Living by Blaine Kaltman

If you couldn’t walk would you long to walk in the rain?
In the cold, over rocks, would you walk with a cane?
Do you still have a mouth, can you still talk and sing?
Taste the snow on your tongue, feel the winter wind’s sting?

For the man with no legs tired feet are a blessing
The man with no house a broken TV’s not distressing
The man with no nose would enjoy smelling trash
The man with no eyes would give any amount of cash
To see for one day, to watch the sunrise
Everyone carries burdens, just as everyone dies

So lest you forget to thank God and pray
Or at least just be thankful you saw a new day
Remember before you complain you don’t thrive
You have so much to celebrate.   You are alive.

So don’t waste the day watching TV or even reading this poem
Don’t pity yourself, get off your damn phone
Go out and create, or dance, or learn
We only live once, you only get one turn!
So embrace it, even the hardships – don’t complain
Learn to relish the stress, the failures, the pain

Because in the end even the suffering and strife
Are all opportunities to experience life.

Living is the most precious gift of all
Because living teaches us what it feels like to fall

And to rise up and recognize all that we have
And to cry tears of joy, and feel sad but still laugh.

Blaine Kaltman has a PhD in philosophy from the University of Queensland. He is the author of “Under the Heel of the Dragon” http://www.ohioswallow.com/author/Blaine+Kaltman and the producer, lead actor, and screenplay writer of the award winning film “Back Alley Bulls” http://influxmagazine.com/back-alley-bulls-review/. He is a Foreign Service officer with the US State Department and fluent in Mandarin Chinese. His latest artistic venture is a hard rock band named Stone Mob and a cowboy themed video to support their first single “Murder Town” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XK-S9vPdpNs . But none of this has stopped Blaine from writing poems almost everyday for the past twenty years.