tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15013986412570016532024-03-06T00:29:37.759-05:00Difficult Lovesprincess kanomanomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11561324385057329327noreply@blogger.comBlogger667125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1501398641257001653.post-10063284639852993122019-05-05T22:36:00.000-04:002019-05-07T11:02:26.783-04:00Talking to my white son, as a white mom, about de/colonization<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I recently realized I haven’t talked much with my kid (age six) about our country’s colonialist past and the fact that we live on stolen land. Which isn’t surprising considering my own thought patterns, which tend to focus on more recent indicators of racism/white supremacy/patriarchy. I’m aiming to educate myself about Indigenous cultures and history in my (Northeast) corner of the country; meanwhile, I want to also bring my son into conversations about the people who rooted in our area before many were overtaken by colonizing Western Europeans, and about what we can do in the day to day to actively oppose colonizer mentality. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />For years now I’ve asked and attempted to explain the question “does your heart feel open or closed right now?” with Finn, and I think he understands in his way. Connecting with friends and family; helping people who have less than we do; soaking up the beauty of nature and honoring the Earth by not littering, by recycling, by composting; expressing gratitude for the food that nourishes us and our shared companionship as we sit down for meals… Though in talking to Finn I haven’t really framed them as such, these are all things our family does that challenge the pillaging, winner-take-all foundation of whiteness in our country. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/American-Indians-in-Childrens-Literature-135600323158921/?hc_location=ufi">This FB page</a> was recently recommended by a friend as a solid resource for locating children's books that accurately represent American Indians and the European takeover—and <a href="https://zoom.us/webinar/register/617357490/success?user_id=959wY4JfQJaBWO7aYtyINQ&timezone_id=America%2FNew_York">here's an upcoming webinar</a> (May 28!) I just learned about and will be joining. Glad for the support.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The other night I asked Finn, “Hey, do you think it’s possible for humans to own land? Like, to say that parts of Mother Earth belong to them?” Finn: Smiling, knowing I’m talking serious here. “Yeah.” Me: “Really? Like how we can go to a store and pay money for a book that we can then take home with us because we bought it?” Finn: Pausing, appearing to think on it. “You can buy a toy Planet Earth from the store.” Me: “Ah, yep. But that’s a toy, right? Different from the earth we walk on.” Finn: Quiet but possibly absorbing.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">While distractions were, as always, the norm (“I want dessert”; “where’s my giant shark tooth?”), Finn appeared to more or less stay with me, probably in good part because of his current interest in weapons/violence, as I talked about how hundreds of years ago white men sailed across the ocean in search of more land/wealth/power, which they made sure to secure, wiping out entire peoples as they went along. I told Finn that even though I don’t believe land can truly *belong* to any person, the first people to discover the land he knows as the United States—the Native tribes that the white men encountered—had lived on it and honored it for thousands of years before the white men came and declared it theirs. Finn: “Maybe they did that because someone treated them unkindly when they were a kid.” Me: “Yes, I think that sort of thing is often a factor. But there’s more to it, and we can keep talking about it.”</span>princess kanomanomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11561324385057329327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1501398641257001653.post-271635810698060182019-03-29T17:11:00.001-04:002019-03-29T17:11:39.676-04:00Supermarket Blues: Classism in America<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I recently watched <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3OgYC5o4fw">this brief video</a> with my six-year-old. Afterward, Finn, who lately is interested in dramatic situations and intense emotions, wanted to talk about the one parent’s departure early on and the mother’s tears over not consistently being able to feed her family due to working a low-paying job. I took the opportunity to talk about the fact that, unfortunately, because of the way our country is set up, there are big differences in the amount of money people are able to make at their jobs, with a small number of folks making a lot more than the rest, which can make things really hard (and sad) for some—plus the added difficulty that some families face when only one parent is able to bring home a paycheck. I had Finn’s ear for this. I then mentioned the wrongful assumptions that are often made about folks who ask for money outside grocery stores and other places (not hard enough workers, lazy), which my kid wasn’t as present for. (I know better than to go beyond a minute with this stuff!) But I know we’ll return to the topic—Finn may even bring it up himself, in his own six-year-old way.</span>princess kanomanomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11561324385057329327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1501398641257001653.post-26959833748016441012019-01-20T15:19:00.001-05:002019-01-20T16:43:20.102-05:00Talking with my white kid, as a white mom, about mass incarceration<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>April 2018</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Scene: It’s bedtime, and I’m chatting about this and that with my kid while he flips through a book. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Kid: </b>Mama, what is jail?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Me: </b>Well, basically, jail is a place—a big building—where some people go when they do things that are very unkind and that hurt other people a lot, or that the people who are in charge of the country have decided are what’s known as “against the law”—</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Kid:</b> [Cutting me off, because at five he’s ready to move on] What do they do there?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Me:</b> Well, not a lot. And that’s because jail isn’t supposed to be fun or anything—it’s a place where people go because they maybe did things that are really uncaring or wrong and the idea is that, in jail, they spend a lot of time thinking about what they did. And the food doesn’t taste very good. But there are things that people in jail can do—like read books and do exercise.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Kid:</b> [Clearly listening to me now] Oh.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Me:</b> And honestly, I don’t agree with a lot of the things about jail. Often there isn’t really a chance for people in jail to get the help they need, like by talking to helpful people about things they’re having a hard time with and about why they might have done unkind things. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">[My kid is quiet but still with me. So, inspired by the experience of a fellow white <a href="http://www.act4socialjustice.com/consultingtraining/">Parenting for Racial Justice workshop</a> participant who’d addressed the topic of racist policing with her little one, I decide to keep going.] </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Me:</b> You know another thing I don’t like about jail?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Kid:</b> What?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Me:</b> Well, black people get put in jail more often than white people do. And it’s because black people aren’t treated the same as white people by police officers and other powerful people—they’re not treated as well—and it’s unjust and unkind and not right, and your dad and I are very against it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Kid: </b>Oh.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Me:</b> Yeah. There are a lot of things about jail and about how black people are treated differently from white people, and they’re kind of hard to explain and understand, but we can keep talking, more and more as you get older—and I want you to know you can always come to your dad and me with more questions about any of these things. OK?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Kid: </b>OK.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>Reflections (specific): In the wake of the above exchange, I felt pretty good about how I’d proceeded. As usual, I saw room for improvement in the form of using fewer words, but for the most part my kid had seemed interested in what I was saying. </i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>Reflections (general): I'm always primed for my kid to go off on tangents and topics to run away from us if I pause too long or ask him his thoughts—but I know it’s important to try to involve him in a meaningful way if the social justice topics that are important to me are going to speak to him as well. Also, as I remind myself, I’ll be living with this person for at least another 13 years, so chances are excellent that opportunities for follow-up conversations will arise.</i></span>princess kanomanomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11561324385057329327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1501398641257001653.post-43261557641788619022019-01-20T14:51:00.001-05:002019-01-20T15:02:09.243-05:00We Are the Immigrants <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Topics of immigration and asylum seeking continue to be front-and-center in the U.S., with 45 taking every opportunity to make his unabashedly racist positions clear. The other week I realized that these are topics I hadn’t to date explored much with my almost-six-year-old, so I dug around online and found some great resources to support my conversations with him, including the animated short “<a href="https://catalinamatamoros.com/we-are-the-immigrants">We Are the Immigrants</a>." The film, thesis project of <a href="https://catalinamatamoros.com/about-1">Catalina Matamoros</a>, an award-winning animator and illustrator from Colombia, narrates the hardships of a girl and her family as they cross the Mexican-U.S. border in hopes of reuniting with the girl’s mother. I sat down with my kid to watch, and we were both drawn in straight away, with Finn especially taken by what he called “the ghosts” as well as the appearance of, sigh, guns (topic for another post; <a href="https://kottke.org/15/01/kids-the-holocaust-and-inappropriate-play">related</a>). </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">At the end of the film I explained to Finn, who was actually paying attention to what I was saying (hardly a given with five-year-olds), that many of the families who are trying to enter our country from the southern border want to get away from governments that are doing things to hurt or potentially hurt them—but that Donald Trump, who Finn has heard his dad and me describe as cruel and only liking people who look like him/are white, doesn’t want to let them into the United States. He had just one question for me: “So where can they go?” I was struck, hearing that, and I struggled to answer in a way Finn would follow and without painting the bleak picture I guess I was trying to avoid. I pretty much said that was the problem—that they didn’t really have any good/safe options. Finn and I both went quiet, and I sensed that he’d picked up on the gravity of the conversation.</span>princess kanomanomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11561324385057329327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1501398641257001653.post-33312467490991198942018-05-25T19:57:00.001-04:002019-04-09T10:59:57.186-04:00Getting Comfortable with Discomfort--with ++ support from the ACT for Social Justice team<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-normal;"><img height="465" src="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DUpAPjRWkAAWfYb.jpg" width="640" /></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-normal;">ACT for Social Justice, based in Brattleboro, VT, <a href="http://www.act4socialjustice.com/parentingforsjblog/">published the below account of mine</a>--which I'm sharing here as well. If you're looking or know someone who's looking for <a href="http://www.act4socialjustice.com/services/">social justice support</a>, I strongly suggest checking them out! From their homepage:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-normal;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-normal;"><i>Do you want a world where all people have what they need to thrive? Equity is important in making this possible. It means that people put in what they can and get back what they need. ACT provides strategies and tools for putting equity into practice.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">***</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">From the
introductory handout at ACT for Social Justice’s racial justice workshop
series:</span><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;">In this workshop series we will look at our own
understanding of race & racism and how that impacts the way we talk with
our children about race. … Our main goals are for participants to:<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><i><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;">Gain a
deeper understanding of race/racism/white supremacy/racial justice <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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</span></span><!--[endif]--><i><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;">Build
relationships that allow for better communication about the above concepts<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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</span></span><!--[endif]--><i><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;">Set the
foundation to work together for racial justice</span></i></div>
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</span></span><!--[endif]--><i><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;">Establish
goals for personal next steps at multiple levels—personal, family, school,
community<o:p></o:p></span></i><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Early this
year, a </span><a href="http://nonotuck.org/" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Hyperlink0"><span style="mso-ansi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Nonotuck Community
School</span></span></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"> parent and diversity committee member invited parents from my
four-year-old’s nearby childcare center to join Nonotuck parents for a
three-part racial justice workshop led by ACT for Social Justice’s <a href="http://www.act4socialjustice.com/who-we-are/">Angela Berkfield and Shela
Linton</a>. I could not have been readier.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">Although I
haven’t to date done much of what I’d consider racial justice work, I’m an
empath and avid reader/defender of social justice topics at large who feels
pulled from deep down to fight oppression—and I want to raise my kid with a
solid understanding of racial inequity and the need for justice.</span><i style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"> </i><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">I’ve
been addressing skin color and unequal treatment with my five-year-old for
years, guided largely by resources I’ve found online, but I often feel like I’m
muddling through, unsure my approach is as helpful as it could be.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Back in
January, I was also fresh off a conversation with a white male neighbor that
had included sentiments along the lines of <i>it’s not like I’</i></span><i style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="PT" style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: PT; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">m a racist</span></i><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"> and <i>why would I talk to my four-year-old kid
about racism? It’s not his fault. </i>The exchange had been pretty
uncomfortable for me, and although I’d felt true to myself throughout, I was
shaken: angry and discouraged over my neighbor’s narrow view, and
second-guessing parts of my response.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">In short, I
was craving support—both in my parenting and as a white person who wants to
deepen my understanding of white privilege and its role in my life, ultimately
so that I can serve as an effective ally to people of color.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">On walking
into the classroom where the workshop would be taking place, I found a roomful
of parents who in the coming weeks I’d get to know a bit—and learn from a lot.
Chairs had been set up in a semicircle. An image of an iceberg representing two
forms of white supremacy was prominently displayed—the version that is
overt/widely socially unacceptable (hate crimes, swastikas, racial slurs) and
the one that’s more covert/socially acceptable (hiring discrimination, mass
incarceration, “colorblindness”).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">Shela and
Angela introduced themselves and their intent with the workshop. We talked
about the iceberg metaphor, and we participants introduced ourselves,
specifying racial identity, pronoun preference, and what brought us to the
workshop. People, most of us identifying as white, mentioned feeling
disappointed at the lack of racial justice programming at their kids’ schools,
family members who make offhanded racist remarks, not knowing where to start in
talking with their kids about inequity, disconnect in the value they and their
partner place on having these conversations…</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">After
introductions, everyone paired up with an “accountability buddy” to identify
and discuss goals at the personal, family, school, and community levels—goals
that we committed to check in with each other on. For example, my buddy, who
identifies as white, intended to dig deeper with a relative to try to get at
where he was coming from with his racially insensitive comments, and I planned
to email the principal of a local elementary school with a reputation for its
social justice programming (“how are you doing it?”) in hopes of eventually
bringing my findings to the administration of the school my own kid would be
attending in the fall. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><br /></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">The rest of
the session was equally engaging: participants shared more encounters they’d
had around race and difference, as did Angela and Shela, whose deep
understanding of the complexities and reach of white supremacy was and would
continue to be a gift. Three hours in, we closed (as we would each of the three
sessions) with a reading of this bell hooks quote, which was posted on the
wall: “Beloved community is formed not by the eradication of difference but by
its affirmation, by each of us claiming the identities and cultural legacies
that shape who we are and how we live in the world… We deepen those bondings by
connecting them with an anti-racist struggle.”</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">I left the
classroom with a full brain and a full heart, and confirmation that I was most
definitely in the right place at the right time. The following insight, offered
by our facilitators, was already lodged, and I knew it would stay with me:</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-normal;"><i><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><br /></span></i></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-normal;"><i><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">As a white
ally doing racial justice work, you’re going to mess up. It’s inevitable, and
it’s OK—just learn from it, adjust your approach, and keep doing the work.</span></i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-normal;"><i><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><br /></span></i></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Also:<i> It helps to get comfortable with discomfort. </i></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">Workshop
sessions two and three also resonated.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">There was
discussion of an excerpt from </span><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16280._Why_Are_All_The_Black_Kids_Sitting_Together_in_the_Cafeteria_"><span class="Hyperlink1"><span style="mso-ansi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?</span></span></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"> and a
piece, “Raising Issues of Race with Young Children,” from the anthology </span><a href="https://www.rethinkingschools.org/books/title/rethinking-early-childhood-education"><span class="Hyperlink1"><span style="mso-ansi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Rethinking Early Childhood Education</span></span></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">. In the
latter, an educator recounts initiating an activity among first-graders that
involved acknowledging difference in skin color—an activity that one African
American girl didn’t want to take part in because she knew her darker color
would stand out.</span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">One
workshop participant, who identifies as white, shared that, in reading, she’d
really felt for the girl—a girl who was put in a position that was clearly
uncomfortable for her. And it was the same woman who later added that she
understood that not acknowledging visible difference (read: the “colorblind”
approach adopted widely to date, including by my own well-meaning parents in
the ‘80s) had clearly not led to a comfortable existence for people of color at
large. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Referencing
the same anthology piece, I expressed some sympathy for white teachers called
on to initiate conversations about race and racism with kids, including kids of
color: “It just can’t be easy—especially for teachers who are new to this, who
just haven’t really done it before.” </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">We compared
notes about children’s books that reflect race and racial justice (both those
that do it well and those that fall short), and I scored a </span><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23129944-rad-american-women-a-z"><span class="Hyperlink0"><span lang="IT" style="mso-ansi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: IT; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">stellar rec</span></span></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"> in the
process. And for what I think was my favorite exercise of the workshop, we
split into groups to act out challenging conversations of our choosing. My
group sought to explain to a four-year-old and an eight-year-old the
significance of the Black Lives Matter sign in their front yard. Two of us were
parents and two were kids—and we “parents” definitely felt the challenge. Other
groups tackled talking to kids about a play their family had attended in which
the only person of color had played the “bad guy,” and sitting down with a
school principal to make good on the PTO’s desire to bring racial justice
programming to the curriculum—all scenarios drawn from participants’ </span><span lang="PT" style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: PT; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">actual experiences. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">I found the
practice (and the feedback) really helpful, and I got tips from others’ role
playing too. Also, something we’d discussed before came up again: the fact that
it’s always an option to clarify or “</span><span lang="FR" style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: FR; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">change
course.</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">” If we don’t manage to explain our position on something well or as
intended, or if we find our thinking changes, we can just say so. I’ve done
this with my kid and expect to do it plenty more. (“Hey remember the other day
when you asked about X—well, I’ve thought about it some more, and actually…”) </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">The
concluding workshop session centered on racial justice action. We brainstormed
plans at the personal, family, school, community, state, national, and global
levels, writing our ideas on large sheets of paper taped to the wall then going
around marking other actions that also resonated with us. It was awesome to see
everything that was generated in such a brief period, including:</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><i><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Recognizing my own white privilege and continuing
to do personal work/reading/etc</span></i><i><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><i><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Working to connect my passions with actions I can
take</span></i><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><i><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Connect regularly with my partner on our approach
to talking about racial justice with our kid</span></i><i><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><i><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Activism/support for targeted undocumented people</span></i><i><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><i><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Get involved in community organizing activities</span></i><i><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">As we gathered
for a last sit-down together, one white participant shared how sad and angry
ongoing racial injustice makes her feel, which was met with a roomful of nods
and yeses and Angela’s thanking her for inviting feelings into the room. I was struck,
too, by another person’s suggestion of opening race conversations that feel
hard with language like “this isn’t easy for me to bring up/talk about, but it
feels important and so I’m going to do my best.” I’ll be using that myself.</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">We talked
about our desire to welcome more people of color, both kids and staff, into the
childcare centers our kids attend and ways we can support this. Shela offered
valuable insight from the perspective of a parent of color in the Brattleboro,
VT area, sharing that in her community people of color tend to rely on
word-of-mouth when it comes to making decisions about where to send their kids.
And at the top of the list of specific considerations: would their child be in
the company of other kids of color; is the curriculum/programming strong and
does it respect and address the unique experiences of kids/families of color;
are people of color represented in staff makeup; and further down the list,
cost. (Shela shared that even when money is tight, parents of color will often
make it work if it means sending their kid to a school they feel really good
about.)</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">We also
talked about our professional backgrounds and how we can drive racial justice
progress through our jobs. As we’d done throughout the series, we made
connections. Knowing the workshop was about to end, we made plans to keep in
touch—and I will be following through.</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Since the
conclusion of the series, I’ve thought a lot about my experience. I’ve thought about how finely
tuned and effective Angela’s and Shela’s approach as facilitators had been.
They’d created an environment that felt safe and inviting, nonjudgmental—accommodating
of everyone, no matter where we were at on our path. They’d kept us in the
racial justice space, steering us back when topics of gender got too much play.
And although warm, the two hadn’t jumped in to respond to participants’
observations with nods and other affirmative gestures intended to make a
speaker feel more comfortable in talking about difficult topics, which I’ve
realized is something I see (and do) a good deal of. Neither were they quick
to challenge directly what people shared, even when a more nuanced perspective
might aid growth. They listened—really well. That’s not to say they didn’t
contribute substantially, because they did. They just did so in a way that gave
us participants room to stretch our thinking and perhaps arrive at a different
conclusion more organically, on our own. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">For
example, they emphasized throughout the workshop that no matter how challenging
and uncomfortable racial justice work may feel at times for white allies, people
of color always have it harder—and the emphasis took root. To paraphrase one
participant toward the end of the last session: <i>I think back to my 20s, to
before I had kids. It felt like such a wide open stretch—I had more time and
space and less stress and fatigue compared to today. And now, it occurs to me
that people of color don’t generally get a stretch like that at all—they’ve had
to fight through every period of their lives.</i></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">I’ve since
thought about my comment on how race conversations likely aren’t easy for white
teachers—and I now see clearly that something far less easy is being a person
of color in a world in which white supremacy continues to reign. And while that
doesn’t mean white people’</span><span lang="FR" style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: FR; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">s difficulties can</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">’t be
acknowledged, reminding myself of the relative ease that white privilege
affords is helping and will continue to help me push past anxiety brought about
by unfun exchanges like the “why should I?” one with my neighbor earlier this
year. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Speaking of
white privilege/precedence, I recently realized that, in talking about race, I
don’t yet think to share my own racial identity off the bat. For instance, the
other week I emailed an Asian American acquaintance, racial equity advocate,
and successful children’s book writer/illustrator for her insight into my
potentially representing kids of color in a story I’d written. While I’d felt
good about reaching out, it didn’t occur to me until after hitting send that
I’d failed to note (because there was a good chance she wouldn’t remember me)
that I was inquiring as a white woman. But it did occur, and I followed up.</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">I’ve also
kept in touch with my accountability buddy from the workshop—we became fast
friends and are working together, along with other likeminded parents, to drive
the change we want to see at our kids’ schools. And on recognizing that it’s
time, I’m deepening conversations with my kid about racial inequity, who the
other day asked about jail. I took the opportunity to</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"> introduce the concept of
mass incarceration, encouraged by a fellow workshop participant who recently
raised another “advanced” topic with her kid: the fact that police officers
often treat people of color differently, and far worse, than they do white
people.</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Prompted by
the assigned reading </span><a href="http://www.racialequitytools.org/resourcefiles/Compilation_of_Racial_Identity_Models_7_15_11.pdf"><span class="Hyperlink0"><span style="mso-ansi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Stages of Racial Identity Development</span></span></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">, I’m
thinking about my place on the continuum. I want to better understand and work
through my own blocks that hinder my capacity to serve as a white ally to
people of color. I want to listen more.</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">And: <i>Get comfortable with discomfort. <o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">I’m working on it.</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<i></i>
princess kanomanomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11561324385057329327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1501398641257001653.post-29252669785790560392017-04-02T11:12:00.001-04:002017-04-02T11:12:14.232-04:00Sunday Dinner<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Always my grandparents arrived</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">disguised as harmless elders. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">They'd say grace, bless the three</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">of us and our small residence </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">above my father's office.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Residence</i>. I don't choose the word</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">for the poem's sake, but because</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">it was <i>their</i> word. I want you to hear</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">what I heard</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">through all those years </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">before my mother's death,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">all those Sunday briskets </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and pot roasts, all those potatoes </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">she and I peeled on Saturdays </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and the pies whose crusts</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">we dispatched till it became ritual</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the way, I thought, the making of the host</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">must be ritual for those who toil</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">in some secret bakery blessed</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">by a bishop. I haven't forgotten</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I wrote <i>disguised</i>. And I know</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">you might wonder if I should have</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">changed that word</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">before I called this poem finished.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I meant </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">they had harmed someone.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Not me who believed </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">in the prayers they uttered,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">but my mother </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">who inhabits me each time </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I roll out the dough as she did,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">shape it, fit it to the pan,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">fill it with mincemeat or apples,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">pinch the edges together</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">with my thumb and forefinger,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and with the tines of my fork </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">prick it and prick it and prick it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">--<a href="https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=18493864131&searchurl=kn%3D%2522lee%2Buniversity%2522%26tn%3Dshenandoah%26sortby%3D17">Andrea Hollander Budy</a> </span>princess kanomanomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11561324385057329327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1501398641257001653.post-43300489586468695942016-11-30T08:55:00.001-05:002016-11-30T08:55:32.230-05:00December Morning<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">How did I come to this late happiness </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">as I wake into my remaining days</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">another morning in my life with Paula</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">taking me by surprise like the first one</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I know it is rash to speak about happiness</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">with the Fates so near that I can hear them</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">but this morning even the old regrets </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">seem to have lost their rancor</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and to harbor shy hopes like the first grass</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">of spring appearing between paving stones</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">when I was a small child and I see</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">that each step has been leading me</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">to the present morning that I recognize</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">before daylight and I forget that</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I am almost blind and I see the piles</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">of books I was going to read next</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">there they wait like statues of sitting dogs</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">faithful to someone they used to know </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">but happiness has a shape made of air</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">it was never owned by anyone</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">it comes when it will in its own time</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">--<a href="https://www.coppercanyonpress.org/pages/browse/book.asp?bg=%7B370D5539-31F0-4B38-89AF-D57D1E0ACE25%7D">W. S. Merwin</a> </span>princess kanomanomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11561324385057329327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1501398641257001653.post-60757739347473898802016-11-17T10:56:00.002-05:002016-11-17T10:56:30.787-05:00Linda Pastan for the win<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><i>All poems found <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/537681.Carnival_Evening">here</a>.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">NOTES TO MY MOTHER</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Your letters to me</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">are forwarded to my dreams</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">where you appear in snatches</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">of the past, wearing</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">appropriate clothes--</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">a thirties' shirtwaist or the long</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">seal coat you wintered in.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And since your gravestone</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">is shaped like the front</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">of our old mailbox,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'll try to leave my messages</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">of flowers there.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Feeling fine, having a good time."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I had to stamp those words</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">on postcards home from camp,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">though I was so homesick there</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'd read the nametapes on my socks</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and handkerchiefs--scraps of my real self</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">you had sewn on by hand.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And so I write it now, though</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm still homesick eight years after</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">you left me in my life for good:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">feeling fine, having a good time.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The roles of wife and mother</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">matched you with yourself</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">as perfectly as your shoes matched</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">your handbags. Therefore, for years</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I couldn't understand my own failures</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">at order and optimism.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">4.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">How many autumns I've tried to pick my life up</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">like a dropped stitch and just get on with it,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">tried to pretend the falling temperatures,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the emptying trees were not a synopsis:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">so many losses behind me, so many</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">still ahead. The world is diminished leaf</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">by single leaf, person by person</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and with excruciating slowness.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sometimes I wish some wandering</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">comet would hit, as the newspaper</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">this morning warns or promises--some stray</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">pinball ricocheting through space.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Then we'd go up together in a lovely blast</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">of fireworks like the kind I watched</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">from our July 4th window light up</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the sky with percussive neon ribbons.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And the dog, in his last month, hid</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">under the couch; and your great-grandchildren</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">couldn't decide whether to be frightened</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">or ecstatic, their laughter had that edge</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">of shrillness to it. They don't know</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">that danger is the shadow thrown</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">by every bright object; that even family love</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">can show this dull metallic underside,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">as the leaves do which move in sudden gusts</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">of September wind all in the same direction,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">like a school of panicked minnows</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">sensing a predator ahead.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">5.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Though I learned to love</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the woman you became</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">after the stroke,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I never quite forgave her</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">for hiding my real mother--you,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">somewhere</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">in the drifted snows beyond</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">that unscalable</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">widow's peak.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">6.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Everywhere</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the stream</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">of life goes on,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and I try to</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">go with it,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">non-swimmer,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">paddler in a leaky</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">canoe.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">7.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You taught me always</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">to write thank you notes, though</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I never thanked you properly,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">not even when you were dying. But</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I thought our inarticulateness</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">in the face of love was as elemental</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">as the silence of stones</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">in the same streambed. I thought</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">you wanted it that way.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">8.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As I grow older, I try</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">to draw the world in close</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">as if it were a shawl you had crocheted for me</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">from small indulgences--morning coffee</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">from the same cracked cup,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">a stroll downhill past empty mailboxes</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">where only weather may be different</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">or the seasonal colors of the birds.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And I try to think of loss as a salt sea</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'll learn to swim in later;</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">getting closer to you</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">with every overarm stroke.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">9.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Things I refuse to think about</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">also come back in dreams:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the way my fingers have started</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">to fail, as yours did, knuckle</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">by swollen knuckle. Last night</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I dreamed of handcuffs,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">amputation.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Or how even repented sins</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">are ours for good: they drift</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">down the exotic rivers</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">of medicinal sleep</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">mewling like kittens.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So in the last moments of wakefulness</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I re-create that lost world</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">whose textures are like braille</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">beneath my fingertips: the enamel</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">of the forties' stove where you taught me</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">to cook; the floral wallpaper you chose</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">whose roses had no thorns;</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the strictness of starch against skin.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And here sleep comes</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">with all its complicated gifts</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and treacheries to gather me</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">in its arms.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">--</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">BETWEEN GENERATIONS</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I left my father in a wicker basket</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">on other people's doorsteps.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now I wait to be adopted by children,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">wait in a house far between generations</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">with night rising faster</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">than the moon.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I dream of Regan laughing on her father's lap</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">behind the castle.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I laughed once in my father's face,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and he laughed, and the two laughters</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">locked like bumpers </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">that still rust away between us.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My children fill the house with departures.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Zippers close, trunks close, wire hangers jump</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">on the empty pole--ghosts without their sheets.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And I ask what strict gravity </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">pushes love down the steep incline </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">from father to child, always down?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">--</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">JOURNEY'S END</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">How hard we try to reach death safely, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">luggage intact, each child accounted for, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the wounds of passage quickly bandaged up. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We treat the years like stops along the way </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">of a long flight from the catastrophe </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">we move to, thinking: home free all at last. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wave, wave your hanky towards journey's end; </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">avert your eyes from windows grimed with twilight </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">where landscapes rush by, terrible and lovely.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">--</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">NIGHT SOUNDS</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When the clock</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">like a moon shows</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the dark side of its face</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">we reach</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">across cold expanses</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">of pillow</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">for speech.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In that silence</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">a fox barks</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">from the next field,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">or a train drags its long syllable</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">over a hill,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">or the baby</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">washed up again from sleep</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">sends its vowels</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">calling</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">for their lost</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">consonants.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">--</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">OLD WOMAN</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the evening</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">my griefs come to me</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">one by one.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">They tell me what I had hoped to forget.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">They perch on my shoulders</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">like mourning doves.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">They are the color</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">of light fading.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the day</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">they come back</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">wearing disguises.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I rock and rock</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">in the warm amnesia of sun.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When my griefs sing to me </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">from the bright throats of thrushes</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I sing back.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">--</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">TO A DAUGHTER LEAVING HOME</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When I taught you</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">at eight to ride</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">a bicycle, loping along</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">beside you</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">as you wobbled away</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">on two round wheels,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">my own mouth rounding</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">in surprise when you pulled</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">ahead down the curved</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">path of the park,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I kept waiting</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">for the thud</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">of your crash as I</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">sprinted to catch up,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">while you grew</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">smaller, more breakable</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">with distance,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">pumping, pumping</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">for your life, screaming</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">with laughter,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the hair flapping</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">behind you like a</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">handkerchief waving</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">goodbye.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">--</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">AFTER AN ABSENCE</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After an absence that was no one’s fault</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">we are shy with each other,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and our words seem younger than we are,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">as if we must return to the time we met</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and work ourselves back to the present,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the way you never read a story</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">from the place you stopped</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">but always start each book all over again.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Perhaps we should have stayed</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">tied like mountain climbers</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">by the safe cord of the phone,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">its dial our own small prayer wheel,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">our voices less ghostly across the miles,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">less awkward than they are now.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I had forgotten the grey in your curls,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">that splash of winter over your face,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">remembering the younger man</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">you used to be.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And I feel myself turn old and ordinary,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">having to think again of food for supper,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the animals to be tended, the whole riptide</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">of daily life hidden but perilous</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">pulling both of us under so fast.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have dreamed of our bed</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">as if it were a shore where we would be washed up,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">not this striped mattress</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">we must cover with sheets. I had forgotten</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">all the old business between us,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">like mail unanswered so long that silence</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">becomes eloquent, a message of its own.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I had even forgotten how married love</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">is a territory more mysterious</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the more it is explored, like one of those terrains</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">you read about, a garden in the desert</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">where you stoop to drink, never knowing</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">if your mouth will fill with water or sand.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">--</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">THE WAY THE LEAVES KEEP FALLING</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is November </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and morning--time to get to work. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I feel the little whip </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">of my conscience flick </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">as I stand at the window watching </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the great harvest of leaves. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Across the street my neighbor, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">his leaf blower already roaring, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">tries to make order </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">from the chaos of fading color. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He seems brave and a bit foolish. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is almost tidal, the way </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the leaves keep falling </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">wave after wave to earth.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In Eden there were </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">no seasons, and sometimes </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I think it was the tidiness </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">of that garden </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Eve hated, all the wooden tags </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">with the new names of plants and trees. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Still, I am Adam’s child too </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and I like order, though </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the margins of my poems </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">are ragged, and I stand here </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">all morning watching the leaves.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">--</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">AN OLD SONG</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">How loyal our childhood demons are,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">growing old with us in the same house</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">like servants who season the meat</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">with bitterness, like jailers</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">who rattle the keys</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">that lock us in or lock us out.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Though we go on with our lives,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">though the years pile up</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">like snow against the door,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">still our demons stare at us</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">from the depths of mirrors</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">or from the new faces across a table.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And no matter what voice they choose,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">what language they speak,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the message is always the same.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">They ask “Why can’t you do</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">anything right?” They say</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“We just don’t love you anymore.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">--</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">HIGH SUMMER</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The earth smells of flowers</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and corruption--so many</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">shades of green</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">that caterpillar and leaf</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">are indistinguishable,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">even as one obliterates</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the other.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Aunt Ruth sits</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">on the back porch, rocking</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">towards her death.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The smallest cousin swims</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">into the future. Look</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">at the water, so beautiful </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">in all that it conceals.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">--</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">SOMETIMES</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">from the periphery</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">of the family</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">where I sit watching</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">my children and </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">my children's children</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">in all their bright</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">cacophony,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I seem to leave</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">my body--</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">plump effigy</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">of a woman, upright</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">on a chair--</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and as I float</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">willingly away</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">toward the chill</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">silence of my own future,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">their voices break</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">into the syllables</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">of strangers, to whom</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">with this real hand</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I wave goodbye.</span>princess kanomanomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11561324385057329327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1501398641257001653.post-44088430154510929502016-11-16T23:24:00.001-05:002016-11-16T23:24:31.905-05:00From Time to Time<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is the moment just before that we</span><div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">live over and over in its only time</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and then recount to those who were not there</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the beginning still echoes in laughter</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">but resounds unrecognized every time</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and never comes back to begin again</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">there are no words for calling after it</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and when it went it left no memory</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">but the sound of the running sheep calling</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">to the evening from the darkening hill</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">what they are calling as they run is Wait</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">what each one of them is calling is Wait</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">--<a href="https://www.coppercanyonpress.org/pages/browse/book.asp?bg=%7B370D5539-31F0-4B38-89AF-D57D1E0ACE25%7D">M. S. Merwin</a></span></div>
princess kanomanomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11561324385057329327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1501398641257001653.post-72200301201653278412016-11-16T23:17:00.001-05:002016-11-16T23:23:46.155-05:00The Other House<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I come back again to the old house</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">that I thought I knew for most of a lifetime</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">the house I reclaimed from abandon and ruin</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">and that I called my home at times when I was here</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">and at times when I was somewhere far from here</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">this time I have not come to reclaim anything </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">but to move nothing and to touch nothing </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">as though I were a ghost or here in a dream</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">and I know it is a dream that has no age</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">in this dream the same river is still here</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">the house is the old house and I am here in the morning</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">in the sunlight and the same bird is singing </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">--<a href="https://www.coppercanyonpress.org/pages/browse/book.asp?bg=%7B370D5539-31F0-4B38-89AF-D57D1E0ACE25%7D">W. S. Merwin</a></span>princess kanomanomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11561324385057329327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1501398641257001653.post-37171694662365342662016-10-30T17:37:00.000-04:002016-10-30T17:37:14.978-04:00Native Memory<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>River </i>was my first word</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">after <i>mama</i>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I grew up with the names of rivers</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">on my tongue: the Coosa,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the Tallapoosa, the Black Warrior;</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the sound of their names</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">as native to me as my own.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I walked barefoot along the brow of Lookout Mountain</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">with my father, where the Little River</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">carves its name through the canyons</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">of sandstone and shale</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">above Shinbone Valley;</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">where the Cherokee</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">stood on these same stones</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and cast their voices into the canyon below.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>You are here</i>, a red arrow</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">on the atlas tells me</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">at the edge of the bluff</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">where young fools have carved their initials</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">into giant oaks</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and spray painted their names and dates</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">on the canyon rocks,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">where human history is no more</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">than a layer of stardust, thin</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">as the fingernail of god.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What the canyon holds in its hands:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">an old language spoken into the pines</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and carried downstream</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">on wind and time, vanishing</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">like footprints in ash.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The mountain holds their sorrow</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">in the marrow of its bones.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The body remembers</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the scars of massacres,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">how the hawk ached to see</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">family after family</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">dragged by the roots</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">from the land of their fathers.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Someone survived to remember</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">beyond the weight of wagons and their thousands</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">of feet cutting a deep trail of grief.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Someone survived to tell the story of this</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">sorrow and where they left their homes</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and how the trees wept to see them go</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and where they crossed the river</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and where they whispered a prayer into their grandmother’s eyes</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">before she died</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and where it was along the road they buried her</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and where the oak stood whose roots</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">grew around her bones</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and where it was that the wild persimmons grow</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and what it was she last said to her children</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and which child was to keep her memory alive</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and which child was to keep the language alive</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and weave the stories of this journey into song</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and when were the seasons of singing</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and what were the stories that go with the seasons</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">that tell how to work and when to pray</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">that tell when to dance and who made the day.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>You are here</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">where bloodlines and rivers</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">are woven together.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I followed the river until I forgot my name</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and came here to the mouth of the canyon</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">to swim in the rain and remember</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">this, the most indigenous joy I know:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">to wade into the river naked</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">among the moss and stones,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">to drink water from my hands</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and be alive in the river, the river saying,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>You are here</i>,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">a daughter of stardust and time.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">--<a href="https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/native-memory?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Poem-a-Day%20%20October%2026%202016&utm_content=Poem-a-Day%20%20October%2026%202016+CID_4054821afed199439c2584f569db1659&utm_source=Email%20marketing%20software&utm_term=Native%20Memory">Ansel Elkins</a></span>princess kanomanomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11561324385057329327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1501398641257001653.post-25818655776887235072016-10-27T23:17:00.002-04:002016-10-27T23:22:49.666-04:00Imperatives for Carrying On in the Aftermath<div class="view view-poems view-id-poems view-display-id-poem_author_dob_dod view-dom-id-0cfa34a422cf58fb2c0c95773287294d" style="background-color: #fcf9f9; max-width: 1260px;">
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Do not hang your head or clench your fists</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">when even your friend, after hearing the story,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">says: <i>My mother would never put up with that.</i></span><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 1.26316em; margin-top: 1.26316em;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Fight the urge to rattle off statistics: that,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">more often, a woman who chooses to leave</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">is then murdered. The hundredth time</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">your father says, <i>But she hated violence,</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>why would she marry a guy like that?</i>—</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">don’t waste your breath explaining, again,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">how abusers wait, are patient, that they</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">don’t beat you on the first date, sometimes</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">not even the first few years of a marriage.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Keep an impassive face whenever you hear</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>Stand by Your Man</i>, and let go your rage</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">when you recall those words were advice</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">given your mother. Try to forget the first</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">trial, before she was dead, when the charge</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">was only <i>attempted murder</i>; don’t belabor</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">the thinking or the sentence that allowed</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">her ex-husband’s release a year later, or</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">the juror who said, <i>It’s a domestic issue—</i></span><br />
<i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>they should work it out themselves.</i> Just</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">breathe when, after you read your poems</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">about grief, a woman asks: <i>Do you think</i></span><br />
<i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>your mother was weak for men? </i>Learn</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">to ignore subtext. Imagine a thought-</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">cloud above your head, dark and heavy</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">with the words you cannot say; let silence</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">rain down. Remember you were told</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">by your famous professor, that you should</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">write about something else, <i>unburden</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>yourself of the death of your mother and</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>just pour your heart out in the poems.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Ask yourself what’s in your heart, that</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">reliquary—blood locket and seed-bed—and</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">contend with what it means, the folk-saying</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">you learned from a Korean poet in Seoul:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>that one does not bury the mother’s body</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>in the ground but in the chest, or—like you—</i></span><br />
<i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">you carry her corpse on your back.</span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">--</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/imperatives-carrying-aftermath?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Poem-a-Day%20%20October%2025%202016&utm_content=Poem-a-Day%20%20October%2025%202016+CID_117bfd7bd6a47669751ec2305792998c&utm_source=Email%20marketing%20software&utm_term=Imperatives%20for%20Carrying%20On%20in%20the%20Aftermath">Natasha Trethewey, 1966</a></span></div>
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princess kanomanomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11561324385057329327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1501398641257001653.post-36695789214820032892016-10-19T22:53:00.001-04:002016-10-19T22:53:25.793-04:00Whiskey<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I imagine our last happy days: a field</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">brimming with sunset-grass</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the colour of whiskey</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">you and I are sipping.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And the children--whose</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">names are the tips of our tongues--</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">twirl about them the melting</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">ice of imaginations in that hot field</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">where we are sitting in some shady place</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">near sunset's charred oesophagus</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">looking on, sipping our whiskey </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">washing ourselves away so shiningly.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">--<a href="http://www.washingtonsquarereview.com/">Vladimir Lucien</a></span>princess kanomanomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11561324385057329327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1501398641257001653.post-72457854902901955182016-10-19T22:45:00.001-04:002016-10-19T22:45:24.642-04:00Chronic<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When dinners' wick has gone black</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">but the sky and river still see the blue </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">drop in the other's grey eyes,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the stacked lanterns of windows</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">light here then again, a festival </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">to the most ordinary of days.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">These moments I want nothing</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">but to sit under the sound of the laundry </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">beating warm and steady</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">as the night flows between buildings,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">to let myself darken with the night sky</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">as it fills with these paper domes,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">all the light let go</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">by a million homes alighting for sleep--</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">to live outside this body.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">--<a href="http://www.washingtonsquarereview.com/">Alison Angell</a> </span>princess kanomanomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11561324385057329327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1501398641257001653.post-73205212175554041492016-10-19T22:25:00.000-04:002016-10-19T22:25:24.999-04:00Sherbet<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The problem here is that</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This isn’t pretty, the</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sort of thing which</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Can be easily dealt with</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">With words. After</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">All it’s</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A horror story to sit,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A black man with</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A white wife in</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The middle of a hot</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sunday afternoon at</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Jefferson Hotel in</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Richmond, VA, and wait</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Like a criminal for service</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">From a young white waitress</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Who has decided that</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This looks like something</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">She doesn’t want</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To be a part of. What poetry</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Could describe the</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Perfect angle of</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This woman’s back as</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">She walks, just so,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Mapping the room off</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Like the end of a</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Border dispute, which</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Metaphor could turn</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The room more perfectly</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Into a group of</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Islands? And when</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The manager finally</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Arrives, what language</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Do I use</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To translate the nervous</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Eye motions, the yawning</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Afternoon silence, the</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Prayer beneath</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">His simple inquiries,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The sherbet which</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He then brings to the table personally,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Just to be certain</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The doubt</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Stays on our side</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Of the fence? What do</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We call the rich,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sweet taste of</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">frozen oranges in</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This context? What do</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We call a weight that</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Doesn’t fingerprint,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Won’t shift</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And can’t explode?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">--<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/669528.The_Gathering_of_My_Name">Cornelius Eady</a></span>princess kanomanomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11561324385057329327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1501398641257001653.post-69153191679495533202016-10-19T22:11:00.001-04:002016-10-19T22:11:43.741-04:00Why Do So Few Blacks Study Creative Writing?<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Always the same, sweet hurt,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The understanding that settles in the eyes</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sooner or later, at the end of class,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the silence cooling in the room.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sooner or later it comes to this,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You stand face to face with your</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Younger face and you have to answer</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A student, a young woman this time,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And you’re alone in the classroom</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Or in your office, a day or so later,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And she has to know, if all music</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Begins equal, why this poem of hers</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Needed a passport, a glossary,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A disclaimer. <i>It was if I were…</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What? Talking for the first time?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Giving yourself up? Away?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There are worlds, and there are worlds</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">She reminds you. She needs to know</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>What’s wrong with me? </i>and you want</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To crowbar or spade her hurt</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To the air. You want photosynthesis</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To break it down to an organic language,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You want to shake <i>I hear you</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Into her ear, armor her life</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">With permission. Really, what</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Can I say? That if she chooses</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To remain here the term</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Neighborhood</i> will always have</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A foreign stress, that there</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Will always be the moment</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The small, hard details</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Of your life will be made</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To circle their wagons?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">--<a href="https://www.pshares.org/issues/fall-1991/rev-gathering-my-name-cornelius-eady">Cornelius Eady</a></span>princess kanomanomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11561324385057329327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1501398641257001653.post-66259030488691257902016-10-19T00:41:00.000-04:002016-10-19T00:41:02.233-04:00Jazz<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Today I’m thinking about this child’s life —</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the rags of it, the ragged waves of it, the vaporous</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">fumes of it, the split tree, stomped out spark,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the one-eyed, peg-legged pirate of it, the over-ripened</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">kissed to bruises fruit, the exposed</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">negative, the burned out bulb marquee. And then</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I start thinking maybe there’s hope.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Maybe her life could be like jazz</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">that starts out with a simple melody,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">nothing complicated, nothing jittery or twisted,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and then breaks off, kisses it, waves goodbye,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">ripens the notes, tears the tune to rags,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">strips it, pokes out an eye, burns it,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">sends it up in smoky wreaths,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">reaches inside and steals the honey,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">bees streaming in black ribbons from the hive,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and when it seems as though it’s long gone, ashes and bone,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">when it’s strung out, wrung out, blasted</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">with a wrecking ball, bombed out, concrete dust,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">it slides over and spirals up in one high thin note</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">stretched so far you can’t tell if the ache</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">is bitter or sweet, it returns</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">to the melody, rinsed pure and clean of the past,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">you almost can’t bear it, the deliverance,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the song come home.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">--<a href="http://www.ellenbass.com/books/like-a-beggar/">Ellen Bass</a></span>princess kanomanomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11561324385057329327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1501398641257001653.post-79395698043911185102016-10-19T00:35:00.001-04:002016-10-19T00:35:24.326-04:00Pleasantville, New Jersey, 1955<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I’d never seen a rainbow or picked</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">a tomato off the vine. Never walked in an orchard</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">or a forest. The only tree I knew</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">grew in the square of dirt hacked</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">out of the asphalt, the mulberry</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">my father was killing slowly, pounding</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">copper nails into its trunk.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But one hot summer afternoon</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">my mother let me drag the cot onto the roof.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Bed sheets drying on the lines,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the cat’s cardboard box of dirt in the corner,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I lay in an expanse of blueness. Sun rippled</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">over my skin like a breeze over water.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My eyelids closed. I could hear the ripe berries</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">splatting onto the alley, the footsteps</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">of customers tracking in the sticky, purple mash.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I heard the winos on the wooden crates,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">brown bags rustling at the throats of Thunderbird.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Car engines stuttered, came to life and died</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">in the A&P parking lot and I smelled grease and coffee</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">from the diner where Stella, the dyke, washed dishes</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">with a pack of Camel’s tucked</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">in the rolled-up sleeve of her t-shirt.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Next door, Helen Schmerling leaned on the glass case</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">slipping her fist into seamed and seamless stockings,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">nails tucked in, to display the shade, while Sol</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">sucked the marrow from his stubby cigar,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">smoke settling into the tweed skirts and mohair sweaters.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And under me something muscular swarmed</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">in the liquor store, something alive</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">in the stained wooden counter and the pungent dregs</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">of beer in the empties, my mother</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">greeting everyone, her frequent laughter,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the shorn pale necks of the delivery men,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">their hairy forearms. The cash register ringing</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">as my parents pushed their way, crumpled dollar</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">by dollar, into the middle class.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The sun was delicious, lapping my skin.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I felt that newly arrived in a body.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The city wheeled around me—</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the Rialto movie, Allen’s shoe store, Stecher’s Jewelry,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the whole downtown three blocks long.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And I was at the center of our tiny</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">solar system flung out on the edge</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">of a minor arm, a spur of one spiraling galaxy,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">drenched in the light.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">--<a href="http://www.ellenbass.com/books/like-a-beggar/">Ellen Bass</a></span>princess kanomanomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11561324385057329327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1501398641257001653.post-51845606289023174702016-09-21T22:05:00.001-04:002016-09-21T22:05:11.434-04:00Disaster Work<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Someone is on the plane<br />that noses 2,000 feet into the air, stops,<br />then drops. Someone is in<br />the tornado-flattened Texaco station.<br />Someone is on the bus the suicidal<br />or stroke-struck driver launches<br />through the guardrail and off the mountain.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />It isn’t you. You’re watching<br />a ticker scroll placidly across<br />the bottom of the screen, thinking<br />awful, awful, and below those words,<br />deeper than articulation can go,<br />hums your golden gratitude<br />that once again this is a tragedy</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />you can witness but not touch.<br />You can continue the work<br />of chewing your waffle. You can<br />approach the smoothed edges<br />of disaster, and you can,<br />when you light on a rough spot—<br />the image of the little boy’s</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />brown shoe in the rubble, the woman<br />who looks like your mother<br />howling in a blue hat—pull back.<br />Some will say this is cowardice,<br />your unwillingness to hold<br />these horrors in your hands. But<br />if you considered, truly, the dead child,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />the husband that the woman<br />who looks like your mother<br />will never see again; if you considered,<br />truly, what it means that a plane<br />could drop without warning<br />with its full load of daughters<br />and coaches and magazine-readers,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />that the sky might unfold a beast<br />that will hunt you without reason,<br />that the white-mustached man<br />behind the wheel of your bus<br />is not programmed but is a human<br />stranger you have chosen to trust<br />with your absurdly flimsy life—</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />how in the world could you do<br />the work of chewing your waffle?<br />How could you do the impossible work<br />of putting your child to bed,<br />saying goodnight, closing the door<br />on the darkness?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">--<a href="http://copper-nickel.org/disaster-work-catherine-pierce/">Catherine Pierce</a></span>princess kanomanomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11561324385057329327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1501398641257001653.post-62767235205656781012016-08-25T08:54:00.003-04:002016-08-25T08:54:38.312-04:00Ars Poetica<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To have</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">even a</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">lotto chance</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">of getting</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">somewhere</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">within yourself</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">you don’t quite know</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">but feel</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To cling</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">to the periphery</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">through the constant</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">gyroscopic</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">re-drawing of its</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">provinces</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To make</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">what Makers make</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">you must set aside</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">certainty</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Leave it</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">a lumpy backpack</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">by the ticket window</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">at the station</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Let the gentleman</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">in pleated khakis</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">pressed for time</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">claim it</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The certainty</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">not the poem.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">--<a href="https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/ars-poetica-4?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Poem-a-Day%20%20August%2024%202016&utm_content=Poem-a-Day%20%20August%2024%202016+CID_3df646382cde0e73c190d82b08af3cca&utm_source=Email%20marketing%20software&utm_term=Ars%20Poetica">Leslie McGrath</a></span>princess kanomanomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11561324385057329327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1501398641257001653.post-82428771955800693772016-08-20T17:51:00.001-04:002016-08-20T17:51:18.152-04:00Beige Wall Telephone, 1960s<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To you who have never known what it is to be tethered </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> to the family's one phone by a corkscrew cord </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> filthied by idle fingers twisting it as we talked </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and stretched by our efforts to sneak with the handset</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">away from the dining room where that cheap plastic box </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> clung to the wall, my sister and I desperate </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> to hide behind curtains or in a nearby room </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and mumble dumb endearments to whichever lucky soul</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">we had a crush on that week: I won't say how wonderful </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> it felt to hear a call's unexpected tremolo </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> and rush to answer that sudden summons, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">lifting the receiver's heavy curve out of its metal hook,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">or to dial seven numbers on a whirring analog wheel </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> and hear a distant ringing pulse in the ear, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> knowing that actual bells trilled as a body </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">moved through space to deliver its hopeful Hello?—</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">no, it was awful, that phone, intended for businesses, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> brisk standing exchanges of information, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> not a home where its too-public anchoring </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">left adolescent siblings open to each other's mockery</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and the cocked ears of nosy parents straining to decode </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> one side of conversations as we curled closer </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> to the wall and whispered words downward </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">into the darkness that our huddling made, not pacing</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">like a barking dog chained to a stake in the backyard </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> but trying our best to vanish, descending </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> slow as a diver sipping words like oxygen </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">from a humming line whose other end kept us breathing.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">--<a href="http://poemsweb.com/poem9a6c.html?date=16488">Michael McPhee</a></span>princess kanomanomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11561324385057329327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1501398641257001653.post-43524915907567434952016-08-12T10:34:00.001-04:002016-08-12T10:34:54.741-04:00Tree Poem<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It wasn’t that he wanted to take his life.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He wanted to take his death</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">into his own hands. There was</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">a difference, he knew, though he couldn’t</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">articulate it. More speculative than suicidal,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">more curious than depressed,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">more interested than not,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">he didn’t want to talk to a therapist.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He wanted to talk to Walt Whitman.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He wanted to talk to his best friend from</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">kindergarten, who’d moved away</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">on the cusp of first grade, and he never</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">saw him again. He wanted to climb a tree</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and sit up there all alone in the top branches</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">watching it absorb the carbon dioxide.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He had a bit of the tree in him himself.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He had similar aspirations</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and spent much of his time in the branching</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">ramifications in his head. But because his children</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">would never live it down, he climbed</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">down from the tree in the car in the garage</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">every time, and walked back into his life with a few</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">leaves and twigs still sticking to his head.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">--<a href="http://writersalmanac.org/episodes/20160730/">Paul Hostovsky</a></span>princess kanomanomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11561324385057329327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1501398641257001653.post-30729117439105808082016-08-07T12:43:00.000-04:002016-08-07T12:43:02.873-04:00Cake<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Look, you</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">want it</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">you devour it</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and then, then</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">good as it was</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">you realize</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">it wasn’t</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">what you</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">exactly</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">wanted</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">what you</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">wanted</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">exactly was</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">wanting</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">--<a href="https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/cake?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Poem-a-Day%20%20August%203%202016&utm_content=Poem-a-Day%20%20August%203%202016+CID_8a3020589c5d6db2aa92b46c873eac34&utm_source=Email%20marketing%20software&utm_term=Cake">Noah Eli Gordon</a></span>princess kanomanomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11561324385057329327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1501398641257001653.post-15314231313200610922016-08-07T12:37:00.004-04:002016-08-07T12:37:59.512-04:00When I Read the Book<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">When I read the book, the biography famous,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And is this then (said I) what the author calls a man’s life?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And so will some one when I am dead and gone write my life?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">(As if any man really knew aught my life,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Why even I myself I often think know little or nothing of my real </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> life, Only a few hints, a few diffused faint clews and indirections</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I seek for my own use to trace out here.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">--<a href="https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/when-i-read-book?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Poem-a-Day%20%20July%2031%202016&utm_content=Poem-a-Day%20%20July%2031%202016+CID_49536d51717fc18a64bbfb2f9c65c41c&utm_source=Email%20marketing%20software&utm_term=When%20I%20Read%20the%20Book">Walt Whitman</a></span>princess kanomanomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11561324385057329327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1501398641257001653.post-51394050769460648292016-07-24T20:30:00.002-04:002016-07-24T20:30:17.379-04:00The Bridge Poem<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/CN76iunaUQc" width="420"></iframe>
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Stone-Steel-Paintings-Writings-Celebrating/dp/1567920810">Stone and Steel: Paintings and Writings Celebrating the Bridges of New York City</a></span>princess kanomanomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11561324385057329327noreply@blogger.com0