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  1. TopTop #3691
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Stars In A Wild Array

    you're way closer to the end
    than the beginning and now
    free your mind of worries

    since once we weren't even here
    bright earth traveling in space yes
    without us and soon

    bright earth moving
    round and round
    the sun the moon

    strong planets and
    stars in a wild array
    traveling without us

    again unless we say
    I am spirit always
    I am awake in the west

    I am spirit even
    when I'm long gone
    and real gone

    gone for always
    let's relax and say
    you'll be spirit too

    - Jack Crimmins
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  2. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  3. TopTop #3692
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Sadness Street

    “Coffee in the Park”, “Larks in the Fields”
    Or “A Grove of Fountains”
    Would be nicer poem titles
    Were it not for the
    Silent and stunning starkness
    Of leveled neighborhoods, grey and gayless.

    Where did all the stuff go?
    Some wafted west and south
    In choking clouds
    And found on far off lawns and streets
    as feather weight horror shadows
    Of Aunts and tax records
    And love letters.

    Where are the fortunate
    But still trembling souls who
    Escaped over embers aglow
    In that predawn October night
    From those streets of Santa Rosa,
    All now renamed
    Sadness Street?

    - Jeff Boal
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  4. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  5. TopTop #3693
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Fire Empathy


    The fires burn
    And envelope
    Houses erupt
    And all is lost
    History and its roots
    In photos and memorabilia
    The touch of spaces created
    By love and children
    Where I grew up
    My friends in shelters
    Perhaps moving on
    In survival to other realms
    Torn apart
    Confused
    Marked

    The fires come and surround
    In torrents of flame
    Burst upon.
    Those of us in forests
    Feel the heat
    As possible
    Watch the winds
    Pray for rain
    Love those who fight the fires
    Take in the refugees
    Welcome!
    You are us
    We are you.

    We change nature
    Nature changes us
    Irrevocably.
    It is illusion
    To feel we are safe from the natural--
    That illusion will be broken.
    Craft love of the natural
    Know it
    Live it
    Live in it
    Cultivate
    Take nothing for granted.

    - Phil Wolfson
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  7. TopTop #3694
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    On Children

    Your children are not your children.
    They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
    They come through you but not from you,
    And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.

    You may give them your love but not your thoughts.
    For they have their own thoughts.
    You may house their bodies but not their souls,
    For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
    which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
    You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
    For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

    You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
    The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
    and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
    Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
    For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
    so He loves also the bow that is stable.

    - Kahlil Gibran
    Last edited by Barry; 03-13-2018 at 01:17 PM.
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  8. TopTop #3695

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Love this Larry. Have heard the first few verse as a song--did not realize it came from Kahlil Gibran. Thank you. Lilith

    Quote Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson: View Post
    On Children

    Your children are not your children.
    They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
    They come through you but not from you,
    And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.

    You may give them your love but not your thoughts.
    For they have their own thoughts.
    You may house their bodies but not their souls,
    For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
    which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
    You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
    For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

    You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
    The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
    and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
    Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
    For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
    so He loves also the bow that is stable.

    - Kahlil Gibran
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  9. TopTop #3696

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Oh, my now I just watched the beautiful video and heard the song that you posted with it. Thank you!!!

    Lilith

    Quote Posted in reply to the post by Lilith Rogers: View Post
    Love this Larry. Have heard the first few verse as a song--did not realize it came from Kahlil Gibran. Thank you. Lilith
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  10. TopTop #3697
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    For The Children


    The rising hills, the slopes
    of statistics
    lie before us.
    the steep climb
    of everything, going up
    up, as we all
    go down.

    In the next century
    or the one beyond that,
    they say,
    are valleys, pastures,
    we can meet there in peace
    if we make it.

    To climb these coming crests
    one word to you, to
    you and your children:

    stay together
    learn the flowers
    go light

    - Gary Snyder
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  11. Gratitude expressed by 5 members:

  12. TopTop #3698
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Nothing

    Nothing sings in our bodies
    like breath in a flute.
    It dwells in the drum.
    I hear it now
    that slow beat
    like when a voice said to the dark,
    let there be light,
    let there be ocean
    and blue fish
    born of nothing
    and they were there.
    I turn back to bed.
    The man there is breathing.
    I touch him
    with hands already owned by another world.
    Look, they are desert,
    they are rust. They have washed the dead.
    They have washed the just born.
    They are open.
    They offer nothing.
    Take it.
    Take nothing from me.
    There is still a little life
    left inside this body,
    a little wildness here
    and mercy
    and it is the emptiness
    we love, touch, enter in one another,
    and try to fill.

    - Linda Hogan
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  14. TopTop #3699
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Why Should Not Old Men Be Mad

    Why should not old men be mad?
    Some have known a likely lad
    That had a sound fly fisher's wrist
    Turn to a drunken journalist;
    A girl that knew all Dante once
    Live to bear children to a dunce;
    A Helen of social welfare dream
    Climb on a wagonette to scream.
    Some think it matter of course that chance
    Should starve good men and bad advance,
    That if their neighbours figured plain,
    As though upon a lighted screen,
    No single story would they find
    Of an unbroken happy mind,
    A finish worthy of the start.
    Young men know nothing of this sort
    Observant old men know it well;
    And when they know what old books tell
    And that no better can be had
    Know why an old man should be mad.

    - William Butler Yeats
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  15. Gratitude expressed by 5 members:

  16. TopTop #3700
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson




    The Wind That Shakes the Barley

    There's music in my heart all day,
    I hear it late and early,
    It comes from fields are far away,
    The wind that shakes the barley.

    Above the uplands drenched with dew
    The sky hangs soft and pearly,
    An emerald world is listening to
    The wind that shakes the barley.

    Above the bluest mountain crest
    The lark is singing rarely,
    It rocks the singer into rest,
    The wind that shakes the barley.

    Oh, still through summers and through springs
    It calls me late and early.
    Come home, come home, come home, it sings,
    The wind that shakes the barley.

    - Katharine Tynan
    Last edited by Barry; 03-17-2018 at 10:40 AM.
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  17. Gratitude expressed by 5 members:

  18. TopTop #3701
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Wind That Shakes The Barley

    I sat within a valley green,
    I sat there with my true love,
    My sad heart strove the two between,
    The old love and the new love, -
    The old for her, the new that made
    Me think of Ireland dearly,
    While soft the wind blew down the glade
    And shook the golden barley.

    Twas hard the woeful words to frame
    To break the ties that bound us
    Twas harder still to bear the shame
    Of foreign chains around us
    And so I said, "The mountain glen
    I'll seek next morning early
    And join the brave United Men!"
    While soft winds shook the barley.

    While sad I kissed away her tears,
    My fond arms 'round her flinging,
    The foeman's shot burst on our ears,
    From out the wildwood ringing, -
    A bullet pierced my true love's side,
    In life's young spring so early,
    And on my breast in blood she died
    While soft winds shook the barley!

    I bore her to the wildwood screen,
    And many a summer blossom
    I placed with branches thick and green
    Above her gore-stain'd bosom
    I wept and kissed her pale, pale cheek,
    Then rushed o'er vale and far lea,
    My vengeance on the foe to wreak,
    While soft winds shook the barley!

    But blood for blood without remorse,
    I've ta'en at Oulart Hollow
    And placed my true love's clay-cold corpse
    Where I full soon will follow;
    And round her grave I wander drear,
    Noon, night and morning early,
    With breaking heart whene'er I hear
    The wind that shakes the barley!

    - Robert Dwyer Joyce
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  19. TopTop #3702
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Of Spouses and Fires

    Half lose their husbands or their wives,
    Far fewer lose homes to wildfires.
    The first though worse no one survives.
    Obstinate the second transpires.

    No pain tops death of spouse or child,
    Gloom bone cancer real or phantom
    From home your hearth you’ve been exiled
    Hymn of passing your sole anthem

    What happens with the house rebuilt
    Or another one discovered
    Might fickle need produce new guilt
    Front door unrecovered?

    When might longing for what has passed
    Transform to smoke none understands
    It’s futile wisdom we’ve amassed
    While gods do laugh at human plans.

    - Ed Coletti
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  20. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  21. TopTop #3703
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Last Night the Rain Spoke to Me


    Last night
    the rain
    spoke to me
    slowly, saying,
    what joy
    to come falling
    out of the brisk cloud,
    to be happy again
    in a new way
    on the earth!
    That’s what it said
    as it dropped,
    smelling of iron,
    and vanished
    like a dream of the ocean
    into the branches
    and the grass below.
    Then it was over.
    The sky cleared.
    I was standing
    under a tree.
    The tree was a tree
    with happy leaves,
    and I was myself,
    and there were stars in the sky
    that were also themselves
    at the moment
    at which moment
    my right hand
    was holding my left hand
    which was holding the tree
    which was filled with stars
    and the soft rain –
    imagine! imagine!
    the long and wondrous journeys
    still to be ours.

    - Mary Oliver
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  22. Gratitude expressed by 7 members:

  23. TopTop #3704
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    A Blessing

    Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,
    Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.
    And the eyes of those two Indian ponies
    Darken with kindness.
    They have come gladly out of the willows
    To welcome my friend and me.
    We step over the barbed wire into the pasture
    Where they have been grazing all day, alone.
    They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their
    happiness
    That we have come.
    They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.
    There is no loneliness like theirs.
    At home once more,
    They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.
    I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,
    For she has walked over to me
    And nuzzled my left hand.
    She is black and white,
    Her mane falls wild on her forehead,
    And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear
    That is delicate as the skin over a girl's wrist.
    Suddenly I realize
    That if I stepped out of my body I would break
    Into blossom.

    - James Wright
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  24. Gratitude expressed by 6 members:

  25. TopTop #3705
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    THE POWER OF NOW AND THEN


    Now
    And then
    Are a spinning top:
    A whirling blur of what
    May have occurred way back
    then in places like Egypt and at Mt. Sinai
    But more recently Einstein and that quantum gang
    Have informed us that now and then were one and the same.
    You no doubt remember how Moses’ rod transformed into a snake
    And soon after Hashem separated the Sea of reeds for the Hebrews
    And so the sacred texts contain numerous moments where we see
    That the stories in our hearts are not meant to be fact checked but
    Are instead the ever-burning bushes illuminating one moment
    That gets misconstrued as the retelling of a newspaper story
    And even worse, an ironclad prediction of a cataclysm
    When actually the biblical narrative circles around
    The great mandala sparks of universal truths
    That are forever living and rocking in the
    Nestling arms of the great mysterious
    Author Begetter and Originator
    Of all beginnings middles
    And endings of the one
    Forever unfolding
    And amazing
    Now
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  26. Gratitude expressed by 5 members:

  27. TopTop #3706
    M/M's Avatar
    M/M
     

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Can you tell us who the poet is ?? Thanks....

    Quote Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson: View Post
    THE POWER OF NOW AND THEN
    ...
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  28. TopTop #3707
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson


    The Listening Buck


    Sunday morning at the trail head,
    in the east a sky kindling
    over the shadowed hills.
    We chat and walk in the half-light
    holding hands, sometimes silent,
    a kiss beside the way.
    A day for beginnings and a long
    climb into clear morning.

    The path mounts over the rocky shoulder
    of Tam’s west side. So still up here --
    the clarity of the world and the sea.

    We rest in a small glade--
    some bread and cheese,
    then out comes our book
    and we read to each other.

    A sound, a fallen twig, we turn to see
    a buck has come quietly through the woods,
    his ankles sunken in old leaves, ears piqued,
    his neck stretched out to hear our words.


    - Kevin Pryne
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  29. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  30. TopTop #3708
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    This Is Not Trivial


    When prayers and good thoughts
    are not enough


    When a moment of silence and flag
    half-mast seem irrelevant


    When sending best wishes
    When hoping
    When contributing to a fundraising campaign
    When signing a petition
    When singing in a choir
    lift your spirit only for a moment


    When crying alone
    In your kitchen
    Serves no one, not even you


    May you smile lovingly still
    into the tired eyes of the man holding a cardboard sign
    May a kindness be offered
    on the passing plate
    May we dare allow the sad sad news
    that penetrates the fortress of longing
    to melt like an altar candle
    lit for one day of peace


    May we remember
    As a member
    Of the human race
    Fortunate enough
    Healthy enough
    Alive enough
    To have this poem
    Touching us
    Right now


    We can make every breath matter
    We can forgive outrageously one more person today
    We can look out from our doorway and say yes
    I am here. I am here.
    Is there any other way to fight?
    This is not trivial:
    LOVE


    It matters


    - Kristy Hellum
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  31. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  32. TopTop #3709
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Spring

    (After Rilke)

    Spring has returned! Everything has returned!
    The earth, just like a schoolgirl, memorizes
    Poems, so many poems. ... Look, she has learned
    So many famous poems, she has earned so many prizes!
    Teacher was strict. We delighted in the white
    Of the old man's beard, bright like the snow's:
    Now we may ask which names are wrong, or right
    For "blue," for "apple," for "ripe." She knows, she knows!
    Lucky earth, let out of school, now you must play
    Hide-and-seek with all the children every day:
    You must hide that we may seek you: we will! We will!
    The happiest child will hold you. She knows all the things
    You taught her: the word for "hope," and for "believe,"
    Are still upon her tongue. She sings and sings and sings.


    - Delmore Schwartz

    Last edited by Barry; 03-26-2018 at 01:01 PM.
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  33. Gratitude expressed by 4 members:

  34. TopTop #3710
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson


    The New Breed

    for Emma Gonzalez and the other student activists

    I see her on TV, screaming into a microphone.
    Her head is shaved and she is beautiful
    and seventeen, and her high school was just shot up,
    she's had to walk by friends lying in their own blood,
    her teacher bleeding out,
    and she's my daughter, the one I never had,
    and she's your daughter and everyone's daughter
    and she's her own woman, in the fullness of her young fire,
    calling bullshit on politicians who take money from the gun-makers.
    Tears rain down her face but she doesn't stop shouting
    she doesn't apologize she keeps calling them out,
    all of them all of us
    who didn't do enough to stop this thing.
    And you can see the gray faces of those who have always held power
    contort, utterly baffled
    to face this new breed of young woman,
    not silky, not compliant,
    not caring if they call her a ten or a troll.
    And she cries but she doesn't stop
    yelling truth into the microphone,
    though her voice is raw and shaking
    and the Florida sun is molten brass.
    I'm three thousand miles away, thinking how
    Neruda said The blood of the children
    ran through the streets
    without fuss, like children's blood.
    Only now she is, they are
    raising a fuss, shouting down the walls of Jericho,
    and it's not that we road-weary elders
    have been given the all-clear exactly,
    but our shoulders do let down a little,
    we breathe from a deeper place,
    we say to each other,
    Well, it looks like the baton
    may be passing
    to these next runners and they are
    fleet as thought,
    fiery as stars,
    and we take another breath
    and say to each other, The baton
    has been passed, and we set off then
    running hard behind them.

    - Alison Luterman
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  35. Gratitude expressed by 6 members:

  36. TopTop #3711
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Seventy Five
    11 November 2017


    And I think to myself, I’ll remember
    this early dark and the rain; standing
    before the toile-draped window, water
    streaking the glass and dripping
    from the low, curled iron; leaves of
    wisteria vines, gold and green, trembling
    in the November wind that ruffles
    through the Cour Damoye.


    I’ll recall Olivier, the coffee man
    who calls bonjour as he brews his exotic
    dark grinds in a small industrial shop
    across the cobblestones.
    And of course I can’t forget how
    one leans full-bodied into the great iron
    gate to open it at midnight, coming home
    from salsa-dancing eating a hot dog.


    I’ll remember every moment in its own way and
    for it’s own reason or for no reason at all:
    I’ll remember that on this Parisian lane
    I was young one more time

    - Audrey Ward
    Last edited by Barry; 03-28-2018 at 01:28 PM.
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  37. TopTop #3712
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Birthing

    Call out the names in the procession of the loved.
    Call from the blood the ancestors here to bear witness
    to the day he stopped the car,
    we on our way to a great banquet in his honor.
    In a field a cow groaned lowing, trying to give birth,
    what he called front leg presentation,
    the calf comes out nose first, one front leg dangling from his mother.
    A fatal sign he said while rolling up the sleeves
    of his dress shirt, and climbed the fence.
    I watched him thrust his arms entire
    into the yet to be, where I imagined holy sparrows scattering
    in the hall of souls for his big mortal hands just to make way.
    With his whole weight he pushed the calf back in the mother
    and grasped the other leg tucked up like a closed wing
    against the new one’s shoulder.
    And found a way in the warm dark to bring both legs out
    into the world together.
    Then heaved and pulled, the cow arching her back,
    until a bull calf, in a whoosh of blood and water,
    came falling whole and still onto the meadow.
    We rubbed his blackness, bloodying our hands.
    The mother licked her newborn, of us oblivious,
    until he moved a little, struggled.
    I ran to get our coats, mine a green velvet cloak,
    and his a tuxedo jacket, and worked to rub the new one dry
    while he set out to find the farmer.
    When it was over, the new calf suckling his mother,
    the farmer soon to lead them to the barn,
    leaving our coats just where they lay
    we huddled in the car.
    And then made love toward eternity,
    Without a word drove slowly home. And loved some more.

    - Deborah Digges
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  38. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  39. TopTop #3713
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson



    The Seder Dinner
    For Sherrye on her 80th birthday

    The emerald in the jeweler’s case is magnificent,
    for it is rare;
    the shimmering green dragonfly in the sun is more so,
    for it is not.
    Life constantly presents itself in a vast, breathtaking array
    of ingredients; to make of it what we will.
    A child wishes for an unending menu of desserts,
    but the wise cook knows the balance of sweet and bitter,
    rich and lean.
    She works with what is given, eating each meal
    as the feast that it is.
    Unconcerned with whether the kitchen is clean
    or if the pantry is full for tomorrow,
    she savors each bite of the complex and rich stew that has
    cooked over time, knowing that it nourishes her with a
    deepening wisdom; a satisfying repast.
    Live in fullness for all of your days.

    - Alan Cohen
    Last edited by Barry; 03-30-2018 at 01:17 PM.
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  40. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  41. TopTop #3714
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Passover

    A sharing of

    something I embrace
    through generations—
    My Mother,
    Mother’s Mother,
    Mother before her, them,
    handed down through our bones
    our blood.

    Tapping into a rich heritage
    bonding with the old
    creating anew,
    I cook, clean,
    come together within myself.
    An inner expression
    shared openly, lovingly
    with those in my presence.

    Passover is a gift
    of history
    passed on to you.

    Welcome.

    - Sherrie Lovler
    Last edited by Barry; 03-31-2018 at 01:23 PM.
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  42. TopTop #3715
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Easter Exultet

    Shake out your qualms.
    Shake up your dreams.
    Deepen your roots.
    Extend your branches.
    Trust deep water
    and head for the open,
    even if your vision
    shipwrecks you.
    Quit your addiction
    to sneer and complain.
    Open a lookout.
    Dance on a brink.
    Run with your wildfire.
    You are closer to glory
    leaping an abyss
    than upholstering a rut.
    Not dawdling.
    Not doubting.
    Intrepid all the way
    Walk toward clarity.
    At every crossroad
    Be prepared
    to bump into wonder.
    Only love prevails.
    En route to disaster
    insist on canticles.
    Lift your ineffable
    out of the mundane.
    Nothing perishes;
    nothing survives;
    everything transforms!
    Honeymoon with Big Joy!

    - James Broughton
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  44. TopTop #3716
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Seven Stanzas at Easter


    Make no mistake: if He rose at all
    it was as His body;
    if the cells' dissolution did not reverse, the molecules reknit,
    the amino acids rekindle,
    the Church will fall.

    It was not as the flowers,
    each soft spring recurrent;
    it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled eyes of the
    eleven apostles;
    it was as His flesh: ours.

    The same hinged thumbs and toes,
    the same valved heart
    that--pierced--died, withered, paused, and then regathered
    out of enduring Might
    new strength to enclose.

    Let us not mock God with metaphor,
    analogy, sidestepping, transcendence,
    making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the faded
    credulity of earlier ages:
    let us walk through the door.

    The stone is rolled back, not papier-mache,
    not a stone in a story,
    but the vast rock of materiality that in the slow grinding of
    time will eclipse for each of us
    the wide light of day.

    And if we will have an angel at the tomb,
    make it a real angel,
    weighty with Max Planck’s quanta, vivid with hair, opaque in
    the dawn light, robed in real linen
    spun on a definite loom.

    Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,
    for our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,
    lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are embarrassed
    by the miracle,
    and crushed by remonstrance.

    - John Updike
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  46. TopTop #3717
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Pentecost


    Passover and Easter: two moon linked sisters

    who long ago stopped speaking to one another:
    linked to the fullness in our hearts
    and the fullness of God’s grace.
    The moon of Sister Miriam desires freedom –
    to rescue her people from the cruelty of Pharaoh,
    by the outstretched, mighty hand of Hashem:
    a hand of salvation reaching down from heaven,
    and passing through my nation,
    and down through yours,
    and then to each and every one of us – so may it be!
    The moon of Mother Mary desires to give her light
    so that each man and woman might know
    the power of the resurrection,
    and the soil of death that holds the seeds of rebirth within:
    a resurrection reaching upward,
    passing through all nations and up to God Almighty!
    Two celebrations: two women: Miriam and Mary,
    who don’t even know they have the same name –
    one in Hebrew and one in Greek –
    yet inexorably linked to a single full moon.
    And then we each begin to count:
    we both count to fifty –
    beyond the forty days of Moses on Mt. Sinai
    and Jesus in the wilderness.
    We go beyond, one cycle further:
    to fifty, Shavuot, the Pentecost.
    Ours to the revelation of Torah at Sinai.
    Yours to the revelation of the Holy Spirit.
    Freedom and resurrection. Revelation and revelation.
    Twelve tribes and twelve disciples.
    One moon, two traditions.
    Two covenants, One God.
    Shavuot and Pentecost: two cousins
    who have just begun to speak.
    And King David is singing to us
    from his tomb today:
    “Teach us to count our days
    that we may open our hearts to Your Wisdom.”
    Some of us, thank God, are listening!

    - Rabbi David Zaslow
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  48. TopTop #3718
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Litany

    For all that is done and said.
    We know their dream; enough
    To know they are dreamed and are dead.
    from Yeats’ “Easter, 1916”

    Enough to know.
    They are dreamed.
    And are dead.
    The litany in my head
    Utters their names
    One by one.
    Dead. Not dead.
    Dreamed.
    The beginning. Kneel down
    On the cold stone floor.
    The stone of the heart recalls first
    Her name. Mary. The Grandmother,
    The grandmother from Wales
    Whose voice always took me to the lilt
    Of Dylan Thomas.
    Then the children: Marietta Walker,
    First child of the young bride.
    Donald, after her husband,
    Who worked in the mine.
    Carrie. Bill. Sam. Norval.
    The family grew, boys
    Following their father
    Into the coal-dark days.
    The child Kenneth,
    The only one never to reach adulthood,
    Adored by my mother, Maggie May.
    (Maggie May, Margeret, Midge—
    Alll names worn by my mother.)
    And the youngest: Betty (Mary Elizabeth).
    Elbert. Lucy Florence. Robert.
    Twelve children and never an angry word
    From the parents from Wales, from Scotland.
    But the names go on. Chidren
    Of their children. Cousins. Brothers.
    My knees, on that ancient stone
    Known to my memory, have no feeling.
    Only telling.
    The names
    Come faster.
    They are hard to say.
    And now, in silence,
    The stone. My heart. My love.
    Say it.
    Enough to know.
    Dreamed.
    And dead.

    - Fran Claggett
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  50. TopTop #3719
    Ronaldo's Avatar
    Ronaldo
     

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

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  51. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  52. TopTop #3720
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Riddle



    We do not recognize the body

    Of Emmett Till. We do not know

    The boy’s name nor the sound

    Of his mother wailing. We have

    Never heard a mother wailing.

    We do not know the history

    Of ourselves in this nation. We

    Do not know the history of our

    Selves on this planet because

    We do not have to know

    What we believe we own. We believe

    We own your bodies but have no

    Use for your tears. We destroy

    The body that refuses use. We use

    Maps we did not draw. We see

    A sea so cross it. We see a moon

    So land there. We love land so

    Long as we can take it. Shhh. We

    Can’t take that sound. What is

    A mother wailing? We do not

    Recognize music until we can

    Sell it. We sell what cannot be

    Bought. We buy silence. Let us

    Help you. How much does it cost

    To hold your breath underwater?

    Wait. Wait. What are we? What?

    What? What on Earth are we?


    - Jericho Brown
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