Life’s tapestry is woven not precise:
Some threads will sparkle, some run dark with threat;
Some, like a bee flight, mutable as dice,
Where weight or lightness in veiled patterns met;
Like cuttlefish, some camouflage their shape,
As if a flake has covered part of shine,
So, though before one’s eyes that cloth may drape,
One’s ignorant of all it may define.
I was disinclined to put any humorous slant on the current Wordle. We had news today of the murder, in a suburb of Durban, of a cousin on their father’s side of our local grandchildren. He disturbed intruders at 4 a.m. on Saturday, and was shot. His wife was then threatened at knifepoint while the callous robbers took what they wanted. He was only 35, and leaves two fatherless children, one aged nearly two and the other four.
For most of my life it was highly unusual to know personally, or be related to, anyone who had been murdered. Over latter years, though, I have literally lost count. It is a symptom of an increasingly violent country and world, and of utter ineptness in our local law enforcement. This is not the fault so much of the individual police, who do their best against impossible odds, but of the administration generally from highest levels down.
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I appreciated the poem’s import before I read the rest of your post. Anything I say will be superfluous, but you know my thoughts will be with all who are left behind to deal with the distress — including you, Leslie.
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Thank you profoundly.
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What a dreadful, mindless thing to happen, Col. I hope justice catches up with the perpetrator(s) and they feel the full weight of the law – or, put another way, what goes around comes around. I’m sorry for your family’s loss. I like your poem, but that seems by the by for now.
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Thanks. I, too, hope that justice, karma, or both, are most unkind to these things masquerading as human beings.
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So senseless. So sad. Each day is a blessing, I guess, because we never know what’s going to happen in the next minute.
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As in this case: eagerly planning a holiday and with a husband.father eagerly pursuing exciting work projects — then all is changed including the fact they no longer live in their beloved home after what took place there.
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I enjoyed your poem. And I am very sorry for your loss. We live in a troubled world.
Pamela
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Thanks. The world is troubled indeed, but the overload this part of it is having is mainly due to gross incompetence in running things.
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I like your poem, but am so sorry for the cause of it. Violence seems almost to be present in the air we breathe, nowadays. What really disturbs me is that our so-called leaders instigate it for their own personal agendas.
Elizabeth
http://soulsmusic.wordpress.com
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I totally agree. It would seem that the election process produces either rascals or idiots to run things.
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Sorry to hear about your loss & good wishes to your family
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Many thanks.
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Your site comes up as having been deleted??
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Oh I thought I had fixed that (I did delete it) on my profile http://fightingstuff.wordpress.com a new start!
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That gets there!
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Dit is verskriklik – die arme ou kindertjies! My innige simpatie.
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Baie dankie. Ja, hulle het ‘n wonderlike pa verloor.
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Iemand wat letterlik sy lewe gegee het om hulle te beskerm…
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Letterlik, inderdaad.
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I’m so sorry for your loss, you have written a very real and composed poem in memory – life’s tapestry is not precise and we can only hope that such horrors may at some point desist and yet you still show us that there is possibility in persevering and continuing to weave.. kind wishes to you and yours
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Thank you for this very insightful comment.
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Dreadful news, Col. My heart really goes out to that young family. The murder statistics seem to be going up instead of down. 😦
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That is certainly the impression we get. Robbery is bad enough, but these lowlives seem to think nothing of killing as part of the process.
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Having no regard for the misery their actions cause, definitely defines them as “lowlives” or worse. Oxygen thieves who should have been drowned at birth! 😦
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Absolutely.
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This sort of thing can shake a person to the bone. Stay safe, my friend.
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It certainly is unsettling. Thanks!
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That is terrible news, Col. It is becoming almost impossible to protect ones property and loved ones with high walls and electronic devices. A thief will find a way in.
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It is alarming that we have had two ‘incidents’ in our short road last night.
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My YS, just down the road from the Village, was robbed a few weeks ago. He has it all on camera as his house has numerous cameras aimed at all spots in his yard. The guy easily climbed over the wall from the next door neighbour’s garden, surveyed the property, peered through a gap in the curtains and then unscrewed the locks on the wendy house/bar and took two fold-up garden chairs and the potjie. The neighbour refuses to make his property more secure or pay 50/50 to install razor wire on the top of the wall. Fortunately the house itself is secure and doors and gates are always locked, even during the day.
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Even razor wire is easily overcome – maybe the answer is a permanently manned machine-gun station.
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Very sorry to hear. Violence is, generally, in decline around the world, but that is no solace to those who are touched by it.
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There is no doubt that violence here has escalated, and it is strange that despite the stats the perception of many in other parts of the world is that it is on the increase. Wars should be discounted from this equation.
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