Approaching the first week of America’s National Poetry Month, my kickoff plan was to begin an exploration of the role of Poetry in America Today, possibly beginning with a gentle but provocative piece like Gretchen Haley’s Call to Worship poem, “The Bright Thread of Hope” where she opens with … There is too much beauty / in this world / to give up / on it / yet / and it is always too soon / to surrender / to cynicism. And then ….
To me, Poetry is the container that holds it all … the beauty and the brokenness, the cynicism and despair, and the hope. I expected we could touch on a bit of it all in the weeks to follow. And then … came the Covenant School shooting in Nashville claiming the lives of seven human Beings, three more of the precious children meant to be our future, and four adults.
And then …. as so often happens, my little path, the one paved with my little plans, cried out for reconstruction. Perhaps T.S. Eliot was right. Perhaps April IS the cruellest month. So instead of beginning with a bright thread of hope, I shifted gears and decided to begin with these words from the U.S. Senate Chaplain Barry Black, who later admitted “going rogue” when he opened the March 30th session with a prayer that began … When babies die in a church school, it’s time for us to move beyond thoughts and prayers. Remind our Lawmakers, Lord, of the words of the British Statesman, Edmund Burke: “All that is necessary for Evil to prevail is for good people to do nothing.”
And then … a friend posted this on her Facebook page:
And then … Maya Stein wrote these words for her traditional Ten-Line Tuesday.
The poems we do not want to write have the words “surveillance video” in them. Also,
“automatic weapon” and “body camera footage” and “assailant” and “victims.” And now,
even “9-year-old” has a horrified tint to it. Ditto “side door” and “classroom” and “map.”
“Multiple” has lost all traces of its former lyricism; “custodian” and “church,”
their metaphor. What is left, after forensic teams sweep through, scrubbing for evidence?
The poems we do not want to write are a lineup of bouquets and stuffed teddy bears
colliding on a sidewalk feet away from an intersection of wide yellow tape that reads
“Do not cross.” The poems we do not want to write step through, walk a minefield
of broken glass on the other side. The poems we do not want to write
we must because they have names: Katherine, Cynthia, Mike, Hallie, William, Evelyn.
© Maya Stein
Indeed, as Maya says, the poems we do not want to write are the ones we must write. But “we”? Who are “we”? Who was it that said, “If not now, when? and if not us, who?” And who said, ‘the pen is mightier than the sword?” And wasn’t it June Jordan who first said “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for?”
I know it was Dostoyevsky who said:
“I am sorry I can say nothing more to console you, for love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared with love in dreams. Love in dreams is greedy for immediate action, rapidly performed and in the sight of all. Men will even give their lives if only the ordeal does not last long but is soon over, with all looking on and applauding as though on stage. But active love is labor and fortitude, and for some people too, perhaps, a complete science.” ―Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
I know it is the amazing contemporary poet Andrea Gibson who reminds us: “Hope is just another idea until it laces up its boots,” and the iconic Joanna Macy who wrote: “Active Hope is not wishful thinking. Active Hope is not waiting to be rescued by the Lone Ranger or some Savior. … We’ve come a long way and are here to play our part.” (Active Hope, Chapter Two) And there is always Edward Everett Hale (Man Without a Country) who told us “I am only One, but still I am One. I cannot do Everything, but still I can do Something. And because I cannot do Everything, I must not refuse to do Something that I can do.”
And therein lies the question, doesn’t it? What is my particular “Something”? What does it mean to lace up MY boots, to pull up MY Big Girl underpants and Stand Up for what I believe needs standing up for? Perhaps it is putting my words to the page and sharing them with you today that is part of my particular something. Perhaps your particular something in this particular moment is passing these words on to others who might find them helpful in some way … or coming up with some of your own that you didn’t know were yours to offer until just this moment.
It is National Poetry Month … Let us Rejoice together in All that April has to offer, including the Reverend Gretchen Haley’s Call-to-Worship poem:
The Bright Thread of Hope
There is too much beauty
in this world
to give up
on it
yet,
and it is always too soon
to surrender
to cynicism.
Bring your doubt,
your skepticism
your downright confusion
even your bitterness
–but in the midst of all these,
in the center,
wrap your tender fingers
around that still
bright thread of hope,
feel in your heart that
still steady hunger for
something more,
the vision
we glimpse
every day
in the rising sun
across the foothills
the light
that spreads across
the face
of the one we love
the look of knowing
all there is to know
and still
loving life, loving us
just as it is, just as we are.
For this hour
we come to
celebrate, to praise, to give thanks
to refuse to give up
to steady ourselves
keepers of hope
brave builders of
this still-possible
world.
Come, let us worship together.
And just one last thing …. another of my “particular somethings” that makes me proud to stand with the Portland Raging Grannies (although not in this video).
