Garden of Delights

January 13, 2026 / Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

A garden of delights

my my new goal.

Why do I/we need

such a garden?

Sanity, yours and mine.

Genocide in Gaza, Sudan,

eastern Congo, probably

even in other places where

there’s no news.

Poverty here in the richest

nation on Earth.

Poverty my neighbor seems

shocked when I tell her.

People living in condemned

trailers, no heat, no water–

It’s freezing inside.

People surviving, barely.

Malnourished children, big

hungry eyes, staring.

A garden of delights

my new goal.

Why do I/we need

such a garden?

Masked men and some women

attacking people in the streets,

in their homes,

knocking down doors.

smashing windows.

You’d think I’m describing

Russia, Nazi Germany

but no, I’m describing

happenings in my own

county and

across the US.

A garden of delights

my new goal.

Sanity = Delights

I look out my window

purple mountains loom

in crystalline air.

Recent rains create

emerald hills,

blooming freeway daisies,

roses in my garden,

pink, sunset colors, snow.

Bougainvillea the color of blood

climbs my garden wall.

The turquoise fountain gurgles.

Photo of daughter and grandson

make me smile.

Symbols, sacred corn grace

walls and make me

remember cornfields in summer

when on a hot day

I could hear corn grow.

Three different pine trees whisper,

the Soleri bell rings in wind.

Ah, yes, I live in a garden,

a garden of delights.

And I remain sane

for at least one

more day.

Imagine–3

April 27, 2025 / Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

Imagine a society where everyone has shelter and love.

My 15th book of the year was “Imagination, A Manifesto”, Ruha Benjamin. After going over the history of racism, poverty, and misogyny in the US, the author, a professor at Princeton, details various ways individuals and groups can imagine and act toward creating a better world for all. She delineates the endless obstacles to attaining this better world but claims through collectively imagining detailed ways the world can be better, people can work together to attain such a world. She admits individuals rarely have the power to do this alone but working with others, we can make dramatic differences, but first we have to imagine what this better world will look like. We now are prisoners of hierarchies, exploitation, and frequent violence, but it does not have to be this way. The Appendix includes Discussion Prompts, Project Based Prompts, and Speculative Prompts to help readers get started imagining differently. She quotes Toni Morrison–“Dream a little before you think.”

Hope

April 7, 2025 / Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

Hope is the delusion of the oppressed.

It is buzzards watching, waiting in the trees,

laughing.

I Have a Dream

August 29, 2016 / Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

Fifth-three years ago today Martin Luther King, Jr. gave one of the most inspiring and telling speeches ever given by a person from this country. Today I listened to a young man, Patrick Miller, a middle school teacher here in Amarillo, give this same speech totally from memory with no notes. I feel saddened at the extent to which King’s speech still rings true, that although we have progressed tremendously, people of African descent and others of color still experience prejudice at so many levels in their lives, frequently on a daily basis.

Here I offer other quotes from Martin Luther King, Jr.:

Life’s most persistent and urgent questions is, “What are you doing for others?”

We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.

The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.