In times like these, we cry out for poetry
When we last visited in August, I had definite plans for my next post. But then … the lens of Life’s kaleidoscope got twisted again and all my good ideas were set aside. Pivoting these days is not something I do as quickly or as gracefully as I once did, and while everything seemed to be happening all at once, of course it wasn’t.
First, there was the exuberant energy of the Convention, followed by dancing in the streets and phone banking and postcard writing and a readiness to get down to business.
And then … just as September was rolling in, there came more global news of increasingly vengeful death and destruction; an eye for an eye doing its best to make the whole world blind. The murder of six Israeli hostages on their way to being released was a pivot point for me. When my substack friend Val D. Phillips, as part of her post “Because Poetry is Also Resistance,” shared this poem by Mosab Abu Toha, and said “Today the poetry of Gaza is all I have,” I got the nudge I needed. Thank you, Val.
And when we die, our bones will continue to grow, to reach and intertwine with the roots of the olive and orange trees, to bathe in the sweet Yaffa sea. One day we will be born again when you’re not there. Because this land knows us. She is our mother. When we die, we’re just resting in her womb until the darkness is cleared.
And then … school began and a 14-year old child in Georgia, with a weapon no child should ever have access to, murdered schoolmates and teachers. I don’t know about you, but I became literally ‘sick to my stomach’ when I heard the not-public-school-teacher VP candidate tell a campaign audience that school massacres carried out by kids with assault weapons was just an unfortunate “fact of life” in our country; a reality we don’t have to like, but one we just have to live with. Excuse me while I throw up.
So … to keep myself from running screaming from the room, I thought about how, if we squint really hard through the lens of a kaleidoscope, we can see, not chaos, but constantly changing possibilities, and I thought about what a blessing it is, during times like these, that there is poetry. So today I invite you to take a deep breath or two or more and to settle in for a longer than normal read, or one that you might rather do in segments with time and space in between. I invite you to wrap your arms around some of the poems that are there when I need them to get through what cannot be said.
School Prayer by Diane Ackerman In the name of the daybreak and the eyelids of morning and the wayfaring moon and the night when it departs, I swear I will not dishonor my soul with hatred, but offer myself humbly as a guardian of nature, as a healer of misery, as a messenger of wonder, as an architect of peace. In the name of the sun and its mirrors and the day that embraces it and the cloud veils drawn over it and the uttermost night and the male and female and the plants bursting with seed and the crowning seasons of the firefly and the apple, I will honor all life ----wherever and in whatever form it may dwell --- on Earth my home, and in the mansions of the stars.
In Any Event by Dorianne Laux If we are fractured we are fractured like stars bred to shine in every direction, billions of years since and hence. I shall not lament the human, not yet. There is something more to come, our hearts a gold mine not yet plumbed, an uncharted sea. Nothing is gone forever. If we come from dust and will return to dust then we can find our way into anything. What we are capable of is not yet known, and I praise us now, in advance.
Julia Fehrenbacher, another Oregon poet whom I’ve long admired, is now also writing on Substack, where she shared this bit of beauty and encouragement, reminding us that this world urgently needs lighter brighter braver people.
“Why bother? Because right now, there is someone out there with a wound in the exact shape of your words.” –Sean Thomas Dougherty
Why Must You Bother? By Julia Fehrenbacher Because flowers can't won't don't bloom in the dark, except for the moon lily and other nightshades, but even they need some source of light. And because saying what is true, allowing the page to hold what has lived too long inside you makes you lighter, brighter, braver and this world urgently needs lighter brighter braver people. Because the bigness inside you must stretch grow rise roar— because when you find your roar your roar finds me. And because, damn it, isn't it time?
Ahh yes, isn’t it time? Another Substack companion, Elizabeth, known as the 26th Avenue Poet, just happened to show up with this gem on the very day I was joining some of my Portland Raging Granny friends for a Postcard Party.
POSTCARDS TO VOTERS Dear fellow voter, I write, because I do not know your name, only your mailing address which I forgot as soon as I wrote it on the front of this card, only that and the promise that your convictions are closer to mine than to the abyss, Dear fellow voter, here in my best printing in blue ballpoint pen is the name of your candidate for Congress, for State Assembly, for the School Board, with then a well-honed sentence implying every reason they deserve and need your vote; or here is the name of a ballot measure with VOTE YES or NO in block caps beside it, or here is a number you can call to be assured that you are on the rolls, your ballot will be in the mail. Here is a final pithy sentence on elections and democracy, and the weight of your vote. Dear fellow voter, here is one whole side of a pre-stamped postcard in blue ballpoint pen, in my best printing; here is the smiley-face I drew next to two letters that I reversed because my hand was tired, then overwrote – see? not a bot!; here are my urgent underlinings in red pencil of essential blue-ballpoint words, and here at the bottom is a red-pencil heart next to my own first name, scribbled in cursive. Dear fellow voter whose name I do not know, I hope you hear the beating of that red-pencil heart as you read this note from a stranger about things she hopes you have already decided; I hope you feel my hopes adding weight to your vote for this candidate or that cause, for any step backward from the edge of the abyss. I hope you know a love-note when you read one, even from someone who does not know your name.
From my friend, Annie, who claims to be a non-poet, came these words just this morning, written in response to the crazy ugly hateful lies we’ve heard lately about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio.
I found myself being alternately enraged, and sad, and fearful too —- which is probably what tRump had in mind all the time. The way to fix all of those emotions for me is to do something – so I reached out to the HCHSC with a small email of support. I got a response about 10 minutes later, thanking me for my support! I would love it if the HSHSC would be deluged with supportive notes, emails, contributions, etc. If you can find a minute to do this, and also to pass this info along to family or friends it would be a wonderful thing.
The address for the Haitian Community Help and Support Center in Springfield OH is: 1530 S. Yellow Springs Street 45506. Their email address is: haitianhelpcenterspringfield@gmail.com. Their website is: https://www.haitiansupportcenterspringfield.org. THANK YOU, ANNIE!! And to paraphrase your closing words … as we walk our talk together we can be many doing one small thing to right a wrong.
In closing, may we hold in our hearts the image of that remarkably sunny, remarkably brutal eleventh day of September twenty-three years ago; for it is when we forget to remember, that history repeats itself. Let us also take Amanda’s reminder to heart … to remember the audacity of our hope and the vitality of our vote … to remember that perhaps the American Dream is no dream at all, but a Dare, to dream together. Let us be worthy of it.
And finally, from the beloved Oregon poet Kim Stafford, a Proclamation For Peace. If you’d like to hear the NPR interview with Kim and the story of the poem’s recent translation into 50 languages, here you go.
Proclamation for Peace Whereas the world is a house on fire; Whereas the nations are filled with shouting; Whereas hope seems small, sometimes a single bird on a wire left by migration behind. Whereas kindness is seldom in the news and peace an abstraction while war is real; Whereas words are all I have; Whereas my life is short; Whereas I am afraid; Whereas I am free—despite all fire and anger and fear; Be it therefore resolved a song shall be my calling—a song not yet made shall be vocation and peaceful words the work of my remaining days. Kim Stafford
P.S. Not to leave without music.
Until we meet again, let us remember that we are all One Family and do whatever is ours to do as we make peaceful words the work our remaining days.
With Love, Sulima
As usual, heartfelt and spot on. i especially loved the Postcards to Voters as I have been writing lots of postcards as one thing I can do to try to make a positive change. Who knew poetry could be written about something like that?