Welcome to Sept. 22's poems of the "30 poems in 30 days" fundraiser for the Ithaca Sanctuary Alliance, https://www.gofundme.com/f/30-poems-in-30-days-for-ithaca-sanctuary-alliance
WHEN TIME Susan Weitz
When time turns to ocean,
cold and grey, magnificent,
when it rolls over our beings,
inhales our brittle and particulate selves,
may there be a Master of Tides
to absolve us.
Here are my bits of bread,
too many to count--
repentance
for every moment I failed to love,
for every miracle I neglected to exalt,
for every atom of creation I didn’t
recognize,
embrace,
welcome and be welcomed by,
infinite
and familial.
Artist’s Statement ROB SCOT
I’m an artist
In my own way
Perhaps a photographer
Maybe a poet.
I’m not here
To sell you anything
Or make it into print.
I’m here now.
That’s what I want
Most in this life,
Which goes by too fast.
To be here now
Taking an ordinary
Moment and turning
It into something new,
Fresh and alive.
An artist can change
The way you see.
Which maybe changes you,
At least for the moment
It’s what I hope
To do, to make myself
Become an artist
In my own way.
Treasures Joanna Green
I must have been just three years old, back in the old Granison Road house, the one that still haunts me occasionally with memories of my first nightmare. But that is another story. This story is about magic, the magic in small things. So small a toddler has to squat down on the sidewalk, bring her nose close to the gravel and look, look so close and wish so hard to find just one. Turning over the tiny pebbles, sifting, sifting, her mother waits patiently, smoking a cigarette, enjoying this brief release from other kinds of chores and looking out over the railroad tracks below where they curve off to the east, to Boston. And there! The little girl picks out a tiny fragment of worn green glass, springs upright to inspect it in the sunlight, gently rubs off the dust, wondering as always how such treasure came to be here, in her very own neighborhood. How she alone was able to find it. Why no one else noticed, no one had claimed it before her. Exhilarated, feeling such a bolt of grace, she places it tenderly in her pocket and squats down again to continue her quest.
Ahí van en su moto los repartidores, con un programita en su celular a modo de patrón
Oak rustled (marescence) Carol Whitlow
The first days of winter are
Brown and damp,
Gray and dead –
- or sleeping.
I heard soft sound swirling with the
Gentle breeze of the so short day.
Above me a hundred brown bodies
Garbed in holey skirts, a single petiole toe fastened,
Danced like frisky stars in the sky.
“Hang on” they rustled
“It’s not over ‘til it’s over.”
They were so insistent, their swaying and chanting,
I couldn’t help but be inspired.
“Okay, Oak,” I agreed, “I’ll hang on, then. Okay.”
“Thanks, Oak.” I remembered propriety
as I walked away.
To be so free – from doubt – could I hang on through the winter
And dance as if even my single point of attachment
Were unfixed?
Esai Enai SUSAN ESCHBACH
Big and black
bold and boisterous
the crows call out their
raucous confidence
certain of their space here
and voice
call out to my waning spirit
Hey!
lift up your eyes
we in the treetops full
great check marks
claim the open sky
we are the
so much bigger
we are the lift
we are it
and who can argue with crows?
Latin Words
Martin Bidney
seven-beat Petrarchan sonnet
x/ x/ x/ x/ x/ x/ x/
Some words that I, in high school Latin class, would often see
Well-hidden meanings held. In later days they’d startle me.
Amare – little, simple word, melodious and dear –
Three-syllabled, with pleasure filled – to love – how pure and clear!
And Labor (Latin “láh-bor”) – Work. What ambiguity
In such a plain, straightforward term could ever lurk? We’ll see
In just another minute what was waiting to be found,
All confidence to shatter and to shake the verbal ground.
Amare – that’s to love – can also mean a bitter thing.
How changed the tone – from glad to sad – while I this lyric sing.
Amare est amare – loving’s bitter – joy and woe
Combine. It isn’t any worse than mighty Labor, though.
Not only is the meaning Work – it also means I fail.
If Labor failure signifies, how can my work avail?
Learning Nusach for the High Holidays DAVID REGENSPAN
So hard to make a connection
With these texts that go back two thousand years,
In which God is a King on his throne
The Divine judge who determines
Who is to live and who is to die,
Who is to be happy and who in distress,
Who poor and who rich. How can I
Speak to such an ancient God,
God of a world of chance violence, incurable disease,
Violent enemies, ruthless oppressors,
A world of senseless pain
let alone
Guide others along the craggy paths
Of a language that was ancient before English was born?
So I learn nusach, the old melodies
To which Ashkenazi Jews sing their prayers
To the overwhelming presence of the judging God.
The nusach gives us a voice
To express our confusion and pain
And tie together that which can not be tied,
Make sense of the senseless
Order of the orderless. Up the melodies go,
Then down. Into the texts they go
And then out again. Loosening tight syllables,
Tightening loose syllables,
Glossing over the incomprehensible
With a downward cascade of the breath,
Reaching for hope with an upward interval
Sewing it all together with sighs and stitches.
More Work to be Done Barbara Regenspan
This morning, a poet reminded me of the motto,
“Infinite spirit, intricate craft!” and I remembered
again what drew me to poetry.
When the spirit reaches for infinity, it tries to embrace
everything. But the wisdom of the spirit is that to make
a universal embrace felt universally,
intricate craft is required. Universal healthcare,
guaranteed income, and housing for all are intricate
craftings of the universal embrace.
These words do not carry the beauty of lupines and
mountains, North Point and gorges; I leave this craft
challenge for another day or another poet.
