Shrapnel: a poem

[An Ocean Beach/San Diego garden]

Shrapnel

If my achy joints were all

that mattered I’d

move to Ocean Beach.

I’d abandon this damp and earnest coast and

all that kept me here,

kept me informed

and heartbroken

(Another shooting?)

to water my garden.

(A holy act in parched San Diego)

If I chose to honor the brokenness I’d

abandoned

I’d walk a block or two

to the fishing pier,

I’d walk to the very end

(which smells like beer-piss and fish) and

wait for

an Army-green ‘copter

or a

shrapneled, long-haired vet

(Vietnam, no doubt)

to whirl by/

limp past.

(Never a long wait)

I’d feel that concrete pier shudder

from each Pacific wave

I’d watch the surfers and pelicans and

let myself remember.

Thanksgiving’s Starting A Little Early This Year*

Earlier tonight I was driving home in the dark and the rain; I was also pretty tired. Tense as I always am under those conditions, I felt myself starting to relax only as I got closer to home.

A couple of blocks from my house, I stopped for a red light and although I could have done a right-on-red, decided to play it cautious—because I worried a bicyclist might cruise past I wouldn’t be able to see. But when the light turned green I assumed that no bicyclist, not even the most reckless, no-helmut-no-lights and clueless, would dare to run a red light on such a night. My foot on the accelerator and ready to go, something caught my eye through the lower, left-hand corner of my rain-splattered windshield: a young woman dressed in entirely in black and shielded by a huge umbrella who’d decided to cross the street against the pedestrian cross-walk sign. And right in front of me. As she passed my headlights she gave me this hangdog, apologetic, please-don’t hate-me look. And then disappeared back into the darkness.

I don’t hate her. I just marvel I didn’t hit her. Home, now, registering how tired I am and how likely it might have been that, so close to home, I could have completely let down my guard, it seems a miracle I saw her. Phew!

So: the Sunday night before Thanksgiving, I begin this holiday week with a heightened sense of gratitude. (What’s the difference between gratitude and thankfulness? Anyone? Anyone?) Which, tonight I take to mean: Don’t take anything for granted. Anything! Clean drinking water. Seat belts. Being able to vote. Toilet paper.

“What about the main thing in life, all its riddles? If you want, I’ll spell it out for you right now. Do not pursue what is illusionary -property and position: all that is gained at the expense of your nerves decade after decade, and is confiscated in one fell night. Live with a steady superiority over life -don’t be afraid of misfortune, and do not yearn for happiness; it is, after all, all the same: the bitter doesn’t last forever, and the sweet never fills the cup to overflowing. It is enough if you don’t freeze in the cold and if thirst and hunger don’t claw at your insides. If your back isn’t broken, if your feet can walk, if both arms can bend, if both eyes can see, if both ears hear, then whom should you envy? And why? Our envy of others devours us most of all. Rub your eyes and purify your heart -and prize above all else in the world those who love you and who wish you well. Do not hurt them or scold them, and never part from any of them in anger; after all, you simply do not know: it may be your last act before your arrest, and that will be how you are imprinted on their memory.”
― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956

*I’m posting early, too!

“What Are You Praising?”

[Treasures, East Haddam, Connecticut, 2015]

The morning after the horrible news from Paris, I was having tea with a neighbor, a woman I greatly admire and respect—but who, like so many of us, is very, very busy. So although we only live a few doors away from each other, we rarely spend time together.

She was bringing me up to date about many things—like her son. Who’s a teenager, now. A young man growing up in so many fine ways, she told me—although she finds his video games appalling. (“Mom!” he assures her. “I know right from wrong. And I understand the difference between fantasy and reality!”)

“Still,” she mused, sipping her tea. “I wonder, sometimes. ‘What are you praising?’ I ask him. I—”

“Whoa! Back up,” I interrupted. “Did you just ask say that you’d asked your son to think about what he’s praising when he plays a violent video game?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s profound! That’s—that’s—Would it be all right if I write about this on my website? Because that just seems to be the most clarifying question anyone could ask. Should ask themselves. Not just teenagers. Anyone. We all should be asking, ‘What am I praising?’ as we go about our day-to-day lives. That just seems brilliant!”

We got quiet for a moment. Were we both thinking about those young men only a few years older than her son who, hours earlier in Paris, had murdered scores of people? What did their act praise? Because in their minds, I believe, what they did, the havoc and terror they inflicted, praised something incredibly powerful for them. [This link and imbedded, long-but-worth-it video by anthropologist Scott Atran sheds some light on this.]

“Have at it!” She smiled.

So I have. Praise be!

Seen/Scene at Connecticut Muffin

Sometimes it’s those brief moments, a random glance out a Brooklyn cafe’s window that can be so telling, right? Sunday morning sleepily drinking my coffee, I watched a young, tense man walk past and as I idly watched, saw his eyes brighten and a smile transform his caught-up-in-plans-and-worries face. No, I couldn’t see what so charmed him but, given that this was Brooklyn, a haven for hipsters and their offspring, it’s probably a sure bet that he’d spotted a child, a child somehow being adorable, but too short to be seen from where I sat.

Catching sight of his softened, tolerant face, I realized how blessed mixed communities truly are. Before Sunday when talking about mixed I might have meant strictly by ethnicity. But having witnessed that man’s face light up, I must now add: by age, too. A community is all the richer and stronger and more resilient when its citizens are reminded, just strolling down the street or seated on a park bench, that it’s a complex, mixed-up, diverse—and, yes, broken but sometimes adorable—world we’re sharing.

Tomorrow I will visit the assisted living center where my mother lives, a well-appointed, attractive, supportive community of and for old people. And I will remember that young man’s smile.

“No Option But To Love All”

[“Trash,” Somerville Avenue, Election Day, 2015]

Walking home this afternoon after voting and getting a flu shot,* I spotted a mound of stuff on the sidewalk up ahead; a couple of women wearing red tee shirts hovered near this pile. “Oh, Lord,” I thought, walking towards them. “Here it is, absolute, concrete proof, as if I needed it, that this neighborhood’s unaffordable. Because here are two poor, evicted souls’ worldly possessions thrown onto the sidewalk!” And I wondered if/how I could help.

The two women, tired and overwhelmed, sluggishly went in and out of the apartment building next to the sidewalk mound; without drama or tears or energy they kept adding bits and pieces to the pile. “What’s this about?” I asked one.

“Trash!” she replied wearily. And I realized she and her co-worker had been hired to clean. They were not being evicted.

Just then a tan station wagon pulled up; the passenger window rolled down and Alex Pirie, a wonderful activist I’ve known for years who works at CAAS, a Somerville anti-poverty agency, called out to me. “Is this an eviction?” he asked.

“Exactly what I was wondering,” I told him. I nodded to one of the women. “But she says this is trash.”

We looked at the two exhausted women. We looked at each other. And then, reluctantly, we shrugged. Because although we both understood that Something Bad had transpired to cause all that stuff to be tossed on the sidewalk, we were powerless to help. Those harried cleaners knew nothing but their own fatigue and how to get done what they’d been hired to do so they could move on to their next job. More information would not be forthcoming.

Powerless to help the poor souls who owned that stuff, yes, save to hold them in the Light. (That Quakerese for “pray for them.”) But what an energy boost when Alex stopped and rolled down his window and asked that question! Because although I know there are good people doing amazing things all the time, sometimes I need to be reminded. (Okay, let’s be honest, here. LOTS of times I need to be reminded!) Sometimes I need to remember it’s not all up to me! Or about me. Sometimes I need to celebrate my/our interconnectivity.

“We all are so deeply interconnected; we have no option but to love all. Be kind and do good for any one and that will be reflected. The ripples of the kind heart are the highest blessings of the Universe.”
― Amit Ray, Yoga and Vipassana: An Integrated Life Style

* Did you? Have you?

“What is a soul?”

Recently saw “Choice,” a wonderful new play by Winnie Holzman, which asks us to consider: What is a soul? (That the playwright has the most boring and least powerful character of the play pose this question—whereupon he/his question are immediately snickered at and then ignored—strikes me as a brilliant piece of writing!) So I have.

And as these things work sometimes, while searching for something else, stumbled across this ancient poem which attempts to answer that boring man’s poignant, probing, right-on question:

Song of the Soul, by Shankarachary

(788-820 CE, mystic saint of India)

I am neither ego nor reason,
I am neither mind nor thought,
I cannot be heard nor cast into words,
nor by smell nor sight ever caught:
In light and wind I am not found,
nor yet in earth and sky –
Consciousness and joy incarnate,
Bliss of the Blissful am I.

I have no name, I have no life, I breathe no vital air,
No elements have molded me, no bodily sheath is my lair:
I have no speech, no hands and feet, nor means of evolution –
Consciousness and joy am I, and Bliss in dissolution.

I cast aside hatred and passion, I conquered delusion and greed;
No touch of pride caressed me, so envy never did breed:
Beyond all faiths, past reach of wealth, past freedom, past desire
Consciousness and joy am I, and Bliss is my attire.

Virtue and vice, or pleasure and pain are not my heritage,
Nor sacred texts, nor offerings, nor prayer, nor pilgrimage:
I am neither food nor eating, nor yet the eater am I –
Consciousness and joy incarnate, Bliss of the Blissful am I.

I have no misgivings of death, no chasms of race divide me,
No parent ever called me child, no bond of birth ever tied me:
I am neither disciple nor master, I have no kin, no friend –
Consciousness and joy am I, and merging in Bliss is my end.

Neither knowable, knowledge, nor knower am I, formless is my form,
I dwell within the senses but they are not my home:
Ever serenely balanced, I am neither free nor bound –
Consciousness and joy am I, and Bliss is where I am found.

The Opposite of Fear is Love

[Entering Trollfjorden on a rainy, misty day]

How does living with constant fear affect us? Change Us? Scientists tell us that climate change has irrevocably changed our planet. What about our species, our hard-wiring, our DNA? How has living with the fear of climate change irrevocably changed human beings? That seems to be the question my next book will address. (This could definitely change. Stay tuned.) A related question: How does the trauma experienced by a people—slavery, the Holocaust, the Armenian Genocide—get passed down from generation to generation? There’s good data, good research to support that such trauma is, indeed, experienced by later generations. What does this inchoate fear feel like?

In the face of All That, is this poem waaay too facile?

“West Wind #2

You are young. So you know everything. You leap
into the boat and begin rowing. But listen to me.
Without fanfare, without embarrassment, without
any doubt, I talk directly to your soul. Listen to me.
Lift the oars from the water, let your arms rest, and
your heart, and heart’s little intelligence, and listen to
me. There is life without love. It is not worth a bent
penny, or a scuffed shoe. It is not worth the body of a
dead dog nine days unburied. When you hear, a mile
away and still out of sight, the churn of the water
as it begins to swirl and roil, fretting around the
sharp rocks – when you hear that unmistakable
pounding – when you feel the mist on your mouth
and sense ahead the embattlement, the long falls
plunging and steaming – then row, row for your life
toward it.”
― Mary Oliver, West Wind

Forward!

[ Norwegian skyline, October, 2015]

So here’s the question I’m kicking around lately: Since, like many, my sense of the Divine is internal (“That small still voice,” “The Inner Teacher,” etc.) when I actually experience—and am filled by— an inward, physical sense of God/Spirit/Light/Love, is this because I am predisposed to imagine a religious experience as something that happens within me? Or did I just imagine it? Or am I simply talking about That Which is Inexplicable using a construct about inwardness that may be useful but, c’mon! We’re talking about The Inexplicable, right?

Huh?

Okay, here’s what happened: I’d returned home from a magical (though wet) trip to Norway and found my re-entry unsettling. Literally. I had the non-stop, disconcerting sense that my body was gently rocking back and forth as if still on a ship. (It’s called “Disembarkment Syndrome” in case you’re interested) And, frankly, after being in a clean and progressive country that does not share my Home Sweet Home’s appalling record of, say, mass incarcerations or our insane policies re assault weapons, I wasn’t feeling all warm and fuzzy about being back. Heck, no!

But on Saturday, a superbly gorgeous day, despite my wobbliness and general sense of hopelessness, I nevertheless joined hundreds of others to dance and cheer and connect at Honk!, a yearly, Somerville street festival featuring brass bands from around the world who believe in and who support activist causes—and also in dressing up as outrageously as possible, too!

Ahhh. No, I’m not claiming that Honk! cured my Disembarkment Syndrome. I’m still a little wobbly. But as far as my conviction—and my hope—are concerned, I can declare that I’m once again on solid ground. Because, I sweah* that I physically felt Something slide into my soul at Honk. Especially during the opening ceremony—and hearing that precious word, justice, again and again. And hearing members of the Original Big Seven Social Aid and Pleasure Club, an amazing band from New Orleans, talk about their losses during Hurricane Katrina yet still able to celebrate and to praise. Or just hearing “Oh, you can’t scare me I’m sticking to the union” sung by Madison, Wisconsin’s Forward! Marching Band. A “God-shaped hole” ** within me was filled as though I actually felt that missing piece slide into place in my abdomen. I sweah!

Weird, huh. Yes. And what a gift—wherever it came from.

*************************************************************

* (It’s really hard to convey a Boston accent!)

** See my post from July 13, 2010: “I Wrote a Book About It!”

“O, God, thy sea is so great and my boat is so small.”*

[Passing a buoy near Havoysund, Norway, aboard the “MS Richard With”]

To learn of another slaughter—this time in Oregon; ten murdered this time—while traveling along the coast of Norway was to experience such deep, crushing desolation as I had not felt in years. And asking my standard, spiritual-guidance question: “What am I asked to do?” merely let me see that an “answer” that might have come to me had I been home, to send off a generous contribution to Gabby Gifford’s Americans for Responsible Solutions, was no solution at all. (That I realized my stateside instinct might have been TO DO SOMETHING almost made me smile—an indulgent, pat-on-the-head/ isn’t-that-so-cute smile you might give to someone young or naive or sweetly clueless.)

No, I slowly came to understand as I gloomily stared through a rain-swept window at Norway’s stark and misty beauty, what was being asked of me was actually so much harder: I had to “sink down” to that desolation. I was being asked not be numbed. (And, yes, President Obama subsequently used that same word.)

So I did.

*Thy sea, O God, so great,

My boat so small.

It cannot be that any happy fate

Will me befall

Save as Thy goodness opens paths for me

Through the consuming vastness of the sea.

Thy winds, O God, so strong,

So slight my sail.

How could I curb and bit them on the long

And saltry trail,

Unless Thy love were mightier than the wrath

Of all the tempests that beset my path?

Thy world, O God, so fierce,

And I so frail.

Yet, though its arrows threaten oft to pierce

My fragile mail,

Cities of refuge rise where dangers cease,

Sweet silences abound, and all is peace.

~Winfred Ernest Garrison

I Am Waiting for a Story.

[Random: Windsor Street, Cambridge, MA]

I’m waiting for an ancient, timeless, forgotten story to find me. How it will come to me will be mysterious, random; I know that much. This story may come via a dream. Or I’ll hear just the right notes in just the right order and played on just the right instrument—tuneless notes, maybe, high-pitched, and sung by my granddaughter—that my heart will hear and whisper, “Yes. Here they are. Here are the vibrations you have been waiting for. Now you can remember.” And then I’ll write that story down.

So I am listening. And waiting with an open heart.

(No post next week; look for a new post in a couple of weeks.)

Beat Your Swords Into Train Tracks and Affordable Housing

Good news: a new subway station/light rail is probably coming to my neighborhood (Cost overruns are making important people like the governor look twice at the project). More Good News: Many car-repair and other businesses dependent upon the fossil-fuel industry which once dominated my neighborhood are, seemingly overnight, being transformed into housing. In other words, the status quo of living in a world dominated by cars, is shifting. Changing. VERY Bad News: This new housing is NOT affordable housing.

“If you want peace, work for justice,” has been my mantra since the 90s. So on Sunday, instead of attending the International Day of Peace on Boston Common, I am abandoning my Quaker peeps to attend a forum on the future of my community, hosted by Union United, a grassroots organization advocating for, you guessed it, affordable housing!

“Where are All Those Babies Coming from?”

[Third Rail, Harvard Square T, 2015]

In conversations a couple of times, lately, I’ve heard the word “upriver” used to anchor whatever that person—usually young, usually progressive, usually really smart—is talking about, a shorthand for systemic, overwhelming, we need to look at and deal with the root causes of whatever social ill you and I are presently talking about.

The backstory to “upriver” (Skip this paragraph if you already know.): Upriver references a much-told story I’d heard back in the early 90s; the third-hand way I’d heard the tale, it had been told by Kip Tiernan, a righteous, early-on advocate for the homeless. Kip’s story went like this: Once upon a time there was a village beside a river. One day someone from the village saw a baby on a raft floating by so rescued that baby, took it home, clothed it, fed it, built a crib for it to sleep in, etc. Next day, two babies, two rescues, next day, more and more until the people of that village were doing nothing else but rescuing babies. The story ends, of course, when someone in that village proposes that someone should walk upriver to find out what’s going on!

Here’s the thing, though: Even though you or I can think upriver about, say, why it’s hot as hell right now in the Northeast although the calendar’s saying it’s early fall—another day in the 90s expected today—or why, right now, close to 60 Million People have been forcibly displaced worldwide (Take whatever time you need to take in that obscenely astronomically number), such thinking doesn’t alleviate our pain, does it.

May our ability to connect dots, to be mindful, to think systemically, to acknowledge root cases, may such mindfulness lead to a precious moment for each of us to hear the answer to our question: “What is it I am called to do?”