there are people
who live their life
with a constant open hand
to anyone and everyone every day.

Heroes are all around us;
angels walk among us;
where there is dark you can find light;
you never know when someone
is going to safe your life.

When something is happening far away from you
it is easy to convince yourself
that it isn’t happening;
when someone is hurting
and you don’t know them
it is easy to switch off
from the image of them
as if the memory of them
was a creation of your imagining;
when you see something happening
and you know that you can do something to help,
when you believe that you can be a light
to guide someone out of a living hell,
when you see a chain
and you would give anything
to be that necessary missing link,
then do what feels the most natural to you
and use all that you feel
when you turn on your survivor instinct.

My Poem ‘In Need’

Mark Hastings Poetry , , , , , , , , , , , ,

What should I write about?
What can I say?
Something that I feel?
Something that I have felt?
Something that I see?
Something that I have seen?
Something that I remember from my childhood?
Or, perhaps, something that is going on around me,
right now, today?

From where I am sitting,
I can see superheroes rising into the sky
and then falling to Earth –
well, they are in fact students
who have dressed themselves up as superheroes
for charity, and who are safely zip-wiring
in front of an audience of people, to be exact;
and even though they might not be “real” superheroes,
for what they are doing, and for the cause of Children in Need,
they are still heroes to me.

It has always fascinated me
what people will choose to do
to do something for someone else, for a good reason;
I would like to think that I too would do nearly anything
to help anybody in need –
no matter if it meant I had to leave my comfort-zone;
however, I would definitely have to think hard
about doing something extreme:
like sitting in a bathtub, almost naked,
in water that was the temperature of freezing.

People in need of something
don’t often ask for anything;
people in need sometimes don’t know
that they are in need,
because they see themselves
as living the only life in the only way that they know;
people in need are most of the time
people who already know that to them
they have everything;
people in need, who are not in need,
who make the best of what they have, and where they are,
don’t ever need to ask what they must do,
nor in what direction they must go.

Those of us who are lucky to live the life we live
are surrounded by an abundance of more than we realize;
those of us who have never truly gone without anything
are richer in ways beyond even our own dreams could supersede;
sometimes we see another person’s life,
and the way that they keep going without question,
and it really opens our eyes;
sometimes it is the responsibility of those with so much
to give whatever they can to those who don’t even know
that they are in need.