Day 19 is Rosh HaShanah, the Jewish New Year and celebration of the birth of the world.  We have given our poets off today, but here is a famous poem by Marge Piercy:


The Birthday of the World     Marge Piercy

On the birthday of the world
I begin to contemplate
what I have done and left
undone, but this year
not so much rebuilding

of my perennially damaged
psyche, shoring up eroding
friendships, digging out
stumps of old resentments
that refuse to rot on their own.

No, this year I want to call
myself to task for what
I have done and not done
for peace. How much have
I dared in opposition?

How much have I put
on the line for freedom?
For mine and others?
As these freedoms are pared,
sliced and diced, where

have I spoken out? Who
have I tried to move? In
this holy season, I stand
self-convicted of sloth
in a time when lies choke

the mind and rhetoric
bends reason to slithering
choking pythons. Here
I stand before the gates
opening, the fire dazzling

my eyes, and as I approach
what judges me, I judge
myself. Give me weapons
of minute destruction. Let
my words turn into sparks.


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Welcome to our poems for day 24 or the "30 poems in 30 days" fundraiser for the Ithaca Sanctuary Alliance

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DAY 24   9:08 AM (0 minutes ago) LATE SEPTEMBER                              Susan Weitz A perfect summer arrived on the first of autumn with bulging bags of singsong breezes and a sweater of migratory birds. Maybe the beach was weary and sent its weather west. Chickadees turned their volume up, warbling like faulty church organs. Painted trees preened in the bay window. Carbonated air and angling geese reminded us, like librarians, that summer is overdue: There would be fines.     LOOKING UP AT THE NIGHT SKY . . .  DAPHNE SOLA   We used to see a vast number of stars winking light out of darkness  a canopy that moved from east to west covering the earth    our earth    but 'our' has gone    we now know much more  and thank science and its melee  of facts    all marvelous in their own right    for new concepts of stars, nebulae  and our, no, 'the' earth  briefly mourning the loss of    a previous importance  an illusion wrested away  that has left us    in a tenuous stan
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Good morning, good day, and goodbye! Here is the last offering of our 11 dedicated poets on this our 30th day of "30 Poems in 30 Days" in support of the family in residence at the First Congregational Church's sanctuary, supported by the Ithaca Sanctuary Alliance. We have offered these poems with love and much hope for a better future in which we finally defeat white supremacy, outrageous levels of wealth inequality, war, and the inhumanity that fuels all of the above. As Jews say, "Shanah Tovah v'Tikatavu" (May you have) a happy and sweet new year! If you have not already donated to this fundraiser, and have the extra income to do so, please check out our GOFUNDME site at: https://www.gofundme.com/f/30-poems-in-30-days-for-ithaca-sanctuary-alliance

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