Had we only raked the forest floors
we could have stopped the fires.
If we built a higher wall,
tear gas wouldn’t cross the border.
There is no global warming;
can’t you feel the cold rain
falling on the fallen?
Anger rakes across my senses,
fire ravages my gut.
Walls can’t contain the pain
or hold back the tears.
The earth burns with desperation
as hearts grow ever colder.
And all the while, it is snowing in Russia.
Your conspiratorial wink
seeks my complicit nod.
A pact, an inside joke
among us privileged.
What’s the punch line today?
Racism? Xenophobia? Homophobia?
Today the tacit agreement ends.
I will look you in the eye – unflinchingly –
and say, “No more!”
Straight. Into. The. Mirror.
Glass Ballot Box circa 1884, Smithsonian Institute, public domain photo
As we near the midterm elections in the US, it is becoming clearer and clearer that voter suppression is alive and well in 2018. When voting at the polls, make sure you know your rights.
Acme voting machine circa 1880, Smithsonian Institute, public domain photo
Here are some important takeaways from a CNN online article found here:
If you are told you cannot vote
ask poll workers to check surrounding systems for your name.
ask to sign an affidavit swearing your eligibility.
ask for a provisional ballot and follow up later to make sure it’s counted.
if you are denied or feel intimidated, report the incident to any poll workers present, AND
report the incident to local officials or the Department of Justice Voting Rights hotline*
Metal ballot box circa 1936, Smithsonian Institute, public domain photo
Election Protection Hotline: 1-866-OUR-VOTE
Election Hotline (en español): 1-888-VE-Y-VOTA
*US Department of Justice Voting Rights Hotline: 1-800-253-3931
The information above is taken from the CNN article “Here’s what to do if you’re turned away at the polls.“
Midterm elections are coming up on November 6th in the US. Are you registered to vote? You can register HERE. It’s super easy and super important. Be heard, make a difference.
Vote like your life depended on it. Someone’s life truly does.
“Too many people struggled, suffered, and died to make it possible for every American to exercise their right to vote.” ~ John Lewis
“We must vote for hope, vote for life, vote for a brighter future for all of our loved ones.” ~ Ed Markey
“Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the individual).” ~ Ayn Rand
August 6th is the anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. For the dVerse Monday haibun challenge, poet Frank J. Tassone suggested we write a haibun “that states or alludes to either the Hiroshima attack, or one of the themes of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Ceremony, such as peace, the abolition of nuclear weapons, or the horror of nuclear war.”
From my place of privilege, I would rather post about my pets, show photos of flowers… you know, the nice feel good stuff. I almost passed on this week’s poetry challenge, but given the current state of the world, I felt it important that I not do so. So, not my usual fare, but in my thoughts:
It never really registered, when I viewed the black and white newsreels. The children, in the street, crying. Some naked, their clothes having been burned off their bodies. Some… I wouldn’t even want to describe it. I wouldn’t want to put it into words, because then maybe it would cease to be a black and white movie, and it would be real. Real flesh and… flesh and…
… the flesh, it was melting off their arms.
Mushroom cloud rising
I can only imagine –
no, not even that
NaPoWriMo Challenge, Day 26: “write a poem that includes images that engage all five senses. Try to be as concrete and exact as possible with the “feel” of what the poem invites the reader to see, smell, touch, taste and hear.”
Seventy-two steps down Hall B,
to mute doors with blank-stare windows.
Don’t touch the handles. Fingers would
scorch to ash. Or freeze so hard they’d shatter.
Eyes recoil from chlorine-glazed floor.
Salt water soothes the nose.
Slick. Sticky. Squeaky rubber soles,
but no one ever trips
over absent laces.
Turn around at the door.
Seventy-two steps back. Always the same distance,
though the walls expand and deflate in
fallow-breathed rhythm.
At forty steps back he’s there.
You feel him like a sweat-soaked wall.
The door at forty is no blank stare.
The darkened window rages in razor-orange furnace blasts.
Involuntary flinch. Voluntary cower
to the far wall as you pass by.
He feels you, too,
like a limp, soiled napkin.
He wants to crush you with his fury, until
your soul oozes out and seeps under
his cell door.
He screams. He flings insults and curses
like hot excrement at the walls. At you.
The orderlies will come soon,
syringe locked and loaded.
At the station, turn right.
Fifty-five steps down Hall A.
If you die tomorrow,
I will write you this elegy,
because you are loved
and you will be missed.
And if you sense no love
and no connection
and feel as though no one will even notice
when you are gone,
you may read this elegy and know that
you are loved more than you know, and —
in ways you may not even perceive —
you matter very, very much.
If I die tomorrow,
I will know I am loved
and that I had connections
of soul and heart and mind
with those whose paths touched mine.
I will be missed
by those I love and those who love me, and
even by some who don’t know me at all,
because perhaps — in ways I may not even perceive —
I mattered to them.
For today, though,
before this elegy applies,
let’s notice and celebrate –
if we are able —
our blessings of love
and connection, and of mattering.
Let’s make a difference
for those who do not feel so blessed.
Let’s open our souls and hearts and minds
to one another so we needn’t wait until
tomorrow to read this elegy and
discover just how very, very much
we all, indeed, matter.
NaPoWriMo Challenge, Day 24: “write an elegy – a poem typically written in honor or memory of someone dead. But we’d like to challenge you to write an elegy that has a hopefulness to it.”
If I were to write my memoirs,
the title would be “Reaching.”
The chapter headings:
How Far
How High
How Pretty
How Wealthy
How Meaningful
How Memorable
Maybe not in that order,
but probably so.
There would be a Foreword to explain
I’m not competitive (even against myself),
nor am I status-conscious, greedy or an overachiever.
Well, maybe just a little of all that.
It’s not about aspirations, goals, achievements…
just… reaching.
A reaching born perhaps of the low-key work ethic instilled by my parents.
(is that an oxymoron, “low-key work ethic?”)
Like this:
If you take one step, you might as well take two.
If you’re an apprentice, you might as well become a journeyman.
Once you’re a journeyman, you might as well aim for foreman.
There might as well be a chapter in my memoirs called “Might as Well.”
My memoirs would describe how I progressed through life in this mindset.
And how one day it flipped.
If I lost a step in my journey, I would likely fall back two steps.
If I missed a rung in my ascent, soon thereafter
I’d likely land on my butt at the bottom of the ladder.
And so it was.
Until finally I just stopped.
No up, no down.
Just full stop.
◊ ◊ ◊
Two summers ago I took up whittling.
I sit on my deck on warm afternoons
in the shade of a lopsided black walnut tree.
Opportunistic squirrels steal green nuts from the branches above me.
I place a glass of water or sun tea next to my chair,
and I whittle.
I don’t whittle to carve shapes into wood,
or to carve wood into shapes.
It’s just relaxing to take a sharp knife and a found piece of wood,
and shave away layers until I’ve reached… no, not reached…
until I know I am done.
Maybe this is the perfect last chapter for my memoirs.
I will call the chapter “Whittling,”
and I’ll describe my practice of peeling back layers
to see what’s beneath.
Not like some deep introspection, where I
lay bare the depths of my soul to reveal all the
rot and grisly scars.
Much simpler (and much more interesting) than that;
kind of like a low-key work ethic.
I just whittle
on found wood,
one shaving at a time
to discover the layers
of life,
of nature,
of squirrels,
of being in this world
on my deck on a summer afternoon.
In response to the NaPoWriMo prompt: What does y(our) future provide? What is your future state of mind? Seems I had to go to the past to get to the future.
RE: Journeyman/Foreman: my parents were of a non-gender neutral generation, but they never discouraged my career choices based on gender.
unified resolve
urgent-voiced with tear-filled eyes
marching for their lives
weary flag descends
half-staff honors yet again
our right to bear arms
The Daily Post one-word prompt: Congregate
What Rhymes with Stanza? 