For MLK, 50 Years After the Outrage

"For MLK, 50 Years After the Outrage"

I am older now than you ever got to be.

So young, too young, so much more to do.

But I was a child then, you the elder.

Your legacy shaped my life.

So much so that I, too,

am the Reverend Doctor.

The doctor so I can educate;

The reverend so that I can

more fully embrace the duty of Love

I owe my brothers and sisters.

The path you laid out is not easy.

Hate is so much easier than Love;

But Love so much more worth the effort.

I have tried, Reverend Doctor,

to be the sister you deserve.

To teach, to lead, to keep up the fight,

until our children live in a world

in which they are judged for their

characters, not their skin color.

I pray I live to see the world you envisioned,

And pray that when we meet someday, both

on the other side, you will smile, and know

that your words fell on fertile ground.

But today, 50 years on, I mourn the life

that ignorance brutally ended.

Until we meet in glory, dear brother,

I endeavor to keep your legacy alive.

Rest in power, Brother Martin. With love.

Finding Peace

"Finding Peace"

Surrounded by chaos

I search for peace.

It cannot come from outside,

but must be found within.

I do the usual—

prayer, laughter,

yoga, breathing

meditation, reiki,

Ayurvedic herbs—

OK, perhaps not all

that usual—and this helps.

But not as much, I find

as a cup of good, well-brewed

tea, taken from a china pot,

sipped from a thin porcelain

cup with saucer, all adorned

with my beloved violets. Sitting

in a quiet room, watching

rain pour down, turning the

tiny creek behind the house

into a rushing stream, while

surrounded by cats and a dog.

There, in the quiet stillness,

gazing on the green lushness of

Spring in the rain, surrounded

by uncomplicated love, enjoying

a perfect cup of tea,

I find peace.

It fills me up, pushing out

the stress, the worry,

the complications that fill

my life.  The depleted tank

of compassion is refilled.

I think of Love, of Art,

of Poetry, and am calm.

Peaceful. Healed. Restored.

Ready to once again face the world,

give of my time, my knowledge,

my love. Making the world better,

more peaceful, more loving,

until once again, it is time

to retreat to my tea, my quiet,

my companions and find peace.

State of the World

This isn't saying all I want it to, but I am already behind in my poetry production, so I wanted to get back on track.

Sadly, and happily, a true story.

"State of the World"

This morning, before breakfast,

I learned that gays were being tortured in Chechnya,

poor women are now legally denied preventative health care,

and a doctor in America was performing FGM on 7 year olds.

All this inside my head before I even got out of bed.

But then this morning before breakfast,

I sat on the ground in the warm sun with my dog,

and listened to the birds in the trees all around us;

smelt the new growth as spring starts its yearly arrival,

then gazed on the violets and dandelions dotting the

grass in a riot of contrasting colors.

The world around me is a constant source of grief:

tragedies, injustice, cruelty and stupidity

vying for my attention, clamoring for me to do

something to make things better. At times I think

I can take no more. The insanity has gone too far

and all hope is gone.

But then the earth itself reaches out—

A dog’s love and affection given freely;

Birds careless of human strife.

Renewal, fertility, the cycle never ending.

This is why humans have always celebrated

the arrival of spring—a healing so powerful that it

has been a goddess or the dying god returned.

Has there ever been a time when humans did not

rue the state of the world? Did not know, instinctively,

that both nature and humans are

tragic, unjust, cruel and stupid?

Life is uncertain, so the only sane response

is to love and be loved,

and rejoice in the power of renewal.

NaPoWriMo #28 "The Lioness's Pride"

The Lioness’s Pride

I have my students writing a final
on the infantalization of college students.
It’s a trend I rail against—I teach adults.

But I look at them and what do I see?

My beautiful children. All of them—mine.
My responsibility if only for fifteen weeks.

I am old enough to be their mother—

Older than some of their grandmothers even.
And I am charged to teach them, and not just writing.

I have not figured out a way to teach otherwise.

These are young ones, in my charge, needing help.
This alone triggers the response—the force maternal.

Maternal, but not tender. More feline than human. The lioness.

I can and will cuff them, sometimes with claws, but no one else can.
I am preparing them for a world of predators. Softness will not do.

And at the end of the term—like a cat’s—my job is over.

They wander off, some never seen again. Faded in memory.
But some stay nearer—forever part of my pride. Forever mine.


****
This is for all of the students I've taught. I think they know that I am their teacher for as long as they need me to be. For some that's a term (for some even less!), and for some that's over a decade. They are my pride on more than one level, but I actually can't get this to work. I wrote it with the injustices of America in mind. It's not there yet, but it's also finals week.

NaPoWriMo #16--"To Cheren"

To Cheren 

Just sitting here, contemplating

how much I’ve overeaten (overhungry

and ate too fast), bemoaning that full-

to-bursting feeling, when a sweet memory

comes out of nowhere: “Too Much Food Night!”

And suddenly, there she is, full-blown.

She asked me if I ever had those nights—

order everything off the menu for delivery,

go to bed with a movie and “too much food!”

She was a woman of muchness—much love,

much joy, much humor. We met over food—

a stranger through a newsletter asked me

to send her mélasse from Switzerland.

She’d send me money, she promised.

This before PayPal and QuickPays.

A young one, sweet, begging for

a jar of golden childhood memory.

I took a chance, sent the jar,

a friendship was born.

Parcels exchanged—fruit pastilles from London,

clogs from Sweden to her.  A matryoshka doll

and Indian tea, brass and shawl to me. Much email,

her in the US, me in Europe. A penfriend forged

over love of food and travel.

One sweet visit, a dinner etched in memory.

Planning more—a nice long visit, but then—

An illness.

Phone calls.

Love.

Gone too soon.

But still here, still in our memories:

Ever beautiful, ever smiling, and ever,

for ever, lest this be too solemn, the wiseass.