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So much amazing poetry has been posted to Wacco these last few days. Thank you all. Last evening I got to here some fine local poets reading their works at the Grange Book Fair. Lovely to sit in a small circle and share. Tonight I'm heading out to hear Katherine Hastings read from her latest book. Starting at 7 at the Occidental Center for the Arts. Come on down. Lilith
Katherine Hastings poetry just now was amazing, too. Esp. liked her title poem "Stein and Shakespeare Walked Into a Bar."
And she closed with Maya Angelou's poem "And Still I Rise" which reminded me of this one I wrote for the last presidential inauguration in 2012. Thought I'd be penning one for the first woman this time but......
STILL RISING
Yeah, I know he’s not the guy
we hoped for
when he offered us such hope.
Yeah, I know he’s done
a lot of stuff
we thought he wouldn’t
a lot of stuff
he knows he shouldn’t.
But—still—when I see him standing there
tall, dark, and handsome
with Michelle beside him—
great-great-granddaughter of slaves--
tall, beautiful, and even darker.
When I see them
standing there—
smiling and exultant—
I can’t help feeling proud
proud of him and her
of all of us who helped put them there—
after the shame and stain upon our country
of hundreds of years
of slavery, murder, rape
and abuse of all sorts.
To me, when I see them standing there
they embody the poetry of Maya Angelou
whose voice--
taken from her by horror as a girl
taken back in triumph as a woman--
the Maya Angelou who gave us this,
“You may write me down in history
with your twisted bitter lies,
you may trod me in the very dirt—
but still, like dust—I rise.
“Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave
I am the dream and the hope of the slave
I rise, I rise, I rise.”
And that is what I sometimes see
when I see that elegant black couple
standing there before me.
And when I think of my own childhood
with the shame I carry from growing up
unprotesting
in a segregated South
blissfully unaware
of the cruelty and injustice
that was being lived
through all around me
and later—when I became aware—
doing only small bits
here and there to make it better.
And now, now
I see Barack and Michelle standing there
and again in the words of Maya Angelou
I know that
“History despite its wrenching pain
cannot be unlived
but if faced with courage
need not be lived again.”
Sure, we can despair
that we didn’t get
all that we hoped for
dreamed of
when--with the hard work of thousands of us
black and brown and white together--
he won that election
four years ago.
Or we can carry this further
and insist
that it is not enough
to get these two as symbols
of the final end of slavery, segregation and degradation
in this “home of the free and the brave”
now we have to work even harder
to get the real thing.
Lilith Rogers
July 4th, 2012
Anthem
The birds they sang
at the break of day
Start again
I heard them say
Don't dwell on what
has passed away
or what is yet to be.
Ah the wars they will
be fought again
The holy dove
She will be caught again
bought and sold
and bought again
the dove is never free.
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.
We asked for signs
the signs were sent:
the birth betrayed
the marriage spent
Yeah the widowhood
of every government --
signs for all to see.
I can't run no more
with that lawless crowd
while the killers in high places
say their prayers out loud.
But they've summoned, they've summoned up
a thundercloud
and they're going to hear from me.
Ring the bells that still can ring ...
You can add up the parts
but you won't have the sum
You can strike up the march,
there is no drum
Every heart, every heart
to love will come
but like a refugee.
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.
That's how the light gets in.
That's how the light gets in.
- Leonard Cohen
The times are too critical to indulge in despair or cynicism or pessimism.
Now, more than ever, we must muster all the creativity, compassion and courage we can.
Yesterday, (11/11/16) marked the 5th Anniversary of the New Age of Aquarius. Leonard Cohen was speaking to this mission and message.Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson:
The sphere is in the collection of the Palace of the legion of Honor, the bell is in the memorial garden at Princeton University where toshiko taught. Fitting companions to Cohen's poem.
When despair grows in me
and I wake in the middle of the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
- Wendell Berry
Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson:
(from despair, grief, fear, the ugliness in the human news)-"-For a time." (And these small periods of respite then fortify me to go back out into the human world and try my best to "do as much good as I can, wherever I can, for as long as I can"--Hillary Rodham's mantra. (You too?)
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson:
This mantra is the soul's purpose, it's in our DNA to do but we have forgotten how and why. This is the Mission to Teach or Learn.Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by BothSidesNow:
My friends, let's grow up.
Let's stop pretending we don't know the deal here.
Or if we truly haven't noticed, let's wake up and notice.
Look: Everything that can be lost, will be lost.
It's simple - how could we have missed it for so long?
Let's grieve our losses fully, like human ripe beings.
But please, let's not be so shocked by them.
Let's not act so betrayed,
As though life had broken her secret promise to us.
Impermanence is life's only promise to us,
And she keeps it with ruthless impeccability.
To a child, she seems cruel, but she is only wild,
And her compassion exquisitely precise.
Brilliantly penetrating, luminous with truth,
She strips away the unreal to show us the real.
This is the true ride - let's give ourselves to it!
Let's stop making deals for a safe passage -
There isn't one anyway, and the cost is too high.
We are not children anymore.
The true human adult gives everything for what cannot be lost.
Let's dance the wild dance of no hope.
- Jennifer Wellwood
(Now let's see what I can do with it...
put it on my fridge, for one; but THAT'S not enough! How do you internalize something, for real, and then live it!! (when you've already been trying to do that? Well, there's a crack in everything. Let's hope some light can get in!
I text my friend, I'm going
To buy a gun. Will you
Teach me how to shoot?
What do I want? To protect
All the young—and older—black men,
The refugees who have no home
To go home to, the men in turbans,
The women in veils, Esperanza's children,
Her grandchildren, my best friend
Who is gay, my grandson who is sensitive
And bullied. I am afraid.
Yesterday, I was determined, lifted
Up by the certainty that resistance
Will strengthen us.
Two days ago, I was hollowed out,
Sucker-punched and dazed. Death
Showed up in my dreams.
Today, a French friend, born in Baghdad
Bought me a coffee, commiserated
And acknowledged that it wasn't just
My country, but it seemed madness
Had invaded his, too.
I awaken from fear
To find sorrow as my path
Today. Not hopelessness
Which makes all things possible,
But mourning that invites me in,
Sets the table and tells me
Don't abandon yourself
Fighting fear with fear.
Hold tight to your heart
That tells you no end
Justifies violent means.
You are the daughter of eternity
And no gun will protect you
From the life you were given
To live.
- Rebecca del Rio
Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson:
How many turn back toward dreams and magic, how many
children
Run home to Mother Church, Father State,
To find in their arms the delicious warmth and folding of souls.
The age weakens and settles home toward old ways.
An age of renascent faith: Christ said, Marx wrote, Hitler says,
And though it seems absurd we believe.
Sad children, yes. It is lonely to be adult, you need a father.
With a little practice you'll believe anything.
Faith returns, beautiful, terrible, ridiculous,
And men are willing to die and kill for their faith.
Soon come the wars of religion; centuries have passed
Since the air so trembled with intense faith and hatred.
Soon, perhaps, whoever wants to live harmlessly
Must find a cave in the mountain or build a cell
Of the red desert rock under dry junipers,
And avoid men, live with more kindly wolves
And luckier ravens, waiting for the end of the age.
Hermit from stone cell
Gazing with great stunned eyes,
What extravagant miracle
Has amazed them with light,
What visions, what crazy glory, what wings?
I see the sun set and rise
And the beautiful desert sand
And the stars at night,
The incredible magnificence of things.
I the last living man
That sees the real earth and skies,
Actual life and real death.
The others are all prophets and believers
Delirious with fevers of faith.
- Robinson Jeffers
No words this morning.
A poem mute.
The silence between the notes.
And then notes.
Listen, that bird is saying
Freedom.
Join me.
Truth is in my wordless throat.
The message is some deed.
The mighty ocean turns into frail foam.
on the apprehending sand
and one power
turns into another,
becomes another,
drops into another.
Like adolescence it comes
without a word
of instruction.
If understanding is maybe
not lodged within,
be sand.
One day,
one day,
you shall be
castles.
- Bruce Moody
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson:
My cat washes
with her left paw,
there will be another war.
For I have observed
that whenever she washes
with her left paw
international tension grows
considerably.
How can she possibly keep her eye
on all the five continents?
Could it be
that in her pupils
that Pythia now resides
who has the power
to predict
the whole of history
without a full-stop or comma?
It’s enough to make me howl
when I think that I
and the Heaven with its souls I have
shouldered
in the last resort
depend
on the whims of a cat.
Go and catch mice,
don’t unleash
more world wars,
damned
lazybones!
- Marin Sorescu
And when they bombed other people’s houses, we
protested
but not enough, we opposed them but not
enough. I was
in my bed, around my bed America
was falling: invisible house by invisible house by invisible house.
I took a chair outside and watched the sun.
In the sixth month
of a disastrous reign in the house of money
in the street of money in the city of money in the country of money,
our great country of money, we (forgive us)
lived happily during the war.
- Ilya Kaminsky
Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson:
Ecology is a love story.
A play scripted between the sunlight’s tender dappling on the forest floor,
The elegant drapery of the vines that climb a cliff face,
The tickle of the squirrels and birds
Holding society in the tree tops
And the sultry sway of the purple kelp the otters cannot resist.
The touch of life on life met in the tension
Between unshaking trust and heartbreaking vulnerability
Is a kiss of light and love and heat
And earth.
It is fierce and sweet
And rages with the same passion.
It births a wild rose.
And in naming you
I grasp and find there are no completions,
Nothing in straight lines
Only affection,
Reaching,
Reading the gestures
That spread everywhere.
- Nora Bateson
In my secret life, I stand tall,
And taller, too, as each day goes by.
And yet, I also stand alone,
Devoid of touch, or true companionship.
At the same time, it leads me to see
There is nothing strange about that.
So incredibly much of my life, as a whole,
Is a life lived with no one else around.
In my secret life, I unlock doors of perception,
And question the foundation of all that you know,
And smile again and again, in surprise and satisfaction,
To realize I wasn’t really standing on that ground, anyway.
Yet, my secret life precisely does ground me,
Though, it seems, in a land so far away, that
As yet, there is no available transportation
For anyone else to get there,
Or even send a letter, or a message,
Or even make a call.
In my secret life, I am vulnerable to disbelief,
Sensitive to harshness, yet determined to stand for who I am,
And to say the words that come out of my mouth.
I am vulnerable to yearning, to simple love, and touch,
And to a generous smile, and curious eye.
- Jon Jackson
Today the bright mid-day sun warms : trees ablaze in colored splendor,
fiery reds and yellows ochers, shedding leaves of sienna and vermillion,
spent and crisp, exuberant, in death. A grey squirrel bounds up a maple,
an invisible Raven scolds somewhere high in the canopy.
On a ridge just North, the broad stand of conifers serrate an azure sky, stately in their robes of green.
Long horse-tail cirrus flare out from the West, announcing the promise of first rain .
Here I am reminded the earth still turns, morning to night, the seasons come and go
n their ageless ways; stars yet spin in the boundless vault of space;
somewhere around the globe, unseen volcanic forces churn deep in the planet’s core, primed for release.
Change and continuity. Ebb and flow. Renewal. Should not this be enough?
After all, the Great Mother insists on balance, correcting as needed here and there,
cradling all life in Her devoted domain:
even her colossal storms, unconcerned for our welfare, wash clean.
My one comfort:: I can go to my grave knowing She will never abandon her post.
Hers is law and simple truth: everything happens because everything else happens.
Surely, ithen, it is time to savor this walk, on a day like this one, breathing in the gifts of our home,
and allow the soul to fill with gratitude.
How utterly absurd our importance appears: only by a divine gift, a microsecond measured by the eons.
Here on this planet, a miracle born of violent cosmos and billions of years, with titanic collisions
bearing just the right measure of happy accidents. Patience of an inhuman kind to confound our petty desires.
What can I make of this tumult and chaos, disappointment, fears and anguish?
Surely, it is a time to allow one’s attention to reach outward and up. To abandon one’s wits to awe, to only witness.
So then: Follow Her lead. I must walk in balance. Walk in balance.
Walk in balance here on the thin skin of her extravagantly generous body, honoring
the bones of our ancestors calling us from underneath our feet,.
Dare to be at peace now:
for even a short walk, and embrace this time, this path, this life, this place.
- LK Potts
I stand in the whispering grass,
watching the mountains crouch
under their burden of sky.
The morning sun glides above the peaks
and the field is suddenly flooded
with turquoise light. A flock of red wings rise,
After a sleepless night, worrying about the world
I stand in the whispering grass,
watching the mountains crouch
under their burden of sky.
The morning sun glides above the peaks
and the field is suddenly flooded
with turquoise light. A flock of red wings rise,
they turn together like a page of poetry.
I read between the lines
realize I am lonely, and afraid.
I worry about the wars, the weather,
the end of our beautiful, broken world.
I see the way we can harden our hearts
when fear is what moves us.
Now a marsh hawk cruises the yellow reeds, she dives swiftly
and some soft-furred creature's life is over.
For each of us, hauling our basket of dreams,
it is only one breath, one breath,
that divides this world, and the next.
What is there to do then but give thanks,
Offer praise and gratitude for the sweetness we're allotted,
Fling open our burning hearts, and help each other.
Elaine Sutton
they turn together like a page of poetry.
I read between the lines
realize I am lonely, and afraid.
I worry about the wars, the weather,
the end of our beautiful, broken world.
I see the way we can harden our hearts
when fear is what moves us.
Now a marsh hawk cruises the yellow reeds, she dives swiftly
and some soft-furred creature's life is over.
For each of us, hauling our basket of dreams,
it is only one breath, one breath,
that divides this world, and the next.
What is there to do then but give thanks,
Offer praise and gratitude for the sweetness we're allotted,
Fling open our burning hearts, and help each other.
Elaine Sutton
The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live.
The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table. So it has been since creation, and it will go on.
We chase chickens or dogs away from it. Babies teethe at the corners. They scrape their knees under it.
It is here that children are given instructions on what it means to be human. We make men at it, we make women.
At this table we gossip, recall enemies and the ghosts of lovers.
Our dreams drink coffee with us as they put their arms around our children. They laugh with us at our poor falling-down selves and as we put ourselves back together once again at the table.
This table has been a house in the rain, an umbrella in the sun.
Wars have begun and ended at this table. It is a place to hide in the shadow of terror. A place to celebrate the terrible victory.
We have given birth on this table, and have prepared our parents for burial here.
At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow. We pray of suffering and remorse. We give thanks.
Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite.
- Joy Harjo
Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson:
Among wilting flowers
legumes and fruits
the little ones
busily twitter
skirt and scoot
about this season
of seeds
signaling it is nearing Thanksgiving.
Breath
of eucalyptus
inhales
while blue jay
hoarsely proclaims—
It's always
thanksgiving.
- Raphael Block
for the Standing Rock Sioux and allies protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline set to run through their tribal lands
Countrymen, we have reneged on agreements,
retreated from treaties.
Now we try cheating on physics
which insists: seawaters will rise, coastlines
dissolve, ice caps melt.
At my safe distance, I conjure
the young, the native, the brave
whose faith the path of the pipeline dishonors.
Whose lakes and rivers we may foul.
The protesters brace for water cannons in 20 degrees.
Still, on behalf of us all, they stare down monster storms,
tear gas in their eyes.
Safe at my supper,
I send them this message of thanks.
- Phyllis Meshulam