Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

Hospital Chaplain


In the other room,
that only masked nurses and doctors can enter,
he hears with the ears of his heart the last breaths of the dying.
The family, in the emptiness of the waiting room, clings to him even though they may not touch.


How do you comfort- in another room, or from six feet away?


Only a presence that is prayer
can fill that distance with the breath of love
that is the one breath,
shared breath,
first and last and living and dying and waiting
and right now.


May the dying one sense the presence of his loved ones filling that almost empty room.
And may they accompany
with attention and awe and broken-open hearts
the work of letting go.


May you be there,
helpless,
and so helpful,
to patients and families and staff and all -
an emptied instrument through which
ruach breath of Spirit blows unimpeded
a vessel of that ununderstandable peace.


- Ruah Bull

Beautiful, wonderful piece; a reminder of what truly matters - Thank you for sharing! (Also the one by Sherman Alexie; I love his books but didn't know that poem.

In a time of distance




The unexpected always happens in the way


The unexpected has always occurred:


While we are doing something else,


While we are thinking of altogether


Different things – matters that events


Then show to be every bit as unimportant


As our human concerns so often are;


And then, with the unexpected upon us,


We look at one another with a sort of surprise;


How could things possibly turn out this way


When we are so competent, so pleased


With the elaborate systems we’ve created –


Networks and satellites, intelligent machines,


Pills for every eventuality – except this one?


And so we turn again to face one another


And discover those things


We had almost forgotten,


But that, mercifully, are still there:


Love and friendship, not just for those


To whom we are closest, but also for those


Whom we do not know and of whom


Perhaps we have in the past been frightened;


The words brother and sister, powerful still,


Are brought out, dusted down,


Found to be still capable of expressing


What we feel for others, that precise concern;


Joined together in adversity


We discover things we had put aside:


Old board games with obscure rules,


Books we had been meaning to read,


Letters we had intended to write,


Things we had thought we might say


But for which we never found the time;


And from these discoveries of self, of time,


There comes a new realisation


That we have been in too much of hurry,


That we have misused our fragile world,


That we have forgotten the claims of others


Who have been left behind;


We find that out in our seclusion,


In our silence; we commit ourselves afresh,


We look for a few bars of song


That we used to sing together,


A long time ago; we give what we can,


We wait, knowing that when this is over


A lot of us – not all perhaps – but most,


Will be slightly different people,


And our world, though diminished,


Will be much bigger, its beauty revealed afresh.


- Alexander McCall Smith

Dust in the Wind
Recalled During Times of Covid 19


(with gratitude to Ken Burns)




To Amarillo came the initial
two-mile-high wave of dust
choking first the roosters
followed by the hens,
cows, swine, and humans.
Then it buried Oklahoma,


Its no-man’s-land above Texas’
panhandle suffocating shriveling.
Where were the rain clouds in ’32?
nothing whatsoever grew
“what didn’t grow we tried harder
to grow, no crop new, just more.”


(collapsing demand for so much
too-abundant over-fertile crop
blonde and auburn very sexy)


First, radios electric haywired,
you couldn’t shake hands at all
just before the dusters came
and all the little kids were freed
from school same as in the North
during the big snow storms up there.


Here on the plains just dust after
the buffalo grass was plowed under,
the water dried up, and the rain
stopped coming where there’d been
boom times of high golden wheat,
great big homes with telephones!



(collapsing demand for so much
too-abundant over-fertile crop
blonde and auburn very sexy)


Wheat went down to seventeen cent,
and “we seen droughts before, and
things’ll get better next year,” and
Roosevelt preached loudly “no fear”
while this ram of dust charged and
charged again and more than once again.


You were breathing in the black
blizzards, but, in between storms,
it couldn’t be more blue and beautiful,
the irony surrounding destructive force,
for the land had been swept clean of
its topsoil and an explosion of jackrabbits


(blonde and auburn very sexy)


Jackrabbits everywhere like lost soil moving,
and the screaming of rabbit, the jackrabbits
being clubbed by men, women and kids screaming.
Rabbits were replaced by ton on ton
upon ton of strangling black dust,
a third of the land was blowing.


Most of the starving cattle shot,
humans dispossessed and foreclosed.
Suicides landed like buzzards on families
until the Black Blizzard of 1934
rendered suicide mostly irrelevant.
Black so black “black’s” very essence.


Even fearless FDR feared
a new man-made sahara
no longer the good earth
this desert produced nomads
seekers after light and fruit.


(collapsed demand for so much
too-abundant over-fertile crop
blonde and auburn very sexy)



Black Sunday 1935 portended
further years of drought and of
depression, depression and
drought little doubt they would remain
as with the rain which never left
the clouds, they vowed not to leave
their homes, such as they were, only
movement here being four million
acres shifting, sliding, blowing.
Little girls in flour sack without
a piece of bread, daddy’s too proud
to take charity or seek a loan.


California no dust and the sun
no black wind or dust pneumonia.
3 out of 4 stoically remain behind
leave others to the migration,
defeat and shame carrying dust
by the lungful into Needles,
San Berdoo, Oakland, Merced,
picking oranges, prunes, grapes
when they could and all the while
hacking up remnants of the plains.


I’d thought they all had left,
that Oklahoma was no more,
Arkansas a wasteland,
the Panhandle holding nothing,
that California held all surviving.
But Roosevelt made Democrats of
the plains while the dispossessed
in California became the Okies, and
“Okie go back, we don’t want you!”
the sign of those California times.


Back home, 1937 in the Dust Bowl,
the worst followed a snow storm,
dust increasing four days straight,
tidal waves of dust devouring towns.
What is worse, the dirt or the water?



Then government paid farmers
not to grow their crops,
erosion cut in half, but
the rains came and so did
the grasshoppers like a moving earth.
more rain and the snow,
better farming, less erosion,
and sunflowers lit the land again.
and the wheat outgrew the children,
what rain! what good rain!
what good nourishing rain!
what a wonderful wheat crop!


(blonde and auburn very sexy)


The speculators returned;
they planted malignant seeds
for later dust storms carrying
once again in ‘51 the lesson,
“Listen to the land and not to us!”


- Ed Coletti

Aubade for the the Quiet House

I awaken to a still-dark room
No sound to acknowledge a new day

The silent saluki across my feet
is, like me, not moving but awake
His eyes as always awaiting my move

Was it like this yesterday and the day
before? was it dark and silent?

Will it be like this tomorrow
or will we be able to move freely
call out an aubade to the morning

Open to what once was as natural
as the sun falling across your face
As natural as another day of living

- fran claggett-holland

The Rhythm of Each


I think each comfort we manage-
each holding in the night, each opening
of a wound, each closing of a wound, each
pulling of a splinter or razored word, each
fever sponged, each dear thing given
to someone in greater need-each
passes on the kindness we've known.


For the human sea is made of waves
that mount and merge till the way a
nurse rocks a child is the way that child
all grown rocks the wounded, and how
the wounded, allowed to go on, rock
strangers who in their pain
don't seem so strange.


Eventually, the rhythm of kindness
is how we pray and suffer by turns,
and if someone were to watch us
from inside the lake of time, they
wouldn't be able to tell if we are
dying or being born.


- Mark Nepo

In The Time Of The Virus


In the fullness of time you said
by which I remembered
all life is vibration, a sine wave
an ebb and flow
Even a virus has rhythm
gathering and tightening, loosening
and letting go


On the valley oaks the nubs of leaves
are a promise of shade
In the orchards
blossoms promise apples


and in the fullness of time
you will bend to see
your granddaughter’s first smile
the gap where your grandson lost
his first tooth


In the fullness of time
we will greet and hold each other
close as the season’s light
and shadows close
as the fingers of my hand
raised now to wave to you


- Elizabeth C. Herron

Our Chrysalis Moment




This is our chrysalis moment
Where the transformation begins.


Every caterpillar must do it eventually;
Or die,
Never to sprout their colorful wings in the air
And fly.


So like the caterpillar,
We may as well surrender.
Cocooning in our homes
Our world turned upside down.


Inside, we can no longer spread
our vicious disease of consumption
No longer run mindlessly toward our destruction.
Inside there is stillness
Inside, there is rest.


Outside, the air is clearing,
The rains are falling.
You can feel the peace,
Settling on the land at last.


And Yes, there is death.
For there’s always a dissolution.
Old systems falling away,
That were already pretty slimy.


It may be frightening
All the uncertainty and loss.
But even in the darkness
Imaginal cells are awakening
Weaving a new web .


Recognizing that this is finally
Our time.
Our time to be heard
Our time to make new sense
Our time to do things differently


And when at last the dream awakens
To its nascent beginnings,
The chrysalis melts away.


A caterpillar no longer,
We spread our tender wings
And fly.


- Anodea Judith

No Man Is An Island


No man is an island,
Entire of itself;
Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.


If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less,
As well as if a promontory were:
As well as if a manor of thy friend's
Or of thine own were.


Any man's death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.

- John Donne

Passover

Then you shall take some of the blood, and put it on the door posts and the lintels of the houses . . .
and when I see the blood, I shall pass over you, and no plague shall fall upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt.
- Exodus 12: 7 & 13

They thought they were safe
that spring night; when they daubed
the doorways with sacrificial blood.
To be sure, the angel of death
passed them over, but for what?
Forty years in the desert
without a home, without a bed,
following new laws to an unknown land.
Easier to have died in Egypt
or stayed there a slave, pretending
there was safety in the old familiar.

But the promise, from those first
naked days outside the garden,
is that there is no safety,
only the terrible blessing
of the journey. You were born
through a doorway marked in blood.
We are, all of us, passed over,
brushed in the night by terrible wings.

Ask that fierce presence,
whose imagination you hold.
God did not promise that we shall live,
but that we might, at last, glimpse the stars,
brilliant in the desert sky.

- Lynn Ungar

Passover


Tell me: how is this night different
From all other nights?
How, tell me, is this Passover
Different from other Passovers?
Light the lamp, open the door wide
So the pilgrim can come in,
Gentile or Jew;
Under the rags perhaps the prophet is concealed.
Let him enter and sit down with us;
Let him listen, drink, sing and celebrate Passover;
Let him consume the bread of affliction,
The Paschal Lamb, sweet mortar and bitter herbs.
This is the night of differences
In which you lean your elbow on the table,
Since the forbidden becomes prescribed,
Evil is translated into good.

We will spend the night recounting Far-off events full of wonder, And because of all the wine The mountains will skip like rams. Tonight they exchange questions: The wise, the godless, the simple-minded and the child. And time reverses its course, Today flowing back into yesterday, Like a river enclosed at its mouth. Each of us has been a slave in Egypt, Soaked straw and clay with sweat, And crossed the sea dry-footed. You too, stranger. This year in fear and shame, Next year in virtue and in justice.

- Primo Levi

Paschal


Easter was the old North
Goddess of the dawn.
She rises daily in the East
And yearly in spring for the great


Paschal candle of the sun.
Her name lingers like a spot
Of gravy in the figured vestment
Of the language of the Britons.


Her totem the randy bunny.
Our very Thursdays and Wednesdays
Are stained by syllables of thunder
And Woden's frenzy.


O my fellow-patriots loyal to this
Our modern world of high heels,
Vaccination, brain surgery—
May they pass over us, the old


Jovial raptors, Apollonian flayers,
Embodiments. Egg-hunt,
Crucifixion. Supper of encrypted
Dishes: bitter, unrisen, a platter


Compass of martyrdom,
Ground-up apples and walnuts
In sweet wine to embody mortar
Of affliction, babies for bricks.


Legible traces of the species
That devises the angel of death
Sailing over our doorpost
Smeared with sacrifice.


- Robert Pinsky

Easter Morning In Wales

A garden inside me, unknown, secret,
Neglected for years,
The layers of its soil deep and thick.
Trees in the corners with branching arms
And the tangled briars like broken nets.

Sunrise through the misted orchard,
Morning sun turns silver on the pointed twigs.
I have woken from the sleep of ages and I am not sure
If I am really seeing, or dreaming,
Or simply astonished
Walking toward sunrise
To have stumbled into the garden
Where the stone was rolled from the tomb of longing.

- David Whyte

Passover Remembered


Pack nothing.
Bring only your determination to serve
and your willingness to be free.

Don't wait for the bread to rise.
Take nourishment for the journey,
but eat standing,
be ready to move at a moment's notice.

Do not hesitate to leave your old ways behind - fear, silence, submission.

Only surrender to the need of the time;
to love justice and walk humbly with your God.

Do not take time to explain to the neighbors.
Tell only a few trusted friends and family members.

Then begin quickly, before you have time to sink back into the old ways.

Set out in the dark.
I will send fire to warm and encourage you.
I will be with you in the fire
and I will be with you in the cloud.

You will learn to eat new food and find refuge in new places.
I will give you dreams in the desert
to guide you safely home to that place
you have not yet seen.

The stories you will tell one another around the fires in the dark
will make you strong and wise.

Outsiders will attack you and some who follow you,
and at times you will get weary
and turn on each other
from fear and fatigue and blind forgetfulness.

You have been preparing for this for hundreds of years.
I am sending you into the wilderness to make a new way
And to learn my ways more deeply.

Some of you will be so changed
by weathers and wanderings
that even your closest friends
will have to learn your features
as though for the first time.
Some of you will not change at all.

Some will be abandoned by your dearest loves
and misunderstood by those
who have known you since birth
and feel abandoned by you.

Some will find new friendship
in unlikely faces, and old friends
as faithful, and true
as the pillar of God's flame.

Sing songs as you go,
and hold close together.
You may at times grow confused
and lose your way.

Continue to call each other
By the names I’ve given you,
To help you remember who you are.
Touch each other and keep telling the stories.

Make maps as you go,
remembering the way back
from before you were born.

So you will be only the first
of many waves of deliverance on these desert seas.
It is the first of many beginnings
your Paschaltide.
Remain true to this mystery.

Pass on the whole story.

Do not go back.

I am with you now
and I am waiting for you.

- Alla Renee Bozarth

He Is Risen
They tell that a man
so loving & just
that many take him
for benevolent god
was killed because his teaching
so loving & just threatened
the very foundations of empire
& that against all law of life
three days later resurrected,
not unheard of in myth
but wondrous still.
His teaching still threatens empires
& many who dare follow it
are persecuted & killed,
& his resurrection is nothing
less than revolution.
- Rafael Jesús Gonzáles
Ha resucitado

Cuentan que un hombre
tan amoroso y justo
que muchos lo toman
por benévolo dios
fue muerto porque su enseñanza
tan amorosa y justa amenazaba
los meros cimientos del imperio
y que contra toda ley de la vida
tres días después resucitó,
cosa no inaudita en el mito
pero asombrosa aun.Su enseñanza aun amenaza imperios
y muchos que atreven seguirla
son perseguidos y muertos
y la resurrección de él es nada
menos que revolución.
- Rafael Jesús González

Antidotes To Fear Of Death


Sometimes as an antidote
To fear of death,
I eat the stars


Those nights, lying on my back,
I suck them from the quenching dark
Til they are all, all inside me,
Pepper hot and sharp.


Sometimes, instead, I stir myself
Into a universe still young,
Still warm as blood:


No outer space, just space,
The light of all the not yet stars
Drifting like a bright mist,
And all of us, and everything
Already there
But unconstrained by form.


And sometime it’s enough
To lie down here on earth
Beside our long ancestral bones:


To walk across the cobble fields
Of our discarded skulls,
Each like a treasure, like a chrysalis,
Thinking: whatever left these husks
Flew off on bright wings.

- Rebecca Elson

threshing floor


the veil is thin today, branches reach
for you, bursting with spring, caressing
your grief, even as we are dying,
blossoms with tongues whisper
it's going to be alright, though
we leave you in confusion.
how can this be? we, no longer
struggling for the next breath
now suspended on a sacred breeze.


listen to plants, to birds' insistent calls
feel your earth spin and the sky open
to a great pause, the stillness within a shift.
yes, nothing will ever be the same
you may have one day or many
no matter: inhale, exhale, let go
and wander between what used to be
necessities, no need to outshine
yourself anymore.


trust the cycle intensifying now.
you are infected and waking up,
you are churning on a threshing floor
of loss as new seeds ricochet, burrow,
sprout, grow up and out of the
teeming masses, the mulch of it all.
there's no denying the unknown
or so much life, climbing like a
hungry vine out of your waiting.


- fran carbonaro

If I Could

If only for a moment
I would silence the world’s motors
and the roar of the airplane would not be so much as a hum
and the thunder of the locomotive would become less than a moan

No blaring horn
no screeching brakes
no screaming police sirens would come from the avenue

The din of industry would cease
and the factory would fall into a coma
the miracles of the dawn and the dusk
would reclaim their sacred stillness

Children would play a game of statues
the wino realizing the gift of his existence would leave his bottle corked

The right would swing to the left, and the left would not know where to turn
Politician would be left without plots to hatch
and the devil would run out of tricks

Shouts would turn to whispers
whispers to prayers
and prayers to meditation
chicks, in their nests, would sleep

And in every canton and hamlet
in every town and city
one would only hear the rhythmic breathing

of deep slumber and the throbbing of their own heart
and the only sounds interrupting this immense meditation
would be the wisps of butterfly wings
and a prayerful chant
quietly echoing throughout the land

“Love.” “Love.” “Love.”

- Armando Garcia-Davila

Assisted Loving


She had accommodated to these corridors
In this home that was not her home
The facts she faced even without the music
Told her that the choices were slim


They told her this was her home now
Even her church and her world
Between the hymns and the hearse
There was still life, they told her


She knocked on his door, number 221
Romance astir on what's left of her mind
An eternity later he opened the door
Smile greets smile, a human animal reflex


"You remind me of my wife," he said to his wife
She blinked twice, her heart fanned itself
"Get your typed paper from the night table,"
He blinked, "Are you on it - is that why?"


"I am Ruth, your Ruth, nothing but Ruth."
On a sheet of paper typed by his helpful son
He found her name at the top properly identified
Below her all his other ID'd family and friends


Looking at her name kindled spark upon spark
Memories in used clothing popped in and out
He sat down on his bed and opened his arms
As tens of thousands of times before, she moved in


Together they completed the hug of a lifetime
The kiss was still familiar, still warm, still home
Another eternity came and went through the walls
She had accommodated to these corridors


- Arnie Reisman

A Home

Where I live
the smoke will arrive
again, half million
heartbeats skip in unison
rising into a warm autumn wind
we will keep watch
knowing well what we can
and cannot do to help
each other extinguish the flames
of fear

Where I live
the rivers will rise
again, cresting beyond empty
store fronts caving in with log jams
leftover debris from last
century’s clear cutting until we resettle nearby, without possessions
but grateful

Where I live
people will gather
again, making sacred circles
of hand selected stones
a funeral for the Grey Whales
like prayers, flower blossoms are scattered over the beautiful
swelling tides of grief

Where I live
beaches were outlawed
but not churches
so that we walked to the bluffs
standing silent in eucalyptus and pine once more feeling the grace and beauty of the only struggle there has
ever been;

To know what is good and right
and choosing to live
in that place.

- Kristy Hellum

spring: bulldozer and white birds


the 1959 Ford bulldozer
last pushed ants' nests, tree-stumps
and a bag of old shoes
then came to rest,
abandoned for five decades


but today seven egrets soared
in at seven angles to alight
on its engine cover and wait --
three spreading wings to catch
sunheat, three debating wind-drift,
one taking notes.


At 4:15 they arose
and dispersed over a meadow green with
spring buds -- four marveling at dragonflies,
two puzzled by squirrels,
one memorizing hillscapes


then careened across
a church steeple to land
near a pond
for a symposium
on breeding and tadpoles.


At dusk they rose
to the roofpeak of an abandoned house
-- three content that
at dawn sun's peek-a-boo rise will
come as always, three unmindful
of the prospect, and one asleep
on one leg
dreaming of mice.


- David Beckman

Coronavirus in Springtime


Everywhere the signs: tiny plum blossoms blushing
on the sidewalk, clang of crimson tulips, lilac smelling
of your daughter’s skin after a bath. The sky
thick cotton candy from an earlier rain, grass
chartreuse overnight from winter’s bone. In the same
song, the invisible one, the other melody line
louder than beginnings: humans cooped
up in apartments, no money, fear devouring
breath, emptiness and loss in every corner of the planet.


I want to go back to a simpler time, when fires
and floods caused destruction you could see:
a scorched hillside park, metallic smoke in your mouth,
rising creek waters up to the door. Unseen, when so little
has changed to the eye, except everything
downside up, is the push below,
lifting us like the tiny seed to be
born in every minute, wild like the deer
again and again and again.


- Claire Drucker

Love This Miraculous World


Our understandable wish
to preserve the planet
must somehow be
reduced
to the scale of our
competence.
Love is never abstract.
It does not adhere
to the universe
or the planet
or the nation
or the institution
or the profession,
but to the singular
sparrows of the street,
the lilies of the field,
“the least of these
my brethren.”
Love this
miraculous world
that we did not make,
that is a gift to us.


- Wendell Berry

Everything Is Going to Be All Right

How should I not be glad to contemplate
the clouds clearing beyond the dormer window
and a high tide reflected on the ceiling?
There will be dying, there will be dying,
but there is no need to go into that.
The poems flow from the hand unbidden
and the hidden source is the watchful heart.
The sun rises in spite of everything
and the far cities are beautiful and bright.
I lie here in a riot of sunlight
watching the day break and the clouds flying.
Everything is going to be all right.



- Derek Mahon

Oceans


I have a feeling that my boat
has struck, down there in the depths,
against a great thing.


And nothing
happens!
Nothing . . . Silence . . . Waves . . .


- Nothing happens?
Or has everything happened,
and are we standing now, quietly, in the new life?


- Juan Ramon Jimenez

WOW!
:heart::waccosun:

Mornings In Confinement

Here’s what I want to write:
That confinement has made me
A better person, been a gift
Allowed for consideration,
Commitment to quiet
Contemplation and revelation

Here’s the truth:
Every morning I open
My eyes, listen to my heart
And hear either the tiger
Pacing and plotting
Escape. Or the housecat
Drawn to dream, to sleep
This solitary time away.

I open my eyes to sun
Or dense, deep clouds,
A remembrance of wonder.
I consider sleep and awakening
As sisters fatigued with fighting,

Knowing, like siblings,
That one day, they will separate
Not knowing that one day,
They will mourn their separation,
Recognize that, all along,
Each carried a secret
Key to the heart of the other.

- Rebecca del Rio

For Calling the Spirit Back from Wandering the Earth in Its Human Feet




Put down that bag of potato chips, that white bread, that bottle of pop.

Turn off that cellphone, computer, and remote control.

Open the door, then close it behind you.

Take a breath offered by friendly winds. They travel the earth gathering essences of plants to clean.

Give it back with gratitude.

If you sing it will give your spirit lift to fly to the stars’ ears and back.

Acknowledge this earth who has cared for you since you were a dream planting itself precisely within your parents’ desire.

Let your moccasin feet take you to the encampment of the guardians who have known you before time, who will be there after time. They sit before the fire that has been there without time.

Let the earth stabilize your postcolonial insecure jitters.

Be respectful of the small insects, birds and animal people who accompany you.
Ask their forgiveness for the harm we humans have brought down upon them.

Don’t worry.

The heart knows the way though there may be high-rises, interstates, checkpoints, armed soldiers, massacres, wars, and those who will despise you because they despise themselves.

The journey might take you a few hours, a day, a year, a few years, a hundred, a thousand or even more.

Watch your mind. Without training it might run away and leave your heart for the immense human feast set by the thieves of time.

Do not hold regrets.

When you find your way to the circle, to the fire kept burning by the keepers of your soul, you will be welcomed.

You must clean yourself with cedar, sage, or other healing plant.

Cut the ties you have to failure and shame.

Let go the pain you are holding in your mind, your shoulders, your heart, all the way to your feet. Let go the pain of your ancestors to make way for those who are heading in our direction.

Ask for forgiveness.

Call upon the help of those who love you. These helpers take many forms: animal, element, bird, angel, saint, stone, or ancestor.

Call your spirit back. It may be caught in corners and creases of shame, judgment, and human abuse.

You must call in a way that your spirit will want to return.

Speak to it as you would to a beloved child.

Welcome your spirit back from its wandering. It may return in pieces, in tatters. Gather them together. They will be happy to be found after being lost for so long.

Your spirit will need to sleep awhile after it is bathed and given clean clothes.

Now you can have a party. Invite everyone you know who loves and supports you. Keep room for those who have no place else to go.

Make a giveaway, and remember, keep the speeches short.

Then, you must do this: help the next person find their way through the dark.

- Joy Harjo

On Healing


I am not a mechanism, an assembly of various sections.
And it is not because the mechanism is working wrongly that I am ill.
I am ill because of wounds to the soul, to the deep emotional self
and wounds to the soul take a long, long time, only time can help
and patience, and a certain difficult repentance,
long, difficult repentance, realisation of life’s mistake, and the freeing oneself
from the endless repetition of the mistake
which mankind at large has chosen to sanctify.

- D. H Lawrence

Letter to My Great, Great Grandchild


after Matthew Olzmann


Oh button, don’t go thinking we loved pianos
more than elephants, air conditioning more than air.
We loved honey, just loved it, and went into stores
to smell the sweet perfume of unworn leather shoes.


Did you know, on the coast of Africa, the Sea Rose
and Carpenter Bee used to depend on each other?


The petals only opened for the Middle C their wings
beat, so in the end, we protested with tuning forks.


You must think we hated the stars, the empty ladles,
because they conjured thirst. We didn’t. We thanked


them and called them lucky, we even bought the rights
to name them for our sweethearts. Believe it or not,


most people kept plants like pets and hired kids
like you to water them, whenever they went away.


And ice! Can you imagine? We put it in our coffee
and dumped it out at traffic lights, when it plugged up


our drinking straws. I had a dog once, a real dog,
who ate venison and golden yams from a plastic dish.


He was stubborn, but I taught him to dance and play
dead with a bucket full of chicken livers. And we danced


too, you know, at weddings and wakes, in basements
and churches, even when the war was on. Our cars


we mostly named for animals, and sometimes we drove
just to drive, to clear our heads of everything but wind.


- J.P. Grasser