WELCOME TO SEPT 26, DAY 26 OF OUR BLOG IN SUPPORT OF THE ITHACA SANCTUARY ALLIANCE (BLOGGER'S NOTE: WE ARE ENTERING THE CLOSING DAYS OF THE "DAYS OF AWE" IN THE JEWISH NEW YEAR, OUR TIME OF DEEPEST SELF-REFLECTION, WHEN WE MUST ALL "COME HOME". How fitting that we are focused on providing home/sanctuary to a specific family in search of safety and security. See https://www.gofundme.com/f/30-poems-in-30-days-for-ithaca-sanctuary-alliance
SEPT 26
Northside II SUSAN ESCHBACH
small stones scattered
across yards, sidewalks, driveways
black ink
Black Lives Matters
printed carefully or scrawled
sometimes the c is in the wrong place
or matters misses a t
our children have made these and tossed them around
claiming spaces that require their voice
awesome empowered inspiring
and yet,
why must they?
what we have wrought is a giant
they must bring down with stones.
26 Tribute to a Hymn by John Greenleaf Whittier
MARTIN BIDNEY
iambic pentameter sonnet
x/ x/ x/ x/ x/(x)
Quaker, abolitionist, persuader
“O Brother Man, fold to thy heart thy brother.
Where pity dwells, the peace of God is there;
To worship rightly is to love each other.
Each smile a hymn, each kindly deed a prayer.”
O sing, my siblings all! We are compounded
Of primal love-strength and emprising Fire.
Reach ramified, we’re each a life tree grounded
In earth – flame, water, air aspiring higher.
O lend me breath arboreal to nourish
The white hibernal and the vernal green:
May myrrhal words concur to help you flourish,
Dear Nature, gloried in a heart serene.
Our only wealth is life. The gold invested
In weapons that to all the world we sell
Enshrouds the mind in plague-robe death-infested,
Directing us to where our devils dwell.
Our climate changes. Comes a judgment day!
With loving smile and kindly deed let’s pray.
DOVES Susan Weitz
Till 8 this morning
the mist persisted,
valiantly muscling off
the sun.
Two doves roosted
on a deck rail,
too sleepy for
breakfast.
When my first
cup of coffee
magically dispersed
the ground-clouds,
the doves also
greeted the day
with wings.
PIEDRA NEGRA SOBRE UNA PIEDRA BLANCA
Cesar Vallejo (translated below by Rob Scot)
Me moriré en Paris con aguacero,
un dia del cual tengo ya el recuerdo.
Me moriré en Paris – y no me corro –
tal vez un jueves, como es hoy, de otoño.
Jueves será, pourque hoy, jueves, que proso
estos versos, los húmeros me he puesto
a la mala y, jamás como hoy, me he vuelto,
con todo mi camino, a verme solo.
César Vallejo ha muetro, le pegaban
todos sin que él les haga nada;
le daban duro con un palo y duro
también con una soga; son testigos
los dias jueves y los hueso húmeros,
la soledad, la lluvia, los caminos. . .
Black Stone on White Stone (translation by Rob Scot)
I will die in Paris on a day of pouring rains,
on a day like this one, a day I already recall.
It must be in Paris—and I won’t turn away—
maybe on a Thursday, like today, in fall.
It should be a Thursday, after all, today, a Thursday,
as I constructed these lines, my forearms ached
and never before on any road my life has taken
have I ever felt myself so alone as I am today.
Cesar Vallejo died. Everybody kept beating him
even though he does them no harm;
they beat him hard with a cudgel,
and then hard with a rope. The witnesses:
all his Thursdays, the humerus bones in his arms,
his loneliness, the rain, roads. . .
Indigo bunting Carol Whitlow
Losing the race against climate change
Showing up too late
Old migratory patterns
New weather patterns
Competing for territory, food, nesting space . . .
O please
O please
O spirit bird
O song of my soul
O color of evening sky
Of sunrise
Of Caribbean waters
That color there, not the blue, not the green,
That one in between
O harmonious color
Between heart and voice chakras
You help me call out my longing, my love
My heart’s true beat
My throat’s clear passage
O please don’t go don’t die don’t lose
That race
Did I did I did we did he
Steal your land cut down your nest
Forget to husband your food
Forget to leave something for you
As we took for us for us for us all
Did we forget you and you and you all?
What can we do
To bring you back?
Is there anything we can do?
Dear Grandmother Zipporah, FRAN MARKOVER
after listening to the Collective Trauma Conference
I want to sail back to 1917, back to the motherland
where you learned: bring extra sweaters, chocolates,
crackers, just in case. Sail back to 1920 and board
the rowboat that carried you and young Moishe, grand-
father-to-be. To witness another vessel, miles up-
stream, the villagers who didn't make it. To return
to sink stones into the river, recite Kaddish for names
drowned. I want to be caged in the Bucharest jail
and fathom what it's like to bribe a soldier, to escape
then borrow a lace dress, wedding ring that will some-
day grace my finger. I'd like to return to the rescue
of grandpa's mandolin so that I could hear him strum
Yiddish tunes, the instrument re-strung so that his
grandson could wail rock songs for a high school band.
I'd like to go back to the official from immigration
who changed your name from Zipporah to Pauline.
Time-travel to first sightings of the Mother of all Exiles,
lifting her torch, lighting your tired, your poor, as you
struggled with a new language, as you stepped onto the
dock, dirty and pregnant with my favorite uncle. To hold
hands as we walked, freeing our long deep breaths.
Sin título X SANTIAGO RODRIGUEZ
Alguna vez tuve la oportunidad de aprender a hacer pizza
y no de cualquier persona...
de la persona que hace las mejores pizzas que he probado en mi vida.
La empresa para la que trabajaba había quebrado y yo había conseguido dar unas clases, pero no me alcanzaba para vivir
y ahí en las pizzas vi un letrero que decía que buscaba un ayudante y yo me imaginé toda una vida, todo un camino... pero luego fui a una entrevista en una agencia de publicidad y agarré ese trabajo. Tenía deudas. Necesitaba el dinero.
El tipo que hacía las mejores pizzas que había probado vendió su pizzería. Su ayudante se quedó ahí y el pan le salía increíble. Y ese pude ser yo, o al menos eso me decía.
Y todavía lo pienso a veces.
"Ese pude ser yo".
Y tal vez me hubiera tardado más en pagar mis deudas pero... no sé, a mí me suena bien.
ZEN MEDITATION
Seat yourself on the seiza bench facing the sitters across the way. Adjust your ass on the seat, adjust it again. Drink the ceremonial tea. Chant the Heart Sutra with everyone else: “Avalokiteshvara Boddhisatva practicing deep prajna paramita clearly saw that all five skandas are empty, relieving all suffering and distress. Shariputra, form is no other than emptiness, emptiness no other than form; form is exactly emptiness, emptiness exactly form.” Chant the rest of the service. Walk the walking meditation. Take your seat and wait for the bell. Then sit. Then sit. Then sit. Thoughts taking over, let them slide away. Thoughts taking over, let them slide away. See patterns in the slats of the wood floor: faces, vines, flowers, animals. Let these slide away. For a moment, only a moment, nothing. Consciousness. No words. No thoughts. Form is no other than emptiness, emptiness no other than form. Not so much uniting with awareness, but recognizing it was always there, shared with all sentient beings. Sit. Thoughts, slide away. Sit. Thoughts. Slide away. Form, emptiness, emptiness form. Itch on back. Fade away. Itch on face. Face away. Form, emptiness, emptiness, form. Bell.
Preface to a Prayer BARBARA REGENSPAN
Yesterday, the moment returned when I could see how self-love meant love of all others. Your own incomplete healing taught you how to address my pain—not to make me feel better—but to make it possible for us to do what we were there for. When I saw that it worked, there, in the remote Cumberland Valley, I knew that being in the right place at the right time was not so serendipitous as I had thought.
