Soon
autumn is about to make its leap
leaves are thrashing in the roadways
a thunderstorm fell yesterday
sweet gum blushes sunset in
old summer green a sign
to go a rush to see time gone
these brutal months cleaned in rain
- Kevin Pryne
Printable View
Soon
autumn is about to make its leap
leaves are thrashing in the roadways
a thunderstorm fell yesterday
sweet gum blushes sunset in
old summer green a sign
to go a rush to see time gone
these brutal months cleaned in rain
- Kevin Pryne
Autumn
The leaves are falling, falling as if from far up,
as if orchards were dying high in space.
Each leaf falls as if it were motioning "no."
And tonight the heavy earth is falling
away from all the other stars in the loneliness.
We're all falling. This hand here is falling.
And look at the other one….it's in them all.
And yet there is Someone, whose hands
Infinitely calm, hold up all this falling.
- Rainer Maria Rilke
(Translated from the German by Robert Bly)
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson:
Weather Report
for the autumn equinox
Balance:
The still point on the seesaw
between summer and winter
longer and shorter
neither one nor the other
Yet this day
is not only a moment poised
between dualities,
but a Singularity.
a One.
a Clarity.
Sun in full radiance
sky so blue
earth so green
and a wind
just enough to breathe
movement
into September trees --
beauty
that strikes like a thunderclap.
And so, in this moment between,
this perfect day,
I force myself to remember:
We are poised in a precarious balance
that will soon slide away,
down with a rush
to another weather, dark and chill.
And I pray,
May the clarity of this day
stay
in our hearts
when the weather changes.
May we still hold light
In the darkness to come
May we find the still point
On which to balance.
- Nina Mermey Klippel
Earth Prayer
O Endless Creator, Force of Life, Seat of the Unconscious, Dharma,
Atman, Ra, Qalb, Dear Center of our Love, Christlight, Yahweh, Allah,
Mawu, Mother of the Universe…
Let us, when swimming with the stream, become the stream…
Let us, when moving with the music, become the music…
Let us, when rocking the wounded, become the suffering..
Let us live deep enough till there is only one direction…
and slow enough till there is only the beginning of time…
and loud enough in our hearts till there is no need to speak…
Let us live for the grace beneath all we want,
let us see it in everything and everyone,
till we admit to the mystery that when I look deep enough into you,
I find me,
and when you dare to hear my fear in the recess of your heart,
you recognize it as your secret, which you thought no one else knew…
O let us embrace that unexpected moment of unity as the atom of God…
Let us have the courage to hold each other when we break and worship what unfolds…
O nameless spirit that is not done with us,
let us love without a net beyond the fear of death
until the speck of peace we guard so well becomes the world…
- Mark Nepo
Late Summer Roses
In the calm
of a late summer afternoon
my father sent me roses.
I was watching two
white butterflies
dance around each other
through the light and easy air
when I saw them—
pink roses
so small
one fit in the palm of my hand.
The scent
Ah, well, the scent
of a rose
can open you.
Long dead, my father
sends me roses.
My heart
like a child,
amazed.
- Mary Swanson
Hope
I do not stand in judgment.
I simply weep
for the blindness I see
around me,
for the hurt inflicted,
knowingly or unknowingly,
upon the marginalized.
I know nothing else to do
but weep for this reality,
for this inability to love
each other.
May my tears fall upon this arid soil,
may their moisture
find the heart’s seed,
dry and shriveled,
for lack of loving,
for the lack of tears,
for the lack of life giving moisture.
May my tears envelop
each shriveled heart seed,
allow each seed to swell,
to begin to feel once more
what has been lost—
the ability to grieve,
to weep and to water
with their own tears
other dry and shriveled
heart seeds.
In this way, my grief is a fount of hope,
for only in my tears,
only through my tears,
shared in community,
am I able to live fully,
to weep and then to dance,
to dance and then to weep,
in this never ending cycle
of being human—
we are born and we die.
If we are to live fully
in that interim, in that short time
we are given, we must weep
for we all know we are destined to loose
everything and everyone
we have ever loved.
So, only through our grief,
only through our weeping,
openly, publicly, communally,
are we able to embrace our full humanness,
our own divinity, the wholeness of our lives,
to experience genuine hope and joy,
knowing our tears are watering
the shriveled heart seeds of the world.
Jesus wept.
- Bill Denham
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson:
Woman Poem
We shed blood
without violence
blend matter and spirit
fuse water and womb
We are Isis
rebirthing the sun
We are Maeve
reclaiming the shadow
We are a mother's peace
we hold the mother wound
Our blankets are sewn of prayer
red cotton, sweetgrass, yarrow
plaited into song
reclaiming the first medicine
We are daughters of swords
fight to the death
for the no that means no,
hold unfettered roots
through green labyrinths
to the Supreme
We breathe stars into you
til the end of breathing
We hum you to us
form tides steering mystery
Old ways are ours
oak murmuring the first leaves,
carrying the confluence of all circles
endings, beginnings
everywhere under your feet
We shape shift across this land
fire the hearth
travel the wheel
through rusty creaks
in awe of small things
light workers, all beings
the juice that is life
We are
and we are not.
- Aoife Reilly
What Is Broken Is What God Blesses
The lover’s footprint in the sand
the ten-year-old kid’s bare feet
in the mud picking chili for rich growers,
not those seeking cultural or ethnic roots,
but those whose roots
have been exposed, hacked, dug up and burned
and in those roots
do animals burrow for warmth;
what is broken is blessed,
not the knowledge and empty-shelled wisdom
paraphrased from textbooks,
not the mimicking nor plaques of distinction
nor the ribbons and medals
but after the privileged carriage has passed
the breeze blows traces of wheel ruts away
and on the dust will again be the people’s broken
footprints.
What is broken God blesses,
not the perfectly brick-on-brick prison
but the shattered wall
that announces freedom to the world,
proclaims the irascible spirit of the human
rebelling against lies, against betrayal,
against taking what is not deserved;
the human complaint is what God blesses,
our impoverished dirt roads filled with cripples,
what is broken is baptized,
the irreverent disbeliever,
the addict’s arm seamed with needle marks
is a thread line of a blanket
frayed and bare from keeping the man warm.
We are all broken ornaments,
glinting in our worn-out work gloves,
foreclosed homes, ruined marriages,
from which shimmer our lives in their deepest truths,
blood from the wound,
broken ornaments—
when we lost our perfection and honored our imperfect sentiments, we were
blessed.
Broken are the ghettos, barrios, trailer parks where gangs duel to death,
yet through the wretchedness a woman of sixty comes riding her rusty bicycle,
we embrace
we bury in our hearts,
broken ornaments, accused, hunted, finding solace and refuge
we work, we worry, we love
but always with compassion
reflecting our blessings—
in our brokenness
thrives life, thrives light, thrives
the essence of our strength,
each of us a warm fragment,
broken off from the greater
ornament of the unseen,
then rejoined as dust,
to all this is.
- Jimmy Santiago Baca, 1952
Yes
It could happen any time, tornado,
earthquake, Armageddon. It could happen
Or sunshine, love, salvation.
It could, you know. That’s why we wake
and look out—no guarantees in this life.
But some bonuses, like morning,
like right now,
like noon,
like evening.
William Stafford
Source: Passwords
"Be joyful though you have considered all the facts." - Wendell Berry
Sacrifice
Can you feel that straining
Open the eyes within your eyes
Every particle of this and that
The leaves and cigarette butts and
The pavement
Just trying to keep themselves intact
Just trying to stay beautiful
For you
Fuchsia concentration is required
To assume that same and pleasant form
So that
If every piece were to take even one breath
They would scatter
And expand
All becoming all, signifying nothing
To us
Those delicate forms
Who break
And rearrange
Ourselves
And burn up in the friction
Standing still, ancient trees watch us pass.
As mothers
watching children weep must abstain from their own tears,
They are resolute in their suffering
Crying out
In silence
"we must hold on"
- Khalil Laltoo
In a Neighborhood in Los Angeles
I learned
Spanish
from my grandma
mijito
don’t cry
she’d tell me
on the mornings
my parents
would leave
to work
at the fish
canneries
my grandma
would chat
with chairs
sing them
old
songs
dance
waltzes with them
in the kitchen
when she’d say
niño barrigón
she’d laugh
with my grandma
I learned
to count clouds
to recognize
mint leaves
in flowerpots
my grandma
wore moons
on her dress
Mexico’s mountains
deserts
ocean
in her eyes
I’d see them
in her braids
I’d touch them
in her voice
smell them
one day
I was told:
she went far away
but still
I feel her
with me
whispering
in my ear:
mojito
- Francisco X. Alarcón
(translated by Francisco Aragon)
En un barrio de Los Ángeles
el español
lo aprendí
de mi abuela
mijito
no llores
me decía
en las mañanas
cuando salían
mis padres
a trabajar
en las canerías
de pescado
mi abuela
platicaba
con las sillas
les cantaba
canciones
antiguas
les bailaba
valses en
la cocina
cuando decía
niño barrigón
se reía
con mi abuela
aprendí
a contar nubes
a reconocer
en las macetas
la yerbabuena
mi abuela
llevaba lunas
en el vestido
la montaña
el desierto
el mar de México
en sus ojos
yo los veía
en sus trenzas
yo los tocaba
con su voz
yo los olía
un día
me dijeron:
se fue muy lejos
pero yo aún
la siento
conmigo
diciéndome
quedito al oído:
mijito
What You Missed That Day You Were Absent from Fourth Grade
Mrs. Nelson explained how to stand still and listen
to the wind, how to find meaning in pumping gas,
how peeling potatoes can be a form of prayer. She took
questions on how not to feel lost in the dark.
After lunch she distributed worksheets
that covered ways to remember your grandfather’s
voice. Then the class discussed falling asleep
without feeling you had forgotten to do something else—
something important—and how to believe
the house you wake in is your home. This prompted
Mrs. Nelson to draw a chalkboard diagram detailing
how to chant the Psalms during cigarette breaks,
and how not to squirm for sound when your own thoughts
are all you hear; also, that you have enough.
The English lesson was that I am
is a complete sentence.
And just before the afternoon bell, she made the math equation
look easy. The one that proves that hundreds of questions,
and feeling cold, and all those nights spent looking
for whatever it was you lost, and one person
add up to something.
- Brad Aaron Modlin
Thank you... this one hit some deep place, where the real assignments were meted out. Like the one to watch the yellow jacket circle the piece of chicken we left out for him, and finally get lift off, but not be able to lift off high enough to fly back to the others. Circling lower and lower until he was down on the dirt. How that piece of chicken took him down. How he went down rather than let go. Seeing ants begin to gather and reach out and pull. And the other yellow jacket coming in, finding and circling round the downed one, his brother or his cousin, seeing him tugged on by ants. The ants, a line to the scene and a line away, and a cluster in motion around the downed yellow jacket, getting the right grip for pulling. His brother cousin still coming in, circling, crying out...
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson:
The Forgotten Dialect Of The Heart
How astonishing it is that language can almost mean,
and frightening that it does not quite. Love, we say,
God, we say, Rome and Michiko, we write, and the words
get it all wrong. We say bread and it means according
to which nation. French has no word for home,
and we have no word for strict pleasure. A people
in northern India is dying out because their ancient
tongue has no words for endearment. I dream of lost
vocabularies that might express some of what
we no longer can. Maybe the Etruscan texts would
finally explain why the couples on their tombs
are smiling. And maybe not. When the thousands
of mysterious Sumerian tablets were translated,
they seemed to be business records. But what if they
are poems or psalms? My joy is the same as twelve
Ethiopian goats standing silent in the morning light.
O Lord, thou art slabs of salt and ingots of copper,
as grand as ripe barley lithe under the wind's labor.
Her breasts are six white oxen loaded with bolts
of long-fibered Egyptian cotton. My love is a hundred
pitchers of honey. Shiploads of thuya are what
my body wants to say to your body. Giraffes are this
desire in the dark. Perhaps the spiral Minoan script
is not language but a map. What we feel most has
no name but amber, archers, cinnamon, horses, and birds.
- Jack Gilbert
The One Thing That Can Save America
Is anything central?
Orchards flung out on the land,
Urban forests, rustic plantations, knee-high hills?
Are place names central?
Elm Grove, Adcock Corner, Story Book Farm?
As they concur with a rush at eye level
Beating themselves into eyes which have had enough
Thank you, no more thank you.
And they come on like scenery mingled with darkness
The damp plains, overgrown suburbs,
Places of known civic pride, of civil obscurity.
These are connected to my version of America
But the juice is elsewhere.
This morning as I walked out of your room
After breakfast crosshatched with
Backward and forward glances, backward into light,
Forward into unfamiliar light,
Was it our doing, and was it
The material, the lumber of life, or of lives
We were measuring, counting?
A mood soon to be forgotten
In crossed girders of light, cool downtown shadow
In this morning that has seized us again?
I know that I braid too much on my own
Snapped-off perceptions of things as they come to me.
They are private and always will be.
Where then are the private turns of event
Destined to bloom later like golden chimes
Released over a city from a highest tower?
The quirky things that happen to me, and I tell you,
And you know instantly what I mean?
What remote orchard reached by winding roads
Hides them? Where are these roots?
It is the lumps and trials
That tell us whether we shall be known
And whether our fate can be exemplary, like a star.
All the rest is waiting
For a letter that never arrives,
Day after day, the exasperation
Until finally you have ripped it open not knowing what it is,
The two envelope halves lying on a plate.
The message was wise, and seemingly
Dictated a long time ago, but its time has still
Not arrived, telling of danger, and the mostly limited
Steps that can be taken against danger
Now and in the future, in cool yards,
In quiet small houses in the country,
Our country, in fenced areas, in cool shady streets.
- John Ashbery
Eve
In our mythology, our literature, our world,
There is at least one woman
Who never experienced the loss of her mother.
And that would be Eve.
I say “at least” because
The same would be true of Lilith.
But, that’s another story, more hidden,
And not Official, as it were.
Not just the loss.
The experience of a mother.
Our unconscious memories of womb,
Our infant’s recollection of face.
To say nothing of how she fed us,
Raised us, taught us, created us.
As we flailed through adolescence,
Repeating her own personal mistakes.
Our rebellion and disavowal,
Our rejections of her, her life experience.
How it all came together, one way or another,
And we finally saw her, the woman that she is.
Perhaps too late? Or maybe not?
But, Eve never knew her mother,
Never had a mother, any mother.
She was the only one, the only woman.
Imagine having to figure that out
On your own. No one before you
To tell you it was normal, alas.
And tell you to be proud of what you are.
No wonder she wanted out!
- Jon Jackson
Forgiveness Is the Cash
Forgiveness
Is the cash you need.
All the other kinds of silver really buy
Just strange things.
Everything has its music.
Everything has genes of God inside.
But learn from those courageous addicted lovers
Of glands and opium and gold –
Look,
They cannot jump high or laugh long
When they are whirling.
And the moon and the stars become sad
When their tender light is used for
Night wars.
Forgiveness is part of the treasure you need
To craft your falcon wings
And return
To your true realm of
Divine freedom.
- Hafiz
(translation by Daniel Ladinsky)
Creighton Ridge Fire-Cazadero
August, 1978
Wednesday was hot, and so we thought we'd go to Goat Rock
Me and Laurie and the kids were in the van
But we looked back along the ridge and it was burning
We grabbed our back pumps and our boots and then we ran
Up Creighton Ridge to fight the fire a-comin' towards us
Comin' faster, spreading' farther than we could
The day we hoped we'd never see was all around us
But we’ve got strength enough to do the things we should
- Sara Scott
Dear poetry lovers,
I have been hiking in the Himalayas for the past week, out of internet range but acutely aware of the suffering of my Sonoma County community from the fires devastating our region. Before I left for the mountains I learned that many friends had lost their homes and others had been ordered to evacuate not knowing if they would have homes to return to.
I offer this poem by John O' Donohue as medicine for all my friends and neighbors whose lives have been touched by this tragedy.
Larry
For Courage
When the light around you lessens
And your thoughts darken until
Your body feels fear turn
Cold as a stone inside,
When you find yourself bereft
Of any belief in yourself
And all you unknowingly
Leaned on has fallen,
When one voice commands
Your whole heart,
And it is raven dark,
Steady yourself and see
That is your own thinking
That darkens your world,
Search and you will find
A diamond-thought of light,
Know that you are not alone
And that this darkness has purpose;
Gradually it will school your eyes
To find the one gift your life requires
Hidden within this night-corner.
Invoke the learning
Of every suffering
You have suffered.
Close your eyes.
Gather all the kindling
About your heart
To create one spark.
That is all you need
To nourish the flame
That will cleanse the dark
Of its weight of festered fear.
A new confidence will come alive
To urge you toward higher ground
Where your imagination
Will learn to engage difficulty
As its most rewarding threshold!
-John O'Donohue
"Be joyful though you have considered all the facts." - Wendell Berry
Kunzang Ahor, a 13 century Buddha in honor of Larry Robinson. —Ronaldo
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson:
After the Seventh Night of the Northern California Wildfires
For seven nights there were no stars, only sky
muted by smoke. On the first night, the dry bones
of the past rattled the eaves of valley oaks
on the hillside. Then, raging, hot-throated wind stirred
and sparked flames. Until the mountain
cracked open: red-lava heart pouring down.
A man or a woman is most alone
when he or she looks at the moon stained red,
at the hillside glowing hot as a stoked furnace.
Every house feels to be a single cell
of the same beast: fragile and ignitable.
And the days drift on – safety looming off
horizon, a far-off ship. But so long
as we can see far enough we never tire.
- Iris Dunkle
Fire Poem
A piece of paper
Drifted down
From the sky
Amidst the ash and dirt.
The paper was part of a dictionary.
It landed by the sanctuary door.
The words defined were
Tempest
And
Temple
And so it was,
From the tempest to the temple
From the storm of fire to the sanctuary
And on the edge of the page
Partially charred
The word
Temporary…
Scattered over rooms and fields
The pieces of my life
Are not to be gathered
“Take your valuables,” they say.
They are scattered
They cannot be gathered.
Ceaseless roaming
Scattered memories
Can all of what I care about
Fit on this memory stick?
- Barbara Hirschfield
Hope haiku
A bird
A bit of burnt string in her beak
Weaves a smoldering nest.
C.Dec 2017
Night Without Sleep
The world's as the world is; the nations rearm and prepare to change; the age of tyrants returns;
The greatest civilization that ever existed builds itself higher towers on breaking foundations.
Recurrent episodes; they were determined when the ape's children first ran in packs, chipped flint to an edge.
I lie and hear dark rain beat the roof, and the blind wind.
In the morning
perhaps I shall find strength again
to value the immense beauty of this time of the world, the flowers of decay
their pitiful loveliness, the fever dream
tapestries that back the drama and are called the future.
This ebb of vitality feels the ignoble and cruel
Incidents, not the vast abstract order.
I lie and hear dark rain beat the
roof, and the night-blind wind.
In the Ventana country darkness and rain and the roar of waters fill the
deep mountain throats.
The creekside shelf of sand where we lay last August under a slip of stars
And firelight played on the leaning gorge-walls, is drowned and lost. The
deer of the country huddle on a ridge
In a close herd under madrone-trees; they tremble when a rock-slide goes
down, they open great darkness-
Drinking eyes and press closer.
Cataracts of rock
Rain down the mountain from cliff to cliff and torment the stream-bed.
The stream deals with them. The laurels are wounded.
Redwoods go down with their earth and lie thwart the gorge. I hear the
torrent boulders battering each other,
I feel the flesh of the mountain move on its bones in the wet darkness.
Is this more beautiful
Than man's disasters? These wounds will heal in their time; so will
humanity's. This is more beautiful...at night...
- Robinson Jeffers
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Mourning
That other fire started from a love letter
an irate forest service worker
whose passion got the best of her
in a CO campground with woodpeckers digging for worms a hawk
wheeling above some scattered stars.
This might have been a kiss from the earth
a wake-up call, to evacuate our ways
to get out of those metal boxes heating up atmosphere and oceans, if
only we don’t hang up pretend it’s an aberration, if only
we’d sit up and listen to the crackle, like so many, fleeing for their lives.
How far can a crisis extend before ash turns to
blackened dust in our hands and we forget
what’s at stake? Eyes sting, throat raw, the lungs
thick with days of smoke. Animals and people, gone.
Homes full of photo albums, junk drawers, rubber bands, gone. Streets,
hotels, lampposts, businesses, gone.
Where will they sleep, in a county with a 1% vacancy rate before the
calamity, this place within but not outside, that has no name,
no residence, no country?
This is our Syria, our war zone, racing from smoke and flames, waking up
at 3am to check
evacuation updates, fire containment, no power, boiling water, trying to
locate friends and family, those who couldn’t run, elders on stretchers,
glued to the radio, shelters overflowing. The language of disaster, a
vocabulary none of us
knew how to fit in our mouths, now rolling out fluently, like the masks
covering our faces, ubiquitous, as if we have
forgotten how to breathe in a world un-dominated by chaos.
For hours at the shelter, I sort clothes, and toiletries,
box them up, bring them in, go back for more.
Trucks with supplies stop and unload: shoes, sun hats, diapers,
hand sanitizer, shampoo, underwear, towels, soap. Generosity opens up my
lungs,
smoke closes them down. Grief and love, excitement
and fear live in the same part of the brain, she says
the heart burns up into tiny scraps and the only salve is
more giving and this gratitude of breathing
from sink to desk, back to phone, aimless, unmoored, wandering in
unfamiliar territory
the body exhausted
these people, my community,
suffering.
- Claire Drucker
beautiful...thank you
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson:
For A New Beginning
In out of the way places of the heart
Where your thoughts never think to wander
This beginning has been quietly forming
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.
For a long time it has watched your desire
Feeling the emptiness grow inside you
Noticing how you willed yourself on
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.
It watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the grey promises that sameness whispered
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent
Wondered would you always live like this.
Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream
A path of plenitude opening before you.
Though your destination is not clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is one with your life’s desire.
Awaken your spirit to adventure
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.
- John O’Donohue
Ordinary Heartbreak
She climbs easily on the box
That seats her above the swivel chair
At adult height, crosses her legs, left ankle over right,
Smooths the plastic apron over her lap
While the beautician lifts her ponytail and laughs,
"This is coarse as a horse's tail."
And then as if that's all there is to say,
The woman at once whacks off and tosses
its foot and a half into the trash.
And the little girl who didn't want her hair cut,
But long ago learned successfully how not to say
What it is she wants,
Who, even at this minute cannot quite grasp
her shock and grief,
Is getting her hair cut. "For convenience," her mother put it.
The long waves gone that had been evidence at night,
When loosened from their clasp,
She might secretly be a princess.
Rather than cry out, she grips her own wrist
And looks to her mother in the mirror.
But her mother is too polite, or too reserved,
So the girl herself takes up indifference,
While pain follows a hidden channel to a deep place
Almost unknown in her,
Convinced as she is, that her own emotions are not the ones
her life depends on,
She shifts her gaze from her mother's face
Back to the haircut now,
So steadily as if this short-haired child were someone else.
- David Levine
Falling
In these awe-filled days of fire and flood
We watch and wait and wonder
When that fierce hand
Might reach at last for us.
Those of us not yet touched by calamity
Quake, knowing in our bones
That though we may be spared
This time, time will level us all.
No magic amulets, no prayers,
Good deeds or good looks
Can promise protection
From our terminal condition.
And those who have watched a child
Swept forever from our arms
Or fled the flames that swallowed
Our hopes and our memories
Or hid from the bombs
Or the predator’s gaze
Know that nothing now will ever be the same -
As if anything ever were.
For all of us are falling
Like ashes, like rain,
Like petals or leaves;
But we all are falling together.
And if we knew, in truth,
There was nowhere to land,
Tell me: could we know the difference
Between falling and flying?
- Larry Robinson
Very fine! Very much appreciated! In my opinion, an iconic poem for our time. One of those poems that gets inside me and reveals some of my private train of thought! I will share this onward (giving proper credit, of course)
:heart:
In Blackwater Woods
Look, the trees
are turning
their own bodies
into pillars
of light,
are giving off the rich
fragrance of cinnamon
and fulfillment,
the long tapers
of cattails
are bursting and floating away over
the blue shoulders
of the ponds,
and every pond,
no matter what its
name is, is
nameless now.
Every year
everything I have ever learned
in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side
is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
To live in this world
you must be able
to do three things;
to love what is mortal;
to hold it
against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it’
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.
- Mary Oliver
God Bless The Grass
God bless the grass that grows thru the crack.
They roll the concrete over it to try and keep it back.
The concrete gets tired of what it has to do,
It breaks and it buckles and the grass grows thru,
And God bless the grass
.
God bless the truth that fights toward the sun,
They roll the lies up over it and think that it is done.
It moves through the ground and reaches for the air,
And after a while it is growing everywhere,
And God bless the grass.
God bless the grass that grows through cement.
It's green and it's tender and it's easily bent.
But after a while it lifts up its head,
For the grass is living and the stone is dead,
And God bless the grass.
God bless the grass that's gentle and low,
Its roots they are deep and its will is to grow.
And God bless the truth, the friend of the poor,
And the wild grass growing at the poor man's door,
And God bless the grass.
- Malvina Reynolds
Scrolling back through days of poems, I discovered what I'd missed... For Courage hit deep and fit, moved me to tears and fired another solid moment of courage moving it from belly through heart and throat. Bless all the reminders, as hard as they hit us, of why we stay, to remember it's the fire that gets us moving in the direction of what's true.
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Ronaldo:Kunzang Ahor, a 13 century Buddha in honor of Larry Robinson. —Ronaldo
The Words
white hot and insufficient
continue to fly the words fly
from the corners of
forgotten
not-forgotten houses the
words
flame red and inconsistent
insist
on being said the words
insist on resolutions
vaguely made
sometime last … do you remember?
that fall flat
jet black
and incandescent the words
refuse to be
lifted
refuse our reasons refuse to be used
the words fail us fail me fail October
yet everyone is talking about the fire
my seven-year-old quietly says
- Amy Elizabeth Robinson
Choosing A Dog
"It's love," they say. You touch
the right one and a whole half of the universe
wakes up, a new half.
Some people never find
that half, or they neglect it or trade it
for money or success and it dies.
The faces of big dogs tell, over the years,
that size is a burden: you enjoy it for awhile
but then maintenance gets to you.
When I get old I think I'll keep, not a little
dog, but a serious dog,
for the casual, drop-in criminal —
My kind of dog, unimpressed by
dress or manner, just knowing
what's really there by the smell.
Your good dogs, some things that they hear
they don't really want you to know —
it's too grim or ethereal.
And sometimes when they look in the fire
they see time going on and someone alone,
but they don't say anything.
- William Stafford
Ash Mothers
We travel on the wings
of the wind. We cover
you. Part of us flies.
Part falls. You cannot
Ignore us. We come
From the soul of fire.
We are the remains
Of your civilization,
Of your obsession
With the material.
You cannot shoo us
Away like you would
A buzzing whirring
Annoying yellow jacket.
We are all over you
And inside you now.
We are white. We
Are grey as elders.
We are the particulate
Of what you thought
You owned, possessed.
You touch us and we
Cling to you insisting
You remember Earth
Is home to all of us
Not a burned house.
We are flying. We are
Falling from the winds of
Caprice in the ever arching
Smoke. We make it hard for
Any one to see. You must
Look with your third eyes
Into the worlds of Spirit.
We infiltrate eyes, lungs
With the toxicity you have
Let loose upon our Earth.
We make it hard to breathe.
All the creatures feel the weight
Of us although we are so light.
The earthly beings sneeze
And wheeze. We are the
Remains of the fires. We
Travel on fickle winds, reminding
You we are all connected. We
Cover your cars, your windows,
Your benches, your plans, your hopes,
Your dreams. We are Star Dust. We are
Called your Ash Mothers. You can write
Your life and death on essence. You can
Choke on our redeeming power. You have
No choice but to touch us and receive
Our path. Follow us. We are returning
You to your beginnings. We are taking
You to your endings. We are all the Earth.
You think we are disposable. We are that
Of which you were created and to which
You shall return. We cannot be undone.
We cover you with the essence of all
That has been incinerated. We are what
Remains of the humans, the animals
Fleeing the fires, of the insects humming,
Birds singing, flowers blooming, grass
Waving, coyotes howling, pumas lurking.
We are telling you be ready. Admit we
Are witnesses bound together in grief,
fallen from the sky, blanketed with love,
Landing on Earth, signalling rebirth.
- Patria Brown
Fire On The Hills
The deer were bounding like blown leaves
Under the smoke in front of the roaring wave of the brushfire;
I thought of the smaller lives that were caught.
Beauty is not always lovely; the fire was beautiful, the terror
Of the deer was beautiful; and when I returned
Down the black slopes after the fire had gone by, an eagle
Was perched on the jag of a burnt pine,
Insolent and gorged, cloaked in the folded storms of his shoulders.
He had come from far off for good hunting
With fire for his beater to drive the game; the sky was merciless
Blue and the hills merciless black,
The somber-feathered great bird sleepily merciless between them.
I thought, painfully, but the whole mind,
The destruction that brings an eagle from heaven is better than mercy.
- Robinson Jeffers
When I Thought My House Would Burn
When I thought
It would burn, my house
Would certainly join the
Fire, become fuel
Like so many others
I imagined those papers
Settled in deep boxes
Slumbering in a storm
And I was grateful
I’d have no chore to undertake,
No decisions to make.
I imagined the roof, flat
And sieve-like allowing
Fire, like winter rains, to pour
In and mercifully
Choose what goes, what
If anything, stays.
I imagined books, photos,
Paintings surrounded and
Surrendered to the insatiable
Appetite of destruction, so like
My appetite for acquisition
That leaves little to imagine,
To fill with emptiness.
Two years ago, I sifted
Through years
Of greeting cards Rich
Could not part with until
He parted with his life
And left behind treasure
Of no meaning to others.
Returning home, I saw
My own small history,
Quietly cluttering corners
Swallowing the present.
Like fire, I swept through
Drawers and cupboards,
Clearing away the moments,
The mementos of times
Lived and asking remembrance.
When I thought my house
Had burned, was burning
As I climbed out of Paro’s
Narrow valley towards Tiger’s Nest
I carried, not birthday cards,
Not books or grandmother’s quilts and paintings,
But the rabbits and squirrels,
The pumas and skunks, deer
And trees, tucked in my heart.
I knew then what I loved.
I know now what I will
Carry when, like others
Before me, I flee this life
For the unknown, fires
Of living fading behind me.
- Rebecca del Rio
HOW TO GO TO THE WOODS
Ordinarily I go to the woods alone, with not a single friend,
for they are all smilers and talkers and therefore unsuitable
I don't really want to be witnessed talking to the catbirds
or hugging the old black oak tree. I have my way of praying,
as you no doubt have yours.
Besides, when I am alone I can become invisible. I can sit
on the top of a dune as motionless as an uprise of weeds
until the foxes run by unconcerned. I can hear the almost
unbearable sound of the roses singing.
If you have ever gone to the woods with me, I must love you very much.
Mary Oliver
Why Then Do We Not Despair?
Everything is plundered, betrayed, sold,
Death's great black wing scrapes the air,
Misery gnaws to the bone.
Why then do we not despair?
By day, from the surrounding woods,
cherries blow summer into town;
At night the deep transparent skies
glitter with new galaxies.
And the miraculous comes so close
to the ruined, dirty houses --
Something not known to anyone at all,
but wild in our breast for centuries.
- Anna Akhmatova
needed this one today, thanks...it helped me get out of......despair..
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson:
The Spiral Stairway
The spiral stairway
went nowhere,
though it once went
from ground floor to
second floor before
the wild fires that
taught them what
wild really felt like,
what fire really looked like,
when they evacuated
in the night, managed to
take only their cat,
her computer
and their car which took them
beyond the flames in the
forest bright
brought them to safety and the
memory of that spiral stairway
that conveyed them up and down
for decades with cat, with
computer and the sounds of the
forest now stilled by the fury
of the fire.
- Jonah Raskin
In a Neighborhood in Los Angeles
I learned
Spanish
from my grandma
mijito
don’t cry
she’d tell me
on the mornings
my parents
would leave
to work
at the fish
canneries
my grandma
would chat
with chairs
sing them
old
songs
dance
waltzes with them
in the kitchen
when she’d say
niño barrigón
she’d laugh
with my grandma
I learned
to count clouds
to recognize
mint leaves
in flowerpots
my grandma
wore moons
on her dress
Mexico’s mountains
deserts
ocean
in her eyes
I’d see them
in her braids
I’d touch them
in her voice
smell them
one day
I was told:
she went far away
but still
I feel her
with me
whispering
in my ear:
mojito
- Francisco X. Alarcón
(translated by Francisco Aragon)
En un barrio de Los Ángeles
el español
lo aprendí
de mi abuela
mijito
no llores
me decía
en las mañanas
cuando salían
mis padres
a trabajar
en las canerías
de pescado
mi abuela
platicaba
con las sillas
les cantaba
canciones
antiguas
les bailaba
valses en
la cocina
cuando decía
niño barrigón
se reía
con mi abuela
aprendí
a contar nubes
a reconocer
en las macetas
la yerbabuena
mi abuela
llevaba lunas
en el vestido
la montaña
el desierto
el mar de México
en sus ojos
yo los veía
en sus trenzas
yo los tocaba
con su voz
yo los olía
un día
me dijeron:
se fue muy lejos
pero yo aún
la siento
conmigo
diciéndome
quedito al oído:
mijito
Lovely poem, Larry. I'm pretty sure you meant to type "mijito" for the last word of the English translation, not "mojito" which is an alcoholic beverage. :-)
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson:
The Gates of Hope
Our mission is to plant ourselves at the gates of Hope—
Not the prudent gates of Optimism,
Which are somewhat narrower.
Not the stalwart, boring gates of Common Sense;
Nor the strident gates of Self-Righteousness,
Which creak on shrill and angry hinges
(People cannot hear us there; they cannot pass through)
Nor the cheerful, flimsy garden gate of
“Everything is gonna’ be all right.”
But a different, sometimes lonely place,
The place of truth-telling,
About your own soul first of all and its condition.
The place of resistance and defiance,
The piece of ground from which you see the world
Both as it is and as it could be
As it will be;
The place from which you glimpse not only struggle,
But the joy of the struggle.
And we stand there, beckoning and calling,
Telling people what we are seeing
Asking people what they see.
- Victoria Safford
Advice from a Five Year Old
Audra asks my dog’s middle name.
I say it’s Super Star. She says,
“What’s her last name?”
I say it’s Wing, like me.
She spins twice on one sneakered toe,
says she likes my wedding ring.
She asks, “What’s her name?”
a chin nod towards the woman last
at my side. “That’s Sabrina, my wife.
But our last names are not the same.”
She twists one long strand of hair.
“Are you a boy?” I say no.
“Is she a boy?” I say no again.
Her face pulls into a puzzle.
“Then how can she be your wife?”
I say a girl can marry a girl.
Her shoulders reach to her ears,
eyes wide. “That’s crazy!”
I say, “A girl can marry a girl,
or a boy can marry a boy.”
She rocks, heel to toe, heel
to toe. She says, “My dad
said I have to marry a boy.”
I shrug, say, “It’s up to you.
Boy or girl.” She twists the fabric
of her t-shirt at the belly, thinking,
then announces she is hungry,
makes her way to the buffet table.
Audra returns with a plate of cut-up
pears, apples, peaches, sits down
again at my side. She says,
“Your wife helped me.” I lift my
hat to rub my head. She drops her
fork. “You don’t have any hair!”
I tell her I shaved it off. “Does your
wife have hair?” Yes, yes she does,
I say. It’s just short, under her cap.
She says, “I want to keep mine.”
That’s fine, I say. It looks nice.
She finishes her fruit, then turns,
brows knit tight. “I don’t think
you should shave your dog.”
- Michele Wing
(Recently published in Manzano Mountain Review)
You Learn
After a while you learn the subtle difference
Between holding a hand and chaining a soul,
And you learn that love doesn’t mean leaning
And company doesn’t mean security.
And you begin to learn that kisses aren’t contracts
And presents aren’t promises,
And you begin to accept your defeats
With your head up and your eyes open
With the grace of a woman, not the grief of a child,
And you learn to build all your roads on today
Because tomorrow’s ground is too uncertain for plans
And futures have a way of falling down in mid-flight.
After a while you learn…
That even sunshine burns if you get too much.
So you plant your garden and decorate your own soul,
Instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.
And you learn that you really can endure…
That you really are strong
And you really do have worth…
And you learn and learn…
With every good-bye you learn.
- Jorge Borges
Before The Election
I am trying to recall those
Hope filled times when the lilacs
Knew exactly when to blossom
And the figs always produced
In the same months
I count on those like my grandmother’s
Gentle voice or my mother’s sturdy hands
When we knew we would be safe
Even after that terrible earthquake
When the chimney bricks tumbled down
Even when a father’s anger could make
The whole house crumble
I could still cry out and someone
would touch my cheek
I am trying to recall
When civility mattered
When our leaders were dignified
When the entire house of a nation felt safe
Even after terrible fires, floods and shootings
When tragedy stirred up a mighty compassion
I am trying to recall those
Times when we could lie out exposed
All day warming ourselves in the truth of a sun
My underbelly safe atop
A large solid boulder
Overlooking the precipice
Just ahead.
- Kristy Hellum
Pray for Peace
Pray to whomever you kneel down to:
Jesus nailed to his wooden or marble or plastic cross,
his suffering face bent to kiss you,
Buddha still under the Bo tree in scorching heat,
Adonai, Allah, raise your arms to Mary
that she may lay her palm on our brows,
to Shekhina, Queen of Heaven and Earth,
to Inanna in her stripped descent.
Hawk or Wolf, or the Great Whale, Record Keeper
of time before, time now, time ahead, pray. Bow down
to terriers and shepherds and siamese cats.
Fields of artichokes and elegant strawberries.
Pray to the bus driver who takes you to work,
pray on the bus, pray for everyone riding that bus
and for everyone riding buses all over the world.
If you haven't been on a bus in a long time,
climb the few steps, drop some silver, and pray.
Waiting in line for the movies, for the ATM,
for your latte and croissant, offer your plea.
Make your eating and drinking a supplication.
Make your slicing of carrots a holy act,
each translucent layer of the onion, a deeper prayer.
Make the brushing of your hair
a prayer, every strand its own voice,
singing in the choir on your head.
As you wash your face, the water slipping
through your fingers, a prayer: Water,
softest thing on earth, gentleness
that wears away rock.
Making love, of course, is already a prayer.
Skin and open mouths worshipping that skin,
the fragile case we are poured into,
each caress a season of peace.
If you're hungry, pray. If you're tired.
Pray to Gandhi and Dorothy Day.
Shakespeare. Sappho. Sojourner Truth.
Pray to the angels and the ghost of your grandfather.
When you walk to your car, to the mailbox,
to the video store, let each step
be a prayer that we all keep our legs,
that we do not blow off anyone else's legs.
Or crush their skulls.
And if you are riding on a bicycle
or a skateboard, in a wheel chair, each revolution
of the wheels a prayer that as the earth revolves
we will do less harm, less harm, less harm.
And as you work, typing with a new manicure,
a tiny palm tree painted on one pearlescent nail
or delivering soda or drawing good blood
into rubber-capped vials, writing on a blackboard
with yellow chalk, twirling pizzas, pray for peace.
With each breath in, take in the faith of those
who have believed when belief seemed foolish,
who persevered. With each breath out, cherish.
Pull weeds for peace, turn over in your sleep for peace,
feed the birds for peace, each shiny seed
that spills onto the earth, another second of peace.
Wash your dishes, call your mother, drink wine.
Shovel leaves or snow or trash from your sidewalk.
Make a path. Fold a photo of a dead child
around your VISA card. Gnaw your crust
of prayer, scoop your prayer water from the gutter.
Mumble along like a crazy person, stumbling
your prayer through the streets.
- Ellen Bass
Obituary
Tim Hicks died expectedly at some moment in the future
not yet determined but certain.
He died at the center of the universe
surrounded by everyone and everything.
He died as he lived, apologetic for his inadequacies,
proud of his uncertainties, and
very appreciative of the opportunity.
The cause of death was living,
worn out before his time by time,
unfortunately.
There was so much more he wished to do.
Among his accomplishments were surviving and
occasional laughter, over-serious as he was.
He built several gardens and was on his way
to mastering happiness, if only he’d had a bit
more time.
He is survived by the rest of the world that
follows him as reluctantly as he followed the others,
and by those few who taught him patiently about the
meaning of love, his children especially, who knew him well
and partially, and his dear sweet partners, who chose
to travel with him, for better and for worse.
He was a slow student, but diligent and well-meaning.
Services will be held somewhere. In lieu of flowers,
memorial thoughts of wonder may be offered up.
- Tim Hicks
45 Years of My Words Away
So how do I write about something
that took 45 years of my words & art away?
Journals, articles, poems, drawings, paintings, manuscripts,
travel sketches, a library & research files, every letter
and post card from the three kids, Margaret, family friends.
A goldrush mine of memory
that I wanted to dig into in retirement
to shovel, rake, sift, pan and separate
all the nuggets from the general debris.
After the fire
only the rammed earth adobe walls
still standing.
Everything else melted or
bent or pulverized into
soft fine ash.
Even the half dozen
cords of wood
in the open field
that were chain sawed, split, stacked
neatly in geometric rows
patiently waiting through
the drought-dried summer simmering heat
to perform their duty
in the Vermont Casting wood stove
as soon as the first beautiful
silver frost wolves of winter
came running down
the slopes
of the Sierra
now sit
but a handful
of delicate fine ash.
The power of the flame
to totally dissolve
a refrigerator,
liquify glass
and melt machines.
All those hundreds of hours
spent getting beyond clearance
with the undergrowth
inching my way through
oak, manzanita, cedar, pine,
miners' misery, poison oak, star thistle
Now beyond - beyond clearance.
Every nook, valley, slope, hill
creek, drainage on the acreage
nakedly exposed
beyond all my years
of intimacy with them.
There were some ghost books
that lay on their backs,
binders spread open,
at a hundred and eighty degrees
an accordion of pages
eerily beckoning
to be picked up
and played
one last time
collapsing with their final breath
when delicately touched
by a finger cautiously seeking
that final secretive tale.
Somehow family history
still clung to the walls
reminding me of archeological sites
I visited around the world.
I first thought
of leaving the walls
to be buried
by moss, lichens, vines
a new forest monument
to my family living
for a short period together
at the edge of the grid
my mother's ashes
spread around the property
weaving a genetic thread
from the Old World to the New.
When Margaret and I drove back the first time
and got out of the car., both of us thought
one of us whispered , The silence - it's so quiet here.
Unimaginably quiet
beyond the cherished silence
that had nurtured us
all these years.
No tracks of squirrel, skunk, raccoon, bear, coyote,
mountain lion, wild turkey, wild pig, dog, cat.
No bird. Songs.
One set-one set
out of dozens before
of deer tracks
clearly imprinted
in the ash-sealed road.
Of course,
the walls did have to come down
the land did have to be cleared
leaving an open, empty field.
A haunted forest?
Or, a fresh, new
field of dreams?
Yet to be written.
- Conrad Levasseur
Song: The Kiss
We were walking through
A department store in Paris,
Escaping the rain,
The sort of French rain
That changes in intensity
If you look at it,
Then changes back if you don't.
You went to lingerie,
And I to electronics,
And then we met again. It was there
That you noticed them, in furnishings,
Relaxing on a couch, his arm
Draped around her shoulder.
She pecked him on the cheek.
He didn't seem to notice.
Practicing for marriage,
You said, a bit too wryly
I thought, then stared at them
With You. He was pompadoured,
Italian, rough and beautiful,
With muscles so prominent
They seemed to be tattooed,
And you must have felt a twinge
Moving up your throat
To your face, for it settled
Into a smile, half adoration,
Half resignation. And she, Italianate,
Shapely as that ivory statue
Pygmalian called "my virgin beauty,"
With hair so long and black
I could almost see myself
Reflected in it, and behind me
You watching me watching
Her small breasts move
Beneath her black t-shirt.
Then on we went, you to where
The silk scarves were,
All the rage that year,
And I to toys to see
What passed for toys those days,
And then we met again,
By the escalator, and out
The revolving doors we went,
Hand in hand, for this was Paris,
Where even the middle-aged
Will behave like young lovers
In the rain, waiting for bad weather
To bring them to their youth again.
And there they were, standing
In the rain that hadn't changed
For an hour. They were kissing,
Their tongues wrestling
In that eternal battle
No one wins or loses.
His hand was on her breast,
Cupping it; her hand on top of his,
As if to keep it there forever
Were a commitment they'd just now taken on.
And you said, laughing,
If you let me kiss him
I'll let you kiss her!
Then we set out again,
Hand in hand, thirty years married,
Across the busy Seine,
And then I was the one laughing,
And you, I thought for a moment
You were crying,
But it was only the rain in Paris,
Relentless and unchanging.
- Steve Orlen
The Curator
We thought it would come, we thought the Germans would come,
were almost certain they would. I was thirty-two,
the youngest assistant curator in the country.
I had some good ideas in those days.
Well, what we did was this. We had boxes
precisely built to every size of canvas.
We put the boxes in the basement and waited.
When word came that the Germans were coming in,
we got each painting put in the proper box
and out of Leningrad in less than a week.
They were stored somewhere in southern Russia.
But what we did, you see, besides the boxes
waiting in the basement, which was fine,
a grand idea, you’ll agree, and it saved the art—
but what we did was leave the frames hanging,
so after the war it would be a simple thing
to put the paintings back where they belonged.
Nothing will seem surprised or sad again
compared to those imperious, vacant frames.
Well, the staff stayed on to clean the rubble
after the daily bombardments. We didn’t dream—
You know it lasted nine hundred days.
Much of the roof was lost and snow would lie
sometimes a foot deep on this very floor,
but the walls stood firm and hardly a frame fell.
Here is the story, now, that I want to tell you.
Early one day, a dark December morning,
we came on three young soldiers waiting outside,
pacing and swinging their arms against the cold.
They told us this: in three homes far from here
all dreamed of one day coming to Leningrad
to see the Hermitage, as they supposed
every Soviet citizen dreamed of doing.
Now they had been sent to defend the city,
a turn of fortune the three could hardly believe.
I had to tell them there was nothing to see
but hundreds and hundreds of frames where the paintings had hung.
“Please, sir,” one of them said, “let us see them.”
And so we did. It didn’t seem any stranger
than all of us being here in the first place,
inside such a building, strolling in snow.
We led them around most of the major rooms,
what they could take the time for, wall by wall.
Now and then we stopped and tried to tell them
part of what they would see if they saw the paintings.
I told them how those colors would come together,
described a brushstroke here, a dollop there,
mentioned a model and why she seemed to pout
and why this painter got the roses wrong.
The next day a dozen waited for us,
then thirty or more, gathered in twos and threes.
Each of us took a group in a different direction:
Castagno, Caravaggio, Brueghel, Cézanne, Matisse,
Orozco, Manet, da Vinci, Goya, Vermeer,
Picasso, Uccello, your Whistler, Wood, and Gropper.
We pointed to more details about the paintings,
I venture to say, than if we had had them there,
some unexpected use of line or light,
balance or movement, facing the cluster of faces
the same way we’d done it every morning
before the war, but then we didn’t pay
so much attention to what we talked about.
People could see for themselves. As a matter of fact
we’d sometimes said our lines as if they were learned
out of a book, with hardly a look at the paintings.
But now the guide and the listeners paid attention
to everything—the simple differences
between the first and post-impressionists,
romantic and heroic, shade and shadow.
Maybe this was a way to forget the war
a little while. Maybe more than that.
Whatever it was, the people continued to come.
It came to be called The Unseen Collection.
Here. Here is the story I want to tell you.
Slowly, blind people began to come.
A few at first then more of them every morning,
some led and some alone, some swaying a little.
They leaned and listened hard, they screwed their faces,
they seemed to shift their eyes, those that had them,
to see better what was being said.
And a cock of the head. My God, they paid attention.
After the siege was lifted and the Germans left
and the roof was fixed and the paintings were in their places,
the blind never came again. Not like before.
This seems strange, but what I think it was,
they couldn’t see the paintings anymore.
They could still have listened, but the lectures became
a little matter-of-fact. What can I say?
Confluences come when they will and they go away.
- Miller Williams
What an exquisite reminder of how universal dark nights for the collective can affect us. This poem is such a wonderful reminder -- (to paraphrase many): That Love loves what it loves... and even when 'tall trees are falling down,' it saves what can be saved... and remembers.... those things that are important reminders of our potential and what is in our hearts. Thank you, Larry.
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson:
The Beautiful Changes
One wading a Fall meadow finds on all sides
The Queen Anne’s Lace lying like lilies
On water; it glides
So from the walker, it turns
Dry grass to a lake, as the slightest shade of you
Valleys my mind in fabulous blue Lucernes.
The beautiful changes as a forest is changed
By a chameleon’s tuning his skin to it;
As a mantis, arranged
On a green leaf, grows
Into it, makes the leaf leafier, and proves
Any greenness is deeper than anyone knows.
Your hands hold roses always in a way that says
They are not only yours; the beautiful changes
In such kind ways,
Wishing ever to sunder
Things and things’ selves for a second finding, to lose
For a moment all that it touches back to wonder.
- Richard Wilbur
The Longing
Do not pretend that The Longing
has not also lived in you
swinging like a pendulum.
You have been lost
and thieved like a criminal
your heart
into the darkness.
But life is tired, Dear Friend
of going on
without you.
It is like the hand of the mother
who has lost the child.
And if you are anything like me, you have been afraid.
And if you are anything like me
You have known your own courage.
There is room in this boat:
take your seat.
Take up your paddle, and all of us
All of us
shall row our hearts
back
home.
- Em Claire
When Fire Swept West
When fire swept west in Annadel Park
there appeared no stopping it
from descending to devour our street and house
and when it halted, we wept
with gratitude then went silent
in the knowledge of what others were loosing.
Then came a long-planned
trip to the land of my wife's ancestors.
One evening in Kyoto in an
elegant old hilltop home
our hostess presented us
with poems hand-written
on rice paper. Mine, by an
anonymous 9th century poet, read
How clear and bright the moon this autumn night!
White clouds float in the crystal firmament.
I see clearly even the shadows of a flight of geese.
But I couldn't take it in, and rewrote it in my mind:
How red and scorched the moon this autumn night.
Black smoke floats in the inky sky
blotting everything out -- even lost geese
and their invisible shadows.
In Shinto there are a thousand deities;
Here are two we must speak to now:
First, Rai-den, God of Destruction. He stands fiercely,
fire in his right hand, a sword in his left.
Enough. You ravage the world and now you've ravaged us.
Leave us. We don't want you her again, ever.
Then there is Kan-non, Goddess of Mercy and Compassion.
She stands serene and focused, in her left hand a lotus blossom.
Welcome. We need you now. Show us that while pain's roots go deep, those of healing go deeper. That loss can choke us but cannot inhibit hope -- we won't let it, now or ever.
And finally, remind us that love is strong as death. It lives in
community, and it's just here that
we will hold it, and each other, tight.
- David Beckman
The Beauty Of Hopelessness
You are hanging from a branch
by your teeth. No
way to save yourself
or others who hang, too.
Arms that cannot reach
any branch, legs stretch but
cannot find the smooth safe trunk.
All around, your loved ones,
friends, strangers hang--
teeth clamp bony twigs
that suspend necessary hopes
and plans.
It is hopeless. No rescue will arrive.
So you relax, taste the clean,
unfamiliar tang of sap,
feel the forgiving wind against
your waving arms, arms
that swim through emptiness.
Without hope, life is
focused, fluid, a ledge
of fragile earth suspended
over the ocean of unknowing, the end
of the branch. Life is
the glorious moment
before the fall when all
plans are abandoned,
the love you give
as you hang, loving
those who hang with you.
- Rebecca del Rio
Perhaps The World Ends Here
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
Thanksgiving Day
Over the river, and through the wood,
To grandfather’s house we go;
The horse knows the way
To carry the sleigh
Through the white and drifted snow.
Over the river, and through the wood—
Oh, how the wind does blow!
It stings the toes
And bites the nose
As over the ground we go.
Over the river, and through the wood,
To have a first-rate play.
Hear the bells ring
“Ting-a-ling-ding”,
Hurrah for Thanksgiving Day!
Over the river, and through the wood
Trot fast, my dapple-gray!
Spring over the ground,
Like a hunting-hound!
For this is Thanksgiving Day.
Over the river, and through the wood,
And straight through the barn-yard gate.
We seem to go
Extremely slow,—
It is so hard to wait!
Over the river and through the wood—
Now grandmother’s cap I spy!
Hurrah for the fun!
Is the pudding done?
Hurrah for the pumpkin-pie!
- Lydia Maria Child
For Us, The Living
(Thanksgiving Poem)
On this day, we join our lives
In thanksgiving feast and light
But let us not forget
The other days, the other loves,
Whom we have long passed by.
Give thanks, O my friends,
For the living and the dead
For those who have gone before
To show us the way – or perhaps,
A way we do not want to go.
The instructions are clear for us,
My friends: To live until we die
To taste the sweet and the bitter
To love and to lose…
To forge our own way
Through thicket and briar
To build our own mountain-tops
To traverse our own valleys.
We are made, my friends,
Not to go alone!
Our hands were made for holding
Our hearts were made for love
Our souls were made to search
The daytime skies for stars,
The nighttime sky for dawn.
Reach your fingers out, ungloved
For thorns and roses both
Hold your sadness close inside
Your grief as much a gift
As joy; we need both rain
And sun to grow; we need
Forests to get lost in,
And dreams to lead us on.
Rejoice, my friends, in life
Which so many are denied
Bless the broken pieces
The memories that haunt
The children of our spirit
Who toss the autumn leaves
And leap into their piles
Releasing clouds of dust
The sweet piercing stems and sticks
Embracing the wholeness of life
From start to finish
And beyond.
So, give thanks, my friends,
For one another, the strangers
And the known, for those
Who look for stars at dawn
For those with races still un-run.
For here we are, the living
With hearts’ desires unmet
We find those in each others’ hands
And smiles, the comfort
Of joining lives today
And all the days to come.
- Susan S. Standen
Black Friday
While families bleed their wallets
into big-box stores
my son and I flee to the forest.
We visit our favorite campsite
walk the plank bridge
gambol in the puckers of the tunnel tree.
We imbibe a trunkful of memories
in the clutch of thousand-year-old redwoods
gulping wisps of minted air.
I show him a photo of himself at three—
white Mowgli poised among the Steller’s Jays—
screaming to the world I am.
We commune with turkeys and white-tailed deer
visit the damned-up creek—our former swimming hole
closed for the season or lack of interest.
I ask if he’ll pose against the tallest tree
flower at the ease of his assent.
Pointing the camera toward its black-green limbs
I catch a penumbra of cross-hatched light
beaming bands of magenta-gold
that frame him like a pale Pieta.
Light is anesthetic;
we’re held in its eternal grasp.
At twenty-four he’s lost the concept of shun.
The day marries us to a new genre.
- Sandra Anfang
Eating The Bones
The women in my family
strip the succulent
flesh from broiled chicken,
scrape the drumstick clean;
bite off the cartilage chew the gristle,
crush the porous swellings
at the ends of each slender baton.
With strong molars
they split the tibia, sucking out
the dense marrow.
They use up love, they swallow
every dark grain,
so at the end there’s nothing left,
a scant pile of splinters
on the empty white plate.
- Ellen Bass
Cutting Greens
curling them around
i hold their bodies in obscene embrace
thinking of everything but kinship.
collards and kale
strain against each strange other
away from my kissmaking hand and
the iron bedpot.
the pot is black.
the cutting board is black,
my hand,
and just for a minute
the greens roll black under the knife,
and the kitchen twists dark on its spine
and i taste in my natural appetite
the bond of live things everywhere.
- Lucille Clifton
hashtag youtoo
#youtoo
remember how it started
#youtoo
recall how far it went
#youtoo
mistook fear for fascination
overtaken by the scent
of your own pounding flesh
so caught in the obsession
you wanted her to know
somehow shaken by the sight
of a girl, of a woman
#youtoo
sought domination, even then
saying “it will be our secret”
(cause she knows what’s good)
and she wants a door held open
she will comply
she’ll be complicit
perhaps lose track of who
did what
and when
#youtoo
will count on her confusion
#youtoo
will twist the facts to suit your sin
when she starts to lose her compass
in the vortex of your spin
- Fran Carbonaro
What We Packed at 3 A.M.
The dog
the drugs
The cash
the cards
The elder neighbors who couldn’t drive
We packed our fear
though it couldn’t be contained
We crawled in our cars
as the fire raced
through its feast
of everything
of everyone
or everyone’s dreams
Everywhere we looked
RED RED
We called friends in the hills
No answer
We cried Jesus Christ!
No answer
The fire jumped and morphed
and ate some more
Garage doors wouldn’t open
Trees blocked the roads
The red sky
grew wider and taller
and shot its off-springs
into the air
to ignite their own
smorgasbords
We unpacked our prayers
to all the gods
we don’t believe in
And when we reached safety
we watched our phones
(we packed those, too)
for news and it
wasn’t good.
Yes, we had each other.
Yes, we were alive.
But our world,
our beautiful Sonoma County world
What we packed
wasn’t the mountains
wasn’t the deer
the coyotes, the quail
wasn’t the mountain lions
or mountain lakes
wasn’t Willi’s
or Fountaingrove
wasn’t Coffey Park
or the field of larks
or the knowledge
it would take two weeks
to get back home
or that home would still
be there
or that the gorgeous golden grass
just outside our windows
would change overnight
into candles waving
their virgin wicks
- Katherine Hastings
Same as a Seed
In everything, its opposite.
In the sun’s ascendancy,
its downfall.
In darkness, light
not yet apprehended.
At night in bed, I fear the falling-off.
Though falling, I will rise.
I fear. Fall arriving now.
In any word so small, the world.
In the world I walk in, a wild wood.
- Elizabeth Spires
Consent
Late in November, on a single night
Not even near to freezing, the ginkgo trees
That stand along the walk drop all their leaves
In one consent, and neither to rain nor to wind
But as though to time alone: the golden and green
Leaves litter the lawn today, that yesterday
Had spread aloft their fluttering fans of light.
What signal from the stars? What senses took it in?
What in those wooden motives so decided
To strike their leaves, to down their leaves,
Rebellion or surrender? and if this
Can happen thus, what race shall be exempt?
What use to learn the lessons taught by time.
If a star at any time may tell us: Now.
- Howard Nemerov
If, On Account Of The Political Situation
If, on account of the political situation,
there are quite a number of homes without roofs, and men
Lying about in the countryside neither drunk or asleep,
If all sailings have been cancelled till further notice,
If it's unwise now to say much in letters, and if,
Under the subnormal temperatures prevailing,
The two sexes are at present the weak and the strong,
That is not at all unusual for this time of year.
If that were all, we should know how to manage. Flood, fire,
The dessication of grasslands, restraint of princes,
Piracy on the high seas, physical pain and fiscal grief,
These are after all our familiar tribulations,
And we have been through them all before, many, many times.
As events which belong to the natural world where
The occupation of space is the real and final fact
And time turns round itself in an obedient circle,
They occur again and again but only to pass
Again and again into their formal opposites,
From sword to ploughshare, coffin to cradle, war to work,
So that, taking the bad with the good, the pattern composed
By the ten thousand odd things that can possibly happen
Is permanent in a general average way.
Till lately we knew of no other, and between us we seemed
To have what it took -- the adrenal courage of the tiger,
The chameleon's discretion, the modesty of the doe,
Or the fern's devotion to spatial necessity:
To practice one's peculiar civic virtue was not
So impossible after all; to cut our losses
And bury our dead was really quite easy. That was why
We were always able to say: "We are children of God,
And our Father has never forsaken His people."
But then we were children: That was a moment ago,
Before an outrageous novelty had been introduced
Into our lives. Why were we never warned? Perhaps we were.
Perhaps that mysterious noise at the back of the brain
We noticed on certain occasions -- sitting alone
In the waiting room of the country junction, looking
Up at the toilet window -- was not indigestion
But this Horror starting already to scratch Its way in?
Just how, just when It succeeded we shall never know:
We can only say that now It is there and that nothing
We learnt before It was there is now of the slightest use,
For nothing like It has happened before. It's as if
We had left our house for five minutes to mail a . letter,
And during that time the living room had changed places
With the room behind the mirror over the fireplace;
It's as if, waking up with a start, we discovered
Ourselves stretched out flat on the floor, watching our shadow
Sleepily stretching itself at the window. I mean
That the world of space where events reoccur is still there,
Only now it's no longer real; the real one is nowhere
Where time never moves and nothing can ever happen:
I mean that although there's a person we know all about
Still bearing our name and loving himself as before,
That person has become a fiction; our true existence
Is decided by no one and has no importance to love.
That is why we despair; that is why we would welcome
The nursery bogey or the wine cellar ghost, why even
The violent howling of winter and war has become
Like a juke-box tune that we dare not stop. We are afraid
Of pain but more afraid of silence; for no nightmare
Of hostile objects could be as terrible as this Void.
This is the Abomination. This is the wrath of God.
- W.H. Auden
This could have been written yesterday. Thanks, Barry.
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson:
Happiness
There’s just no accounting for happiness,
or the way it turns up like a prodigal
who comes back to the dust at your feet
having squandered a fortune far away.
And how can you not forgive?
You make a feast in honor of what
was lost, and take from its place the finest
garment, which you saved for an occasion
you could not imagine, and you weep night and day
to know that you were not abandoned,
that happiness saved its most extreme form
for you alone.
No, happiness is the uncle you never
knew about, who flies a single-engine plane
onto the grassy landing strip, hitchhikes
into town, and inquires at every door
until he finds you asleep midafternoon
as you so often are during the unmerciful
hours of your despair.
It comes to the monk in his cell.
It comes to the woman sweeping the street
with a birch broom, to the child
whose mother has passed out from drink.
It comes to the lover, to the dog chewing
a sock, to the pusher, to the basketmaker,
and to the clerk stacking cans of carrots
in the night.
It even comes to the boulder
in the perpetual shade of pine barrens,
to rain falling on the open sea,
to the wineglass, weary of holding wine.
- Jane Kenyon
Henry James
“Poor Mr. James,” Virginia Woolf once said:
“He never quite met the right people.”
Poor James. He never quite met the
children of light and so he had to invent them.
Then, when people said: No one is like that.
Your books are not reality, he replied:
So much the worse for reality.
He described himself as “slow to conclude,
orotund, a slow-moving creature, circling his rooms
slowly masticating his food.”
Once, when a nephew asked his advice
on how to live, he searched his mind.
Number One, be kind, he said.
Number Two, be kind and
Number Three, be kind.
- June Beisch
Life While-You-Wait
Life While-You-Wait.
Performance without rehearsal.
Body without alterations.
Head without premeditation.
I know nothing of the role I play.
I only know it’s mine. I can’t exchange it.
I have to guess on the spot
just what this play’s all about.
Ill-prepared for the privilege of living,
I can barely keep up with the pace that the action demands.
I improvise, although I loathe improvisation.
I trip at every step over my own ignorance.
I can’t conceal my hayseed manners.
My instincts are for happy histrionics.
Stage fright makes excuses for me, which humiliate me more.
Extenuating circumstances strike me as cruel.
Words and impulses you can’t take back,
stars you’ll never get counted,
your character like a raincoat you button on the run —
the pitiful results of all this unexpectedness.
If only I could just rehearse one Wednesday in advance,
or repeat a single Thursday that has passed!
But here comes Friday with a script I haven’t seen.
Is it fair, I ask
(my voice a little hoarse,
since I couldn’t even clear my throat offstage).
You’d be wrong to think that it’s just a slapdash quiz
taken in makeshift accommodations. Oh no.
I’m standing on the set and I see how strong it is.
The props are surprisingly precise.
The machine rotating the stage has been around even longer.
The farthest galaxies have been turned on.
Oh no, there’s no question, this must be the premiere.
And whatever I do
will become forever what I’ve done.
- Wisława Szymborska
(translation by Clare Cavanaugh and Stanislaw Baranczak)
Tao Te Ching
(Verse 29)
Those who would take over the earth
And shape it to their will
Never, I notice, succeed.
The earth is like a vessel so sacred
That at the mere approach of the profane
It is marred
And when they reach out their fingers it is gone.
For a time in the world some force themselves ahead
And some are left behind,
For a time in the world some make a great noise
And some are held silent,
For a time in the world some are puffed fat
And some are kept hungry,
For a time in the world some push aboard
And some are tipped out:
At no time in the world will a man who is sane
Over-reach himself,
Over-spend himself,
Over-rate himself.
- Lao Tzu
(translation by Witter Bynner)
Dover Beach
The sea is calm to-night.
The tide is full,
the moon lies fair
Upon the straits;
on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand;
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.
Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Agaean,
and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.
The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full,
and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.
Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
- Matthew Arnold
A thousand thanks for words like these.
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Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson:
Occupy Wall Street
We need global
citizens for some sit-ins
again.
I say we all meet
on Wall Street
and lock down--
lock the whole block down!
[Drew Dellinger, 2001]
I take exception to the rule
of the greedy and the cruel.
This fall, school’s in session
and the lesson is Wall Street.
It’s time for action
and your name’s on the call sheet.
It’s time we all meet
and name what it is:
the game has been rigged
to enrich corporate
business interests that sent this economy spinning.
Charlie Sheen is not the only clueless dude that thinks he’s winning.
See, the one percent done spent all the rent.
And now the rent’s due, so we’re coming to a tent near you.
We’re the like-minded ninety-nine percent
standing up to corruption with loving dissent.
We stand for justice,
and the future,
and all of humanity.
Embracing all people.
Yes, even Sean Hannity.
The message is simple:
greed, injustice, and eco-destruction have to go.
Pay attention corporate media. We’ll try to say it slow.
It’s time to
rock the nation,
rock this occupation.
It’s time for the people to peacefully fight back.
Tell Congress and the media we’re taking the mic back.
Tell the jaded it’s that long-awaited revolution.
Put away the pepper spray and re-read the Constitution.
These cops are paid to go crazy, yo.
But we’re peaceful.
Don’t tase me, bro.
We came to incite insight,
unite and discuss this.
We came to hang, and to bang the drums of justice.
Let’s occupy
with our love and our light.
Let’s occupy
the earth and the sky,
and live with all beings
as a planet-wide tribe.
Occupy the divine mind residing inside.
See, I’m the type writer
that’s known to light fires
and prone to inspire
the moment’s own higher desire.
‘Cause history knows it’s the time
for resisting the team at the scene of the crime.
Tell your friends I’ll meet ‘em there at Freedom Square.
They can’t stop us, from Seattle to Chiapas.
It’s our mission to envision
what comes after the catastrophe.
How do we move past
the capitalist disaster?
Our communities need us.
We are all leaders.
How could we ask for anything less than the future?
- Drew Dellinger
- a favorite one of mine, for decades. Thank you.
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson:
Happiness
after the fires
We’ll find it again
Perhaps not as much
as the dog in Scotland
who wagged his tail so hard
so often
it had to be
amputated
Not that happy.
But
Okay happy.
After two years in a pound
he found a home.
It will take at least that long
for some in Sonoma County
and when they do
we’ll wag our behinds
like Buster
though I don’t care what they say
there’s no such thing
as a forever home.
- Katherine Hastings
Note: Buster, named “the happiest dog in Scotland” is a Staffordshire Bull Terrier who had to have his tail amputated due to excessive wagging. Reported in the San Francisco Chronicle on November 13, 2017
Advent Lament Psalm
Mother of us all,
our hearts are like burned landscapes
pleading for water
We are dry, helpless
not knowing how to birth you
in this dark hate place
Yet, in times like this
our ancestors called on you
and You guided them
The people in fear
fractured within and without
and You came to them
Shine into us now
make our land fertile again
hearts watered with Light
Pregnant with the light
- Ruah Bull
Tell
Here we walk through the woods
down a road
paved with two words:
us.
The hour before dawn is the hour
when dawn will never come,
waiting to be born
for breakfast.
I give you only masterpieces.
Because since your arms are already wide enough
to go around the whole world and hug it
nothing less will fit them.
Take responsibility for this secret.
Tell everyone.
- Bruce Moody
Coyotes
Is this world truly fallen? They say no.
For there's the new moon, there's the Milky Way,
There's the rattler with a wren's egg in its mouth,
And there's the panting rabbit they will eat.
They sing their wild hymn on the dark slope,
Reading the stars like notes of hilarious music.
Is this a fallen world? How could it be?
And yet we're crying over the stars again,
And over the uncertainty of death,
Which we suspect will divide us all forever.
I'm tired of those who broadcast their certainties,
Constantly on their cell phones to their redeemer.
Is this a fallen world? For them it is.
But there's that starlit burst of animal laughter.
The day has sent its fires scattering.
The night has risen from its burning bed.
Our tears are proof that love is meant for life
And for the living. And this chorus of praise,
Which the pet dogs of the neighborhood are answering
Nostalgically, invites our answer, too.
Is this a fallen world? How could it be?
- Mark Jarman
Lovely poem, Larry. Thanks for sharing. It reminded me of Mary Oliver's wonderful poem, a kind of corollary:
WILD GEESE
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting—
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
Mary Oliver
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson:
And thanks to Larry, too, of course!
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson:
“Monday Monday, can’t trust that day”
The woman with the suitcase
I. BACK
Monday 10.2.17
wake up call 4:45 am
pack a snack water
wear a warm jacket walk
hotel to the bus
hour and a half
ride through grasslands
light forest some towns
arrive at the gate
Auschwitz
. . .
I want to tell you
you are remembered
I don’t know you
I can’t find you among lists of names
grainy black and white photos
inside a window box
thousands of wire-rimmed glasses
piled willy-nilly in a heap
. . .
there is a magnitude
of this holocaust
which I cannot grasp
a level of atrocity
difficult to fathom
perhaps the most incredulous
of my impressions
is the utter organization
the mechanistic operation
of this killing factory
. . .
whether Dachau Theresienstadt
the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC
the Yad Vashem in Jerusalem
its thin metal arms and legs sticking into the air
each with their slanted interpretations
the genocide is unmistakable
here in Poland
in and around orderly buildings
I peer through barbed wire
see torn striped clothing
run my fingers
along with the brick wall backdrop
of a firing squad
gaze at photos of castrated inmates
hollow-cheeked children stare
wide-eyed into the unknown
. . .
how can I reach you
any one person unknown
to cradle your fear
your suffering
your disbelief
hold it as my own
which in some way it is
I am among visitors
from Japan Germany
other parts of Europe
young faces drinking in atrocities
I hear sobbing
wooden torsos walk through the museum walls
tour guides tell their stories
in multiple languages
so it should not be forgotten
for a moment I go
into that trance place
to honor you
even the perpetrators
so hardened off from compassion
on the bus back to Kraków
humbled for this life
I eat my sandwich
drink water
embarrassed at the wealth
of food and drink
transportation and warmth
I return to the hotel
learn of the massive shooting in Las Vegas
it is still Monday, October 2 2017
the largest massacre in US history
a drop in the bucket
of humans unable to get along
whether one person or 6 million
whether a Jew or a Pole
a white rocker at a concert
the sacrilege of taking life
has become the norm
our human race races
toward annihilation
I think of you again
the person thrown
into a mass grave
after the bullets the beatings
your skeleton shoveled into the furnace
after the gas
Auschwitz Aleppo Nagasaki
are our survivor skills
stronger than the systematic slaughtering
engineered with the precision
of our developed frontal brain?
what happened?
I forgot to take a stone from the camp
to bring home as a remembrance
maybe just as well
the stones belong there
in sacred territory
II. FORWARD
1991 to the present
resilience in the Baltics
independence from oppression
capitalism and new energy
NATO and the EU
there’s humor optimism
smart people extol virtues of victory
I wander north through Vilnius
my maternal grandfather was born here
then further north into Latvia
search for the hometown
of my paternal grandmother
its name not on a map
the territory occupied by many regimes
in a few short years
I can’t quite find the “old country” where
Grandma Becky left her home
as a young woman seeking
a new life taking
only her suitcase
with the requisite candlesticks
III. BACK AND FORWARD
Monday 10.9.17
still in Riga with its
vitality and rich chocolate
awake to the ping
an email around 4 a.m.
my neighborhood evacuations
northern California on alert
safe not safe
national news disaster zone
up by day more touring more chocolate
restored buildings opulence of castles
collections pilfered through centuries
Tallinn Helsinki St. Petersburg
pride of history celebrating culture
by night hours in bed linking
to a newly charred past
through the 2.5 x 4 inch smart phone screen
streaming KSRO across the Atlantic
flames first responders
yelling “get out get out”
coverage of my neighborhood
one street over
chaos fear dread
then the aerial photos
it’s gone all of it
structures car computer
all records
memorabilia
the entire neighborhood
it’s gone all of it
a different kind of firing squad
not the systematic mechanized way
of the Nazi empire
but random capricious fire
ashes ashes
they all fell down
a tree stands amid its dead brothers
and the stones remain
sacred territory
I have returned like Dorothy from OZ
I have become what I sought to understand
homeless ungrounded fractured
moving to new territory
with only the clothes I brought with me
I have become the woman
with the suitcase
not grasping my
grandmother’s adventure
to get out
but now learning to navigate
my own where
I cannot go back in
- Sharon Bard
I wish you much greening and renewal, as you face your own personal 'ground zero'....
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson:
We Breathe You
There was a curious dusting of a talcum-like substance on my car one morning last week.
I drove away. It flew off, disappearing into the air.
Then it came to me.
The fires.
The terrible, terrible fires reducing your homes, your towns, even some of you into fine ash and carried on the wind thirty, forty, fifty, miles off.
We read newspapers, see the pictures and videos, wring our hands and pray.
My wife packed blankets, pillows, food and water.
“Paper says you can leave them at Community Market. They’ll get them to the victims.”
I couldn’t get into the market’s driveway for the long lines of those dropping off their boxes filled with concern and love.
Heard that I could take the items to a union hall – “We hoped to get enough to fill a semi truckload,” the man at the hall said, “but we got that on the first day, we’re sending another.”
So many good people.
And the ash of your homes, towns, of you - we breathe it in taking you into our bodies - you literally become us - streaming through our hearts.
- Armando Garcia-Dávila
September 2015
The Yellow Leaf
In Washington Square Park
A yellow leaf
drifts
slowly down,
turning langorously
like a swimmer afloat
on gentle waves.
I watch it go
down,
slantwise,
down
till it is lost
in a patch of pale asters.
“Do it again!”
I cry, almost aloud.
But no.
Never again.
Never in the history of the universe
past and to come
will it happen again.
And so, the moments of my life
each unique, inimitable, irretrievable,
gone forever.
And yet,
unlike that singular leaf,
another follows,
and another
giving the illusion
of immortality.
- Nina Mermey Klippel
Protest
To sin by silence, when we should protest,
Makes cowards out of men. The human race
Has climbed on protest. Had no voice been raised
Against injustice, ignorance, and lust,
The inquisition yet would serve the law,
And guillotines decide our least disputes.
The few who dare, must speak and speak again
To right the wrongs of many. Speech, thank God,
No vested power in this great day and land
Can gag or throttle. Press and voice may cry
Loud disapproval of existing ills;
May criticise oppression and condemn
The lawlessness of wealth-protecting laws
That let the children and childbearers toil
To purchase ease for idle millionaires.
Therefore I do protest against the boast
Of independence in this mighty land.
Call no chain strong, which holds one rusted link.
Call no land free, that holds one fettered slave.
Until the manacled slim wrists of babes
Are loosed to toss in childish sport and glee,
Until the mother bears no burden, save
The precious one beneath her heart, until
God’s soil is rescued from the clutch of greed
And given back to labor, let no man
Call this the land of freedom.
- Ella Wheeler
(1914)
Strong stuff! And never so important as right this moment!
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson:
Finding The Space In The Heart
I first saw it in the sixties,
driving a Volkswagen camper
with a fierce gay poet and a
lovely but dangerous girl with a husky voice,
we came down from Canada
on the dry east side of the ranges. Grand Coulee, Blue
Mountains, lava flow caves,
the Alvord desert—pronghorn ranges—
and the glittering obsidian-paved
dirt track toward Vya,
seldom-seen roads late September and
thick frost at dawn; then
follow a canyon and suddenly open to
silvery flats that curved over the edge
O, ah! The
awareness of emptiness
brings forth a heart of compassion!
We followed the rim of the playa
to a bar where the roads end
and over a pass into Pyramid Lake
from the Smoke Creek side,
by the ranches of wizards
who follow the tipi path.
The next day we reached San Francisco
in a time when it seemed
the world might head a new way.
And again, in the seventies, back from
Montana, I recklessly pulled off the highway
took a dirt track onto the flats,
got stuck—scared the kids—slept the night,
and the next day sucked free and went on.
Fifteen years passed. In the eighties
With my lover I went where the roads end.
Walked the hills for a day,
looked out where it all drops away,
discovered a path
of carved stone inscriptions tucked into the sagebrush
“Stomp out greed”
“The best things in life are not things”
words placed by an old desert sage.
Faint shorelines seen high on these slopes,
long gone Lake Lahontan,
cutthroat trout spirit in silt—
Columbian Mammoth bones
four hundred feet up on the wave-etched
beach ledge; curly-horned
desert sheep outlines pecked into the rock,
and turned the truck onto the playa
heading for know-not,
bone-gray dust boiling and billowing,
mile after mile, trackless and featureless,
let the car coast to a halt
on the crazed cracked
flat hard face where
winter snow spirals, and
summer sun bakes like a kiln.
Off nowhere, to be or not be,
all equal, far reaches, no bounds.
Sound swallowed away
no waters, no mountains, no
bush no grass and
because no grass
no shade but your shadow.
No flatness because no not-flatness.
No loss, no gain. So—
nothing in the way!
—the ground is the sky
the sky is the ground,
no place between, just
wind-whip breeze,
tent-mouth leeward,
time being here.
We meet heart to heart,
leg hard-twined to leg,
with a kiss that goes to the bone.
Dawn sun comes straight in the eye. The tooth
of a far peak called King Lear.
Now in the nineties desert night
—my lover’s my wife—
old friends, old trucks, drawn around;
great arcs of kids on bikes out there in darkness
no lights—just planet Venus glinting
by the calyx crescent moon,
and tasting grasshoppers roasted in a pan.
They all somehow swarm down here—
sons and daughters in the circle
eating grasshoppers grimacing,
singing sūtras for the insects in the wilderness,
—the wideness, the
foolish loving spaces
full of heart.
Walking on walking,
under foot earth turns
Streams and mountains never stay the same.
The space goes on.
But the wet black brush
tip drawn to a point,
lifts away.
- Gary Snyder
Marin-an 1956—Kitkitdizze 1996
Photo: William Rain
Late Autumn
Late Autumn's shiver peels loose
the petals the sun warmed in summer
preparing for the sharp winds and fury
of rains, winter's threshold the startled
psyche now crosses.
The fall, harbinger of changing moods,
pulled the net of the lowering sun into the
sleek inlets of contemplation, inviting impasse
and withdrawal. November air freezes the
nailed,half-peeled calender page that signals
the solstice and the bracing for the cold and
demanding days ahead. Already we've seen
geese on their flights spreading omens of
change. For some winter will signal renewed
intentions while for others unfinished chores
will have to wait. We will survive and in time
bless this cycle as the song that endures
in the sound of adversity with it's brave note
of will and self-forgiveness.
Such sounds were heard in Fall's elegies
of birds, moods felt in the trees' disrobing of
their colored leaves, flowers tearful in the morning's
veils of frost. Now the earth will become even more
reclusive. Windows will darken, maybe our spirits
as well. Sudden December will pull away from
much of what's tentative and irresolute inside us,
precipitating perhaps an adaptation to a deeper
and unstoppable will. Late Autumn is the corridor
preceding a sharp shift. It allows us to shelter
in our gathered bedding for that nestled gift of
intimate sleep.
- Rich Meyers
Season of skinny candles
A row of tall skinny candles burns
quickly into the night
air, the shames* raised
over the rest
for its hard work.
Darkness rushes in
after the sun sinks
like a bright plug pulled.
Our eyes drown in night
thick as ink pudding.
When even the moon
starves to a sliver
of quicksilver
the little candles poke
holes in the blackness.
A time to eat fat
and oil, a time to gamble
for pennies and gambol
- Marge Piercy
*shames: the middle candle that lights the others every night
When Random Sharks Attack
When a frenzy of orange threshers
battle-sharpened yellow teeth ablaze
rushes to take your home
nothing can prepare you for the carnage
Denial an oh so temporary refuge
briefly houses your future plans and hopes
It too is overtaken by voracious marauders
I speak as one consumed
I dream of a huge red bear
I am empty sad feel worthless
I don’t know what to do be still or fight
Luck had saved me up 'til the present
I’m watching scores of rock doves swoop
these Oakland hills evade the stoop of circling
red tail hawks eye level with our refuge from
the fire oh that black senses-deadened early morning
blind eyed rush without a single dorsal fin
to warn or woo while now and here in hills
across the Bay awake to strangeness:
curse of phantom pain we know but still
we want the easy comfort of our house
the sense of going home to what we know
to what we together purchased once we married
I seek a new thesaurus to explain things
Here in space where furniture doesn’t fit me
in and out of my body feeling freaky
If it’s true that attachment equaled suffering
I’ve been shoved on to the road of enlightenment
all too quickly here in a region known as Purgatory
atoning for my sin of routine comfort
We almost died
We did not die
We lost a house
And all possessions
Much more remains
In the rubble of our pain
The innocence of sharks
very much maligned
- Ed Coletti
A Winter Solstice Prayer
The dark shadow of space leans over us. . . . .
We are mindful that the darkness of greed, exploitation, and hatred
also lengthens its shadow over our small planet Earth.
As our ancestors feared death and evil and all the dark powers of winter,
we fear that the darkness of war, discrimination, and selfishness
may doom us and our planet to an eternal winter.
May we find hope in the lights we have kindled on this sacred night,
hope in one another and in all who form the web-work of peace and justice
that spans the world.
In the heart of every person on this Earth
burns the spark of luminous goodness;
in no heart is there total darkness.
May we who have celebrated this winter solstice,
by our lives and service, by our prayers and love,
call forth from one another the light and the love
that is hidden in every heart.
Amen.
- Edward Hayes
Winter Solstice
Perhaps
for a
moment
the typewriters will
stop clicking,
the wheels stop
rolling
the computers desist
from computing,
and a hush will fall
over the city.
For an instant, in
the stillness,
the chiming of the
celestial spheres will be heard
as earth hangs
poised
in the crystalline
darkness, and then
gracefully
tilts.
Let there be a
season
when holiness is
heard, and
the splendor of
living is revealed.
Stunned to stillness
by beauty
we remember who we
are and why we are here.
There are
inexplicable mysteries.
We are not
alone.
In the universe there
moves a Wild One
whose gestures alter
earth's axis
toward
love.
In the immense
darkness
everything spins with
joy.
The cosmos enfolds
us.
We are caught in a
web of stars,
cradled in a swaying
embrace,
rocked by the holy
night,
babes of the
universe.
Let this be the
time
we wake to
life,
like spring wakes, in
the moment
of winter
solstice
- Rebecca Parker
Winter Solstice: Persephone's Return
I stand at my kitchen window
in the silence of the still sleeping
house and watch the sun
scatter eucalyptus light into leaves,
peel red strips of sky from
smoothed trunks.
Naked in the morning.
Gathering up the shards of light,
I arrange them into day, work,
and they emerge
into sudden brilliance.
Jays flash blue glints.
The sun warms my back.
The winter garden grows green,
all leaves. A single turnip
purples the earth where I dig
into clumped earth, press clay,
mold the vessel that gathers the rain.
The birds drink from the earthen moon.
Evening, I hold the water-colored
sky bowl in my hands, descend
as daughter of the earth, and dream,
as the moon rises, tipping
the bowl, awakening to each return
of the day with crimson lips,
pomegranate seeds
still on my tongue.
When it grows light,
I will plant them.
- Fran Holland-Claggett