I have looked for answers, although
I have not yet understood very simple questions.
I study the magazines and newspapers,
But I do not yet know the meaning
Of some fortune cookies,
Or a raised eyebrow.
I sent 25 dollars after the Haitian earthquake,
But I have not yet hopped on a plane.
Many things stop me in my tracks,
But I am not yet able to lay down my life for them.
I am not yet so enlightened
As to embrace those I disagree with.
I give, but I have not yet
Given away my leather couch,
the shoes I walk in, my orange cat,
My postponements.
I would thank every one who ever taught me something,
Every one who reaches out, or lifts up what does not personally
Apply to or benefit them -- but as I have not yet
Found a way to contact these people,
I simply think about them.
Everything you say is true and has been taken to heart,
But while I don’t eat the red meat or drink the corn syrup,
I do eat what flew or swam. (We cannot live on nuts and berries.)
I have stopped filling my cheeks with almonds thickly coated
In dark chocolate, but I have not yet stopped craving
Other forbidden things.
I have seen you and I have tried,
But I have not yet heard what you said about yourself.
You have held me but I am not yet sure what that means.
We live together but we dream apart. (A secret.)
I knew you the day I was born,
We walk side by side, but we have not yet stopped
Cutting the ground out from under each other’s feet, occasionally.
Answers will not be revealed, questions will not be answered,
Yet we have not yet moved our cupped hand from our ear
Or stopped placing a bandage on a dying child
Or a broken soldier,
in a disaster.
Friday, February 5, 2010
Irene's Recollection
I have nine nieces from two sides of my family.
One is Irene, who was once very small, a hummingbird girl,
Busy in her birdhouse of a bedroom crazy full of books,
Toys, costumes and other bright tokens of girlhood.
Her colors were the greens, purples, turquoise, sun yellow,
Pink and ripe tomato red. We had the best times,
With scissors and paper and glitter tape and stickers,
Making gifts and writing scripts for our
Brown bag paper puppet theater productions
Where her crowd of stuffed animals were the stars: we dragged
Every one to our performances, filled every available cushion and
Inch of carpet space and they all had to admit,
It was as brilliant as a trip to Radio City Music Hall
At Christmastime, to be part of our shows (complete
With desktop gift shop).
One Christmas that coincided with Hanukah, we set aside
Our ambitious holiday labors and obligations
And her father put klezmer on the stereo
Because Irene loves to dance
And we spiraled and flew 'round & ‘round the living room carpet.
She called out: “This is how we’ll dance, at your wedding!”
My pain ran away with my tongue: “Oh, I’m not good at weddings!"
I said. "I’ve had two ... That was enough, for me ... ”
Her disappointment was a momentary shower, a shattered glass. Falling.
This was how I learned the place of the old is to know their place,
To lift up the feathers of the hopeful young -- never, ever to deaden
Or drag down, burden with bogus war stories -- or unload
The smoldering, defunct, battle-worn baggage.
The failing, wounded elders must get over themselves,
Must hand off the gold ring of their best dreams for the future
To the future (from whence it was borrowed).
Would Irene recall this nanosecond from our history?
Last October, she visited, far taller than I ever was, thin as a reed.
She recalled one holiday when, before we fell asleep, she asked
If I believed in God. I believed in yin yang, I said.
I didn’t recall this when she mentioned it.
Bit by bit, it came back to me.
Last year, for Christmas, I found her the yin yang symbol
On a button from the Green Festival. A yin and yang of two dolphins:
One underwater, circling a white reflected sun,
One leaping to an eclipsed sun in a streaky sky.
The colors were her colors -- purples, greens,
Slippery layers of light and dark.
One is Irene, who was once very small, a hummingbird girl,
Busy in her birdhouse of a bedroom crazy full of books,
Toys, costumes and other bright tokens of girlhood.
Her colors were the greens, purples, turquoise, sun yellow,
Pink and ripe tomato red. We had the best times,
With scissors and paper and glitter tape and stickers,
Making gifts and writing scripts for our
Brown bag paper puppet theater productions
Where her crowd of stuffed animals were the stars: we dragged
Every one to our performances, filled every available cushion and
Inch of carpet space and they all had to admit,
It was as brilliant as a trip to Radio City Music Hall
At Christmastime, to be part of our shows (complete
With desktop gift shop).
One Christmas that coincided with Hanukah, we set aside
Our ambitious holiday labors and obligations
And her father put klezmer on the stereo
Because Irene loves to dance
And we spiraled and flew 'round & ‘round the living room carpet.
She called out: “This is how we’ll dance, at your wedding!”
My pain ran away with my tongue: “Oh, I’m not good at weddings!"
I said. "I’ve had two ... That was enough, for me ... ”
Her disappointment was a momentary shower, a shattered glass. Falling.
This was how I learned the place of the old is to know their place,
To lift up the feathers of the hopeful young -- never, ever to deaden
Or drag down, burden with bogus war stories -- or unload
The smoldering, defunct, battle-worn baggage.
The failing, wounded elders must get over themselves,
Must hand off the gold ring of their best dreams for the future
To the future (from whence it was borrowed).
Would Irene recall this nanosecond from our history?
Last October, she visited, far taller than I ever was, thin as a reed.
She recalled one holiday when, before we fell asleep, she asked
If I believed in God. I believed in yin yang, I said.
I didn’t recall this when she mentioned it.
Bit by bit, it came back to me.
Last year, for Christmas, I found her the yin yang symbol
On a button from the Green Festival. A yin and yang of two dolphins:
One underwater, circling a white reflected sun,
One leaping to an eclipsed sun in a streaky sky.
The colors were her colors -- purples, greens,
Slippery layers of light and dark.
White Hospital
In the dream,
Dr. Beetlebrow has a different name
And he is my doctor and everyone speaks in
Ridiculous German Accents
Out of a Marx Brothers movie
Or like Dr. Ruth.
Beetlebrow’s first name is not Sam
His last name may begin with R
He wears a white hat,
Like Gilligan.
We patients or inmates are forced to complete tedious forms
That never end. I struggle to recall Dr. B’s names
And how to spell them.
And what the endless code numbers and letters might be.
I struggle to write on dotted lines neatly and to fill the mazelike
Pages and pages of little boxes: information must be memorized, you
Do not look it up.
I am worried about my urethra.
All my life, I never drank much water,
Afraid I’d exhaust my urethra. Another thing:
I am having trouble swallowing or breathing while drinking
I am having trouble breathing deep enough to oxygenate my brain.
On grassy slopes in rural Virginia,
Maybe on a Civil War battlefield,
Are the white buildings.
We pace the shiny hospital halls,
Some of us in wheel chairs.
The ceilings and windows are tall.
The wobbly ceiling fans are stuck:
They rotate their long white blades like canoe paddles
But they never break free, they never sail away
Down the hall and out the window.
At a table, I take the papers that hang
From a bulldog clip on the wall above me.
I write up the many symptoms of my disease,
Called 3D: Disabling Despair Disease.
They make you do the forms often
To define the height, weight and shoe size
Of your “trouble” -- for them, for you.
Compliance gets you permission
To log in & out, to move on
Or simply move and breathe,
After your time of not breathing.
We sleep on the floor.
The hospital beds are blue nylon sleeping bags
In the cold hallway. I feel too boney,
In the sleeping bag, I can’t sleep
Or settle. My bones jangle.
I do not rest.
I drag my sleeping bag onto a terrace in moonlight,
Or maybe late afternoon light, pushing through glass doors,
To the colorful meadow peppered in white tents where
Women in white bend to resting or animated or
Struggling patients, all in white in the slopes
Of green grass, a sprawl.
I join a group of women, settle into
The crowd, as one of us -- maybe Clara Barton
Or the ghost of Clara Barton -- speaks and speaks,
A bird in a bodice with a big voice,
She stands not very tall among us, lifts her arms,
Pointing: there are “no happy endings” she says, in her pep talk.
Strangely, everyone is clapping and exchanging glances, little smiles.
I am elated because Clara says we can weather every storm,
We can ride our roller coasters without end if we dare, if we are alive.
If we are alive, refuse to fall or oversleep, we can co-habit
With our reliable, resident demons. Reliably, shadows will
Cover the earth but we’ll light up the lanterns,
Break a path into the gloom, find our way to the safe haven.
We won’t be stuck, we won’t be consumed.
There will be flickers of peace,
Of equilibrium for us, forever.
In the field kitchen,
Coffee is brewing, chickens are roasting, bread is baking.
A metal spoon scrapes a metal pot.
Soap is in the air and the sound of a squeaky tap,
Cold water violently rushes from a faucet
Into a battered wash tub.
Dr. Beetlebrow has a different name
And he is my doctor and everyone speaks in
Ridiculous German Accents
Out of a Marx Brothers movie
Or like Dr. Ruth.
Beetlebrow’s first name is not Sam
His last name may begin with R
He wears a white hat,
Like Gilligan.
We patients or inmates are forced to complete tedious forms
That never end. I struggle to recall Dr. B’s names
And how to spell them.
And what the endless code numbers and letters might be.
I struggle to write on dotted lines neatly and to fill the mazelike
Pages and pages of little boxes: information must be memorized, you
Do not look it up.
I am worried about my urethra.
All my life, I never drank much water,
Afraid I’d exhaust my urethra. Another thing:
I am having trouble swallowing or breathing while drinking
I am having trouble breathing deep enough to oxygenate my brain.
On grassy slopes in rural Virginia,
Maybe on a Civil War battlefield,
Are the white buildings.
We pace the shiny hospital halls,
Some of us in wheel chairs.
The ceilings and windows are tall.
The wobbly ceiling fans are stuck:
They rotate their long white blades like canoe paddles
But they never break free, they never sail away
Down the hall and out the window.
At a table, I take the papers that hang
From a bulldog clip on the wall above me.
I write up the many symptoms of my disease,
Called 3D: Disabling Despair Disease.
They make you do the forms often
To define the height, weight and shoe size
Of your “trouble” -- for them, for you.
Compliance gets you permission
To log in & out, to move on
Or simply move and breathe,
After your time of not breathing.
We sleep on the floor.
The hospital beds are blue nylon sleeping bags
In the cold hallway. I feel too boney,
In the sleeping bag, I can’t sleep
Or settle. My bones jangle.
I do not rest.
I drag my sleeping bag onto a terrace in moonlight,
Or maybe late afternoon light, pushing through glass doors,
To the colorful meadow peppered in white tents where
Women in white bend to resting or animated or
Struggling patients, all in white in the slopes
Of green grass, a sprawl.
I join a group of women, settle into
The crowd, as one of us -- maybe Clara Barton
Or the ghost of Clara Barton -- speaks and speaks,
A bird in a bodice with a big voice,
She stands not very tall among us, lifts her arms,
Pointing: there are “no happy endings” she says, in her pep talk.
Strangely, everyone is clapping and exchanging glances, little smiles.
I am elated because Clara says we can weather every storm,
We can ride our roller coasters without end if we dare, if we are alive.
If we are alive, refuse to fall or oversleep, we can co-habit
With our reliable, resident demons. Reliably, shadows will
Cover the earth but we’ll light up the lanterns,
Break a path into the gloom, find our way to the safe haven.
We won’t be stuck, we won’t be consumed.
There will be flickers of peace,
Of equilibrium for us, forever.
In the field kitchen,
Coffee is brewing, chickens are roasting, bread is baking.
A metal spoon scrapes a metal pot.
Soap is in the air and the sound of a squeaky tap,
Cold water violently rushes from a faucet
Into a battered wash tub.
If Mama Was A Pie
Quite frankly, we were angry.
And, we are all angry. (The way she was angry.)
And, like her, we cannot let go
But if we don’t let go, we will surely die
for the sin of our delusions.
But this is the way it is
Because, when we first opened our eyes,
She was as big as the full moon,
Bending to us, strong, graceful,
Embracing & caressing us tip to toe
With her red velvet lips
And her clear, pale blue eyes
And her crown of hair wild as the night
And twinkling in its spatter
of distant stars.
With her milky arms and legs, long as temple columns,
And her milky ways, she steamed on a cold morning
And was like the air is, for inhaling,
Like the water is, for floating, imbibing, reviving.
She was the earth of us -- the riches, the fertile fields that held us,
Into her we drove our roots deep down and held her tight,
For dear, dear life. And learned that life was dear
(when you could see past your nose to the plain
Light of day, the universals -- oh, she
Pushed us, fairly and unfairly, to open our eyes ...
Oh, dear. Oh, my dear. Oh, honey.
We babbled like babies and rushed like brooks as we rapidly
Would go soaking her up like sponges, clinging like cling peaches,
We ingested her daily and she was consistently there -- albeit
Gradually more distracted, divided, in fragments
And dying -- even then,
Nonetheless, the sun rose and the day broke from her, for her,
With her and she resolutely and stubbornly sheltered us and watched out Us, writing us notes in the steep, sugary mythology of our dreams,
And her dreams, again and again. Even while dying.
The revelation was that since there were four daughters
It didn’t take forever to discover her betrayals:
That she was unfaithful, a liar, who as often as she reached for me
Was turning away, reaching for one of the others, for you --
When my back was turned, while I slept, she was singing
the same lullaby to them, telling them, re-telling you,
The same sorry lies that I naively trusted to be mine.
And, of course there was our rival and father,
Her husband, who art forever at the office,
Who was as duped as the rest of us,
And, like all the world's spurned and scorned ones,
Was forever (and will be now, in his good heaven)
Railing, as he was arriving or departing, slamming the car door,
Ranting in the driveway, raving as he stormed the living room,
The kitchen, the toilets, the basement, the kitchen cupboards,
The bedroom bookcase -- all the wall-to-wall, grey-carpeted,
Low-slung house that was so confining to her,
So indispensable to life as we knew it
And, at the same time,
Nanosecond by nanosecond,
Speck of dust by speck of dust, did
Bury her alive.
No matter. Not really. Never mind.
Beside her ravaged, pining, desolate, angry, savaged self
She was also the author of him as prodigious provider,
The legend of him she meticulously co-authored
Very early, applying a little yellow stub of a pencil
To the flyleaf of a battered paperback book ...
If she was not my but our mama
If she swept herself off her own feet
And she dusted and powdered herself with fragrant talc
While she also sliced and sliced herself into increasingly small servings
On shrinking, shifting plates until all we, any of us, had was a
Shiny, empty thimble and a slice of pie that wouldn’t
Fill a bottle cap.
None of us could possibly have our fill, get enough and give thanks,
Enjoying the illusion of fullness -- or peacefully napping in our chairs
Around the table; none of us curled up by the fire to sleep
The sweet sleep of the innocents.
No, we lived in the inexcusable shadowland
Of resentment.
Our story is her rage, her losses, her fading beauty and fading
Powers. We held fast until her lights, flickering violently,
Went down and out -- as ours will, as yours will, one fine day.
Despite and deriving from this untidy stew,
That she stirred then and we stir now -- refreshing and replenishing--
As we grew and she faded and everyone and everything dimmed
(Dimmer and dimmer) we were not learning to be without
her, to carefully pour our own thimbles of milk,
Drink them down and be done with it.
Fine, we knew it would fall apart, but we nevertheless trusted
That she would always be there -- the flawed and flawless
Life-giving pie of her -- entirely for us,
Each of us, individually, every last slice …
And, we would all live forever (although we saw she was
Dying), and she would live forever, in the steam and bubbles
Of the eternal fountain of our entirely unreal expectations
That entirely derived from her, with her, in her.
And, we are all angry. (The way she was angry.)
And, like her, we cannot let go
But if we don’t let go, we will surely die
for the sin of our delusions.
But this is the way it is
Because, when we first opened our eyes,
She was as big as the full moon,
Bending to us, strong, graceful,
Embracing & caressing us tip to toe
With her red velvet lips
And her clear, pale blue eyes
And her crown of hair wild as the night
And twinkling in its spatter
of distant stars.
With her milky arms and legs, long as temple columns,
And her milky ways, she steamed on a cold morning
And was like the air is, for inhaling,
Like the water is, for floating, imbibing, reviving.
She was the earth of us -- the riches, the fertile fields that held us,
Into her we drove our roots deep down and held her tight,
For dear, dear life. And learned that life was dear
(when you could see past your nose to the plain
Light of day, the universals -- oh, she
Pushed us, fairly and unfairly, to open our eyes ...
Oh, dear. Oh, my dear. Oh, honey.
We babbled like babies and rushed like brooks as we rapidly
Would go soaking her up like sponges, clinging like cling peaches,
We ingested her daily and she was consistently there -- albeit
Gradually more distracted, divided, in fragments
And dying -- even then,
Nonetheless, the sun rose and the day broke from her, for her,
With her and she resolutely and stubbornly sheltered us and watched out Us, writing us notes in the steep, sugary mythology of our dreams,
And her dreams, again and again. Even while dying.
The revelation was that since there were four daughters
It didn’t take forever to discover her betrayals:
That she was unfaithful, a liar, who as often as she reached for me
Was turning away, reaching for one of the others, for you --
When my back was turned, while I slept, she was singing
the same lullaby to them, telling them, re-telling you,
The same sorry lies that I naively trusted to be mine.
And, of course there was our rival and father,
Her husband, who art forever at the office,
Who was as duped as the rest of us,
And, like all the world's spurned and scorned ones,
Was forever (and will be now, in his good heaven)
Railing, as he was arriving or departing, slamming the car door,
Ranting in the driveway, raving as he stormed the living room,
The kitchen, the toilets, the basement, the kitchen cupboards,
The bedroom bookcase -- all the wall-to-wall, grey-carpeted,
Low-slung house that was so confining to her,
So indispensable to life as we knew it
And, at the same time,
Nanosecond by nanosecond,
Speck of dust by speck of dust, did
Bury her alive.
No matter. Not really. Never mind.
Beside her ravaged, pining, desolate, angry, savaged self
She was also the author of him as prodigious provider,
The legend of him she meticulously co-authored
Very early, applying a little yellow stub of a pencil
To the flyleaf of a battered paperback book ...
If she was not my but our mama
If she swept herself off her own feet
And she dusted and powdered herself with fragrant talc
While she also sliced and sliced herself into increasingly small servings
On shrinking, shifting plates until all we, any of us, had was a
Shiny, empty thimble and a slice of pie that wouldn’t
Fill a bottle cap.
None of us could possibly have our fill, get enough and give thanks,
Enjoying the illusion of fullness -- or peacefully napping in our chairs
Around the table; none of us curled up by the fire to sleep
The sweet sleep of the innocents.
No, we lived in the inexcusable shadowland
Of resentment.
Our story is her rage, her losses, her fading beauty and fading
Powers. We held fast until her lights, flickering violently,
Went down and out -- as ours will, as yours will, one fine day.
Despite and deriving from this untidy stew,
That she stirred then and we stir now -- refreshing and replenishing--
As we grew and she faded and everyone and everything dimmed
(Dimmer and dimmer) we were not learning to be without
her, to carefully pour our own thimbles of milk,
Drink them down and be done with it.
Fine, we knew it would fall apart, but we nevertheless trusted
That she would always be there -- the flawed and flawless
Life-giving pie of her -- entirely for us,
Each of us, individually, every last slice …
And, we would all live forever (although we saw she was
Dying), and she would live forever, in the steam and bubbles
Of the eternal fountain of our entirely unreal expectations
That entirely derived from her, with her, in her.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Cinnamon Dog
Cinnamon dog’s got spring fever,
Leaps to the forbidden table top,
Stands like a statue with something green in her mouth,
As if, if she’s a statue we can’t stop her or even see her …
Cinnamon dog rumbles the closets for forbidden shoes,
Snatches the last intact rubber glove from the dishrack beside the sink,
Snaps up green bean bits from the cutting board,
Rips and weaves up and down the long, narrow hall,
Threads her ever-longer nose, legs and tail in and out, above and below
The shuddering chairs, the quaking couch, the overturned beds.
She wags and wags her head, pretending to break the neck
Of a green mouthful.
Dropping everything, we rush her out the door, into the car,
Down to the pebbly shore of the Potomac,
To dog paradise with a Woodrow Wilson Bridge view where
All the fevered, demented dogs go,
Where she lunges at them, throws herself into the rapid water,
Gingerly licking the wave tops,
Humbly competing for floating sticks and a poor lifeless ball
In a snarl of other dogs of all sizes, ages, tempers.
Dogs are bathing. Dogs are drying.
Dogs stop, start, stand up, lie down, roll and roll over.
Dogs shake, shudder and startle, obey and disobey.
They lurk and lunge. They bark, wobble, nuzzle, nip.
Tend to and tear into each other. Growl, threaten, disengage, engage
And are forcibly untangled from eachother, upside down or bottoms up.
Hysterical dogs escape to the trees, delirious dogs break for the chase.
Dogs advance and retreat, lather and yelp, shiver, snivel, pant --
Shake their coats and soak us in chilly river spray.
The Potomac hums and whistles and gleams.
Irrelevant rush-hour rail and road vehicles emit their dim rumbles.
After the blaze of sunset, after the streaky skies go dark,
As the air cools and the mob of us disperses,
Cinnamon dog settles and sighs into the back seat of the car.
Her milk-and-honey muzzle settles onto her speckled front paw,
Her eyes close, her neon cinnamon lashes flutter.
She whimpers in her damp, cinnamon sleep,
Deep in sweet dreams of dinner and blood sports.
Portrait of God
• Some do not believe in God
• Some do not believe in painting God’s portrait or carving God in marble
• God is ideas
• God is an idea that nourishes
• God is meticulous and precise and timely (in God’s own time)
• You cannot pray to God and expect very specific, personal, targeted helps
• Some pray to God and some do receive very specific, personal, targeted helps
• If each of us is a speck in the universe, our universe is a speck within the universes beyond numbers in the cusp of God’s understanding
• God is not physical
• God wears no robe or sandals
• God is a force beyond force, a power beyond power
• God created all the senses and knows how they tick
• God created every color and includes them all, all the time
• God has numberless moods, including furies and joys
• God mocks umbrellas, raincoats, rubber boots and most vanities
• Truly, God does not favor girls or boys
• God has no gender, race, faith group or political party
• God invented every gender, race, faith group and political party
• God’s memory contains and sifts all memories
• God’s knowledge contains all knowledge from every layer and grain since the beginning — every animal, vegetable, mineral
• God’s language is not tongues
• God is in sounds, flavors, sights, feelings
• God loves the smell of coffee
• Without hands or feet, God can touch and walk with us
• Cities and skyscrapers obscure God’s view
• God craves a tree, the mountains, big waters and big skies
• God cannot clearly see, and is unsure about, the future
• God lives as we live, with our noses pressed to the window of the future —searching for, wondering about, and devising plans and possibilities
o That is why we influence, in our puny ways, what might or might not happen
o That is why we are surprised by the way things turn out: God is surprised, too
• God is surprises
• (When we are surprised, God is surprised)
• God resides in dualities and extremes:
o wet and dry
o hot and cold
o feast and famine
o bliss and misery
o dark and light
o good and evil
o peace and war
o love and indifference
o birth and death
o everything and nothing
o memory and forgetfulness
o big and tiny
• God is numerical and God blesses accountants
• God is a humorist and blesses cartoonists and stand up comedians
• God pities murderers, bankers and thieves
• Contradictions that we live, God lives
• God lives in clutter and chaos
• God insists there must be discipline and order
• God tempers justice with mercy
• God knows there must be laws and that is why God forgives the honest lawyer
• God knows that enough is enough and that is why royals and the rich are unhappy
• God is not sure that the poor should always be with us and that is why he gave us governments
• Like us, God speaks of hope and dreams
• God weeps for those who suffer and; that is why we weep for those who suffer
• God believes we can do better and that is why we cling to the notion that we can do better
• God grows weary as we grow weary
• God tirelessly lifts up and tears down
• God is beyond judgments
• God is beyond opinions
• God is offended by injustice
• God regrets the sin of gossip
• God loves the young because they care for the old and the feeble
• God crushes the old and the feeble to make space for the ever-increasing young
• God will never resolve contradictions to our satisfaction
• God apologizes but the meaning is different from the meaning of our apologies
• God’s immense work is a garden that surprises God and us, blooming or failing in seasons that turn as the harvest perpetually multiplies and invents and re-invents itself
• God is aware that nothing lasts forever
• God is awake and restless
• God is silent and still
• God is never silent and still
• God is never weary
• God is a keen listener and is listening now
• God is lonely and waits for our calls and email
• God is not alone
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