Eve chose knowledge over obedience,
and escaped Eden.
.
She embraced the snake with open arms
and ate.
.
She ran through the open gate
smiling.
.
Eve knew.
.
With joy, she learned to dance.
In suffering, she learned to heal,
.
In this world where
Everything would never be named.
.
….
1 Prayer to Mary
Where are You hiding in this bleak time?
The grey sky is covering where I stand.
This is Your time to
Dig in the rubble,
And search for my heart,
Or at least to hold my hand.
2 Another Prayer to Mary
You are at the end of my in breath,
So close
Yet out of reach.
The climber swings free, and
In a panic cannot reach the rope.
The grey sky is below.
3. Knowing is Hope
Now look, light begins to light the snow.
Look, the leaves shimmer, I know they rustle.
I cannot hear, but I know they rustle.
No matter my deafness, they rustle.
For now, that is enough,
To know that
Out of earshot
Leaves are rustling in the breeze.
I am standing in the rain,
Just standing here, looking into the grey air,
Getting wet.
.
The country is raining down all that is worst in our nature
As if these things had always been with us,
In threatening clouds above us,
Waiting for some thundering rage to let loose.
.
Soaked to the bone,
I pray for forgiveness for not looking up into
that coiled storm we knew must break.
It is not too late to build sandbag dams,
Or perhaps I’ll stand in the rain
Until I am swept away.
This year I am joining the race to raise funds for the Center for New Americans in Northampton. This year we have new students from Ukraine and other countries around the world.
From our director:
Why it matters – Every ESOL program in our region has a waitlist for classes. Every community-based program offering low cost asylum application assistance has a waitlist. The media reports that worldwide, migration is at historic levels. We see the impacts of that in our community. We have a very hard time turning prospective students and clients away, especially when we know there are few alternatives, and that the services we offer — English classes, immigration legal services — are the entry point to all other resources. We have challenged ourselves to create additional classes, hire additional staff, purchase additional devices. All of this stretches our program to capacity, and it all requires funding. That is why this annual Poem-a-thon matters so much.
To pledge, please go to cnam.org
To make the challenge harder for myself, I am working on a series of linked narrative poems. Whew!
1. I won’t be posting them on my blog as usual. That makes later publication difficult.
2. They will all be first or second drafts, not final.
3. If you’d like to read them, I can send you some or all via email or snail mail in early December. Just let me know.
4. A public reading by the poets will be held the beginning of December.
Blessings, Alice
The sun blasts orange through the trees,
A last grasp to cling to the day. It’s rays tear
Through the branches, reaching out to us,
Pleading for us not to let it slip below the hill.
We watch unmoved, or perhaps a little sad.
We too will slip below, but not yet.
We watch, curious to see what we can learn
From the beauty of that last grasp.
I am standing in the rain,
Just standing here, looking into the grey air,
Getting wet.
The sky is raining down all that is worst in our nature
As if these things had always been with us,
In threatening clouds above us,
Waiting for some thundering rage to let loose.
Soaked to the bone,
I pray for forgiveness for not looking up into
that coiled storm we knew must break.
It is not too late to build sandbag dams,
Or perhaps I’ll stand in the rain
Until I am swept away.
Who’s that knocking, knocking at our door?
Their cloths are tattered, their eyes too big;
They smell of dregs and speak in tongues.
Like trolls, they sleep under bridges,
Demanding a token from each passerby.
Cover your ears, they have a banshee wail,
loud devil music, and cry long into the night.
Like Hungry Ghosts, they feed on crumbs.
Go lock the cupboard, we can’t feed them all.
They creep alone at night in silent deserts,
Springing up where you least expect them.
One might marry your niece;
Our blood and their blood might mingle
destroying us all.
….
Knocking, knocking, knocking.
….
Who is that knocking, knocking at our door?
White birch bark is curling on one of the south windowsills.
It is a silvery grey, actually, with black smudges.
My wife collects these wide silver strips from the forest floor,
Gathers them gently and places them on windowsills.
She wanders in the wood with our black dog,
pausing to assemble tiny people from twigs and moss, acorn caps and
bits of Play Dough from her pocket.
The little people are all different yet clearly know one another.
She carefully arranges them in knotholes, peeking from under roots, on forks of branches.
A most alert hiker may catch a glimpse of one.
She comes home with yet more birch bark to curl in the sun.
Tonight she says, “It’s almost winter. They will soon need little houses.”
She gathers the birch from all the windowsills and sits back to examine the silvery bark.
She stands the curls up, lies them down, puts one on top of the other.
She draws tiny windows with Magic Marker.
She smiles. “A little work and these will do nicely.”
Spring Tanka
The first seeds planted
Settle in a cold wet ground
A bit too early in spring.
The seeds and the gardener
Place bets against another frost.
….
The first seeds planted
Settle in a cold wet ground
A bit too early in spring
The seeds and the gardener
Are dusted with cool faint rain.
….
The first seeds planted
Settle in a cold wet ground
A bit too early in spring
Jewelweed and gardener
Both species of impatiens.
….
autumn cold –
watching a coup
slowly melt
A Poet's Indulgence 