Here, Forward (Sarah)

I want to thank you all for the community and encouragement to write and connect and share these last few months. I don't know that I would have ever written the following poems without this group. Here are some pictures of the program from last night's concert and the final versions of the poems. 

Here, Forward

Skies

Through the mesh of the screen

On that lumpy mattress

On the roof

Trying to hold on to that view 

Those fires

Too many to count

Impossible to keep.

It was most beautiful at night.

Jump

So we jump. 

We go again. 

Take a step. 

Gingerly but not carefully. 

There’s nothing ginger about ginger. 

It zings. 

It sings. 

It’s alive. 

Jump.

We hope 

Our ankles are strong 

When we touch the ground.  

Knots

The knots are tricky in this body,

Fragile like that necklace with the maple leaf. 

“Are you Canadian?” 

“I just like leaves.” 

It broke but I saved it. 

I moved it again and again. 

It’s here with me now, 

Broken still. 

These knots are sore. 

They’re in my back and in my shins and creeping across these knuckles. 

I save them. I salve them. 

I loathe them and I hoard them. 

They hold me up

And give me shape. 

Ordering

It’s not about the order. 

It’s not a noun. 

A verb. It’s active and physical. 

Hard labor for the mind. 

At first it’s about who to tell and when. 

But then it’s inside and outside and everywhere.  

It’s boxes and tickets and pet visas and quarantines and views and birds and winds.

Selves and Shadows

I look out my window and see the flash of yellow birds. 

We whistle, we sing to each other.  

They think I’m also a bird

I think. 

But, surely, they know 

I’m just a person. 

My whistle becomes weak. 

The sureness that I’m real starts to fade. 

I’m a person. 

I’m a girl. 

I’m solid. 

But my bones are hollow and my skin grows feathers. 

I fight the currents. 

I float. 

I alight.

I sing. 

What will the song sound like? 

Will I trick them with this whistle again? 

Make them see I’m a bird? 

Lists

I have these lists in my head that keep everything straight, sharp, ready.

But they’re not very accurate. 

Especially when they rely on this memory, a broken cup.  

The ceramic has ridges and nubs that soothe my fingers and lips. 

It survived the flight home but not the hostility of our sink. 

It’s only cracked, barely chipped,

But the wine seeps out 

and stains 

and strains to remember the shape.

Routines/Rhythms

Routine is sedentary; routine is stagnant. Routine grows algae. 

Rhythm creates; rhythm enchants. Rhythm flows molten glass.

A volcano

Lava

Life

Movement.

This sounds like something beautiful is happening, 

But it is frightening

It is scary

Moving

Choosing

Leaving

Running

One foot before the next. 

Routines become life. 

Lives become routine. 

It’s hard to trust the new rhythm will come. 

Elevators

Wongs

Wrongs

Walks

Crashes

The little things we forgot we left behind.

Those earrings, that blanket, the painted bowl,

Remembered and lost anew. 

What happened to those pages? 

What parts of our skin are left in this place? 

The hairs, the threads from sweaters and socks. 

Pulled too hard. 

Unraveled. 

Will the birds use them in their nests? 

Will the orioles stash them in the trees? 

That kingfisher, the mynah outside the window, will they remember me?

An email to Mark (by Sarah)

Mark asked me what I've been reading lately that jazzes me up! Here's my response...

Hi Mark, 

Good to hear from you. Sorry for being so quiet these last weeks. Thank you for this Thought for the Day and for the question. I might be giving you more than you bargained for, but your question has been fun to think about throughout this long-ish day.  

This idea of courage has been on my mind a lot lately. I read a book called Deep River, by Karl Marlantes, and learned about a concept from the Finnish called sisu and it has to do with determination and courage. Throughout the book various members of a Finnish family call upon their sisu when necessary. They say things like, "it is the time for sisu" or "now is not the time for sisu." I love it.  

A couple of quotes from Deep River:

"There are three good-enoughs in basket weaving. The first is that your basket does the job it was made for. ... The second is that your basket will hold water for a year. ... The third is when you can make a basket without worrying about whether it is good enough. The third one is hardest." (473)

"'When we face hard or scary things, what do we do?'

Eleanor said nothing. 

'What do we do?' Alma insisted.

'Remember our sisu,' she said without looking at her. 

Alma waited for Eleanor to do what needed to be done." (594)

Something else: 
I haven't read any of Dr. Edith Eger's books, The Choice or The Gift, but I heard her say the following on a podcast the other day and it has been ringing throughout my body this last week. I also shared it with a 13-year-old student going through a tough time and am hoping she remembers this in the years to come. "The opposite of depression is expression. What comes out of our body doesn't make us ill. What stays in there does."

Another thing: 

In a book translated from the Japanese called Spark, by Naoki Matayoshi, comes this passage. It is just after one character interrupted someone playing a drum in a park and ended up sort of conducting his playing. 

"That then led Kamiya to start philosophizing: 'The essential thing, Tokunaga, is to disrupt things. Disrupt the colourful, beautiful world, and another unreal, more awesomely beautiful world will appear all on its own. That dude in the park had a radical instrument, but he wasn't doing anything with it. An instrument like that has to be taken seriously. There's no beauty in a world where it isn't. I dunno how he got that instrument, but somehow he did, so now he owes it to the world to play the hell out of it. You can't just go through the motions - it has to be done with total heart.' And then he sipped his very expensive coffee." (36)

And one more thing... 

I was completely jazzed reading this passage from Macbeth today with a few students in our witchiest of witchy voices. It was silly and dark and fun.

"Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,

Witches' mummy, mawa and gulf

Of the ravined salt-sea shark, 

Root of hemlock, digged i'th'dark;

Liver of blaspheming Jew, 

Gall of goat, and slips of yew, 

Slivered in the moon's eclipse;

Nose of Turk, and Tartar's lips, 

Finger of birth-strangled babe, 

Ditch-delivered by a drab,

Make the gruel thick and slab. 

Add thereto a tiger's chawdron

For th'ingredience of our cauldron." (4.1.22-34)

I am looking forward to Sunday if anyone is still available to meet. I also (thankfully!) have the next two Thursdays off for term break, so if people are planning to meet on Wednesday nights, I'll be around then too. And in other news, my poems are being recited with Brian's music this coming Saturday at a recital for about 50 people. It's a freeing feeling!

Thank you. 

Take care and talk soon,

Sarah

The best author’s note I’ve come across [Katrina]

 By nature, a storyteller is a plagiarist. Everything one comes across—each incident, book, novel, life episode, story, person, news clip—is a coffee bean that will be crushed, ground up, mixed with a touch of cardamom, sometimes a tiny pinch of salt, boiled thrice with sugar, and served as a piping-hot tale.

From The Hakawati by Rabih Alameddine...not the novel itself. Just- “just”- the author’s note/acknowledgements.

F

Goodreads

 Thank you, classmates, for reminding me about Goodreads as a helpful way to catalog the books I've read and those I hope to read.  I just updated my account with what I could remember that I've read over the past few years.  I'd love to connect with any of you who are on the platform and could take the time to search my name and establish a connection.  

Hope you all have a 2021 rich with good books!

A Great Fire [Justin]

I'm reading a biography of Thomas Edison by Edmund Morris. 

On December 9th, 1914, a great fire engulfed thirteen buildings across more than half the complex of Edison, Inc. I found it very interesting how Thomas Edison reacted, especially given our closing of 2020 and entrance into 2021.

He joined the crowd of townspeople watching and said, "'Get Mother and her friends over here,' he said to Charles[his son]. 'They'll never see a fire like this again.'"

Later, near the end of the flames, he said, "Yes, Maxwell, a big fortune has gone up in flames tonight, but isn't it a beautiful sight?"

After learning insurance would cover less than a third of the damages, he "radiated energy and excitement as he rose to the challenge of full recovery in the new year. 'I am sixty-seven....I've been through a lot of things like this. It protects a man from being afflicted with ennui.'"

From the Book I'm Rereading [by Mark]

 

Word of the Day: Apokatastasis

Allen Ginsberg: …The conditions of revolution in late twentieth century are conditions unforeseen by any other civilization. We are going to the moon, we have drugs that go to the moon inside, we’ve recovered the archaic knowledges of the Australian aborigines, most primitive societies are available to us if we take the effort, many different forms of magic warfare or peacefare are available, apocalypse, classical Armageddon, destruction of the planet, millennium, all this is a possibility. So it’s now unlike it’s ever been in history, this should mellow everybody out and make it possible for everybody to work together, to create a revolution that has no enemies, a revolution by apokatastasis.

Interviewer: What do you mean exactly?

Questionnaire by Marcel Proust [via Mark]

 

• What do you consider your greatest achievement?
• What is your idea of perfect happiness?
• What is your current state of mind?
• What is your favorite occupation?
• What is your most treasured possession?
• What or who is the greatest love of your life?
• What is your favorite journey?
• What is your most marked characteristic?
• When and where were you the happiest?
• What is it that you most dislike?
• What is your greatest fear?
• What is your greatest extravagance?
• Which living person do you most despise?
• What is your greatest regret?
• Which talent would you most like to have?
• Where would you like to live?
• What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
• What is the quality you most like in a man?
• What is the quality you most like in a woman?
• What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
• What is the trait you most deplore in others?
• What do you most value in your friends?
• Who is your favorite hero of fiction?
• Whose are your heroes in real life?
• Which living person do you most admire?
• What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
• On what occasions do you lie?
• Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
• If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
• What are your favorite names?
• How would you like to die?
• If you were to die and come back as a person or thing, what do you think it would be?
• What is your motto?

Birthing [by Mark]

As I was driving in the Central West End this afternoon, I realized that I had not asked a friend to do a Share the Wealth with us this weekend.   Then,  knowing that Christmas is this Friday, I happened to remember a passage from spiritual theologian Matthew Fox’s  introduction to Meister Eckhart, a medieval Catholic mystic and preacher.   Upon coming home, I looked in Fox’s book and found the passage—

“What good is it to me if this eternal birth of the divine Son takes place unceasingly but does not take place within myself?  And, what good is it to me if Mary is full of grace and if I am not also full of grace?  What good is it to me for the Creator to give birth to his/her Son if I do not also give birth to him in my time and my culture?  This, then, is the fullness of time:  When the Son of God is begotten in us.”

This birthing theme has been on my mind recently because I’ve had the good fortune to Zoom with four dear friends, all in their thirties, all doctors, who are now raising very young children—Neil Munjal and Neeta Shenai, and their daughter Gia (born this summer),  as well as Matt Miller,  Nima Sheth, and their son, Moksha (born September 2019).

Here are a couple more selections from Meister Eckart for your reflection—

“People ought to think less about what they should do and more about what they are.  For when people and their ways are good, then their works shine forth brightly.  If you are just, then your works are also just.  Works do not sanctify  us — but we are to sanctify our works.  Holiness is based on being, not on a single action.  If you wish to explore the goodness of actions, explore first the nature of the ground of the works.”

“The seed of God is in us.  Now the seed of a pear tree grows into a pear tree; and a hazel seed grows into a hazel tree; a seed of God grows into God.”

Documenting Life [Wendy]

Does anyone else keep a Bullet Journal? I've been doing this practice fairly consistently for nearly two years now. I've found it especially useful this year. Each day, I jot down a few bullets about things that happened that day. Ideas that struck me, bits of moments that I wish to remember, or the most mundane things like what I made for dinner. Sometimes, I'll go a week or more at a time without doing it, but I almost always make it a point to go back and jot down some points. 

In 2020, I find myself having a really hard time recalling things that take place even just a few days ago. When I find a slight sense of anxiety when I don't write down what happened each day, as if that day somehow didn't happen. I don't usually go back to read my Bullet Journal, other than when I digitize it, I may glance at a few bullets for nostalgia's sake. Yet, I like the certainty of having written down things that are happening in life, as some sort of proof, or insurance for my memory. 

Curious if anyone feels similarly about journaling or the mere act of documenting the ordinary happenings of daily life. Also if anyone feels that 2020 is hard to keep track of, and each day flees and memory seems to fade in an instant?? What a strange year, just a week left!  

A Poem That’s Been On My Mind Today

 This poem, by Marisa Crane, has been stuck in my head all day, so of course I have to share it with you all:

WHO IS THE BOY & WHO IS THE GIRL?

So glad you asked.  I am the great

White shark & she is the brilliant

Octopus & you are just as near-sighted

As the man on the street

Who complimented my muscular arms

Then reassured me that

I still look like a woman.

Listen, I sink my sharp teeth into the meat

Of her ass.  Her tentacles touch me in places

I hadn’t known existed.  It is a dual act

Of delicious discovery, & it is

None of your fucking business.

Hold It All [by Mark]

 

It must have been 1983, springtime: I asked former classmate Ray Pruitt what he’d been reading: “Last night, Kierkegaard, Proust, and Phil Berrigan.”

Phil and Dan Berrigan, Catonsville action, May 1968

At My Wake, Someone Will Hear Somebody Else Say… [by Mark]

“He was always telling me to share my writing…”

“You, too?  He said that to me, like… weekly!”

“Weekly?  He’d badger me  daily for a fortnight until I gave up.”

“He was relentless.”

“Verdad. Yep, he could be a pain, but when I think about it now, he was on to something.”

“How many times did he quote someone the scripture, ‘Don’t put your light under a bushel basket’?”

Seven people within a earshot raise their hands…

Penny Smith, Northwest Coffee

Add Topics Here [by Mark]

 Katrina emailed us the following "topics/prompts/themes to consider"--

- Something I never thought I could/would do...until I did

- Things I’m not afraid of anymore 

- Favorite celebrations

- Friends who are like family 

- Memorable experiences learning a new language 

Add  your own suggestions to the comments below.

Wendy shared this photo of one of her notebooks a while back

Fun with the Family in Missouri [by Annie]

Here's what I read in class, along with a few photos of the books, which I found while nosing around my parents house in this strange, strange December.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/131on3gHbgpI8ip9eBzx796g4qD9t9WaQ/view?usp=sharing 

 

What Could He Possibly Mean? [by Mark]

 "Every day of life is a foreign country."

--Jack Kerouac

Chris’s writing topics in 2 minutes each [by Mark]

Most memorable conversation with a “local”?

I posted about this on the “Demographic Battle”—the man my age who encouraged me to get home and start procreating like him; after all, with but one wife —he could have had 4— he had 17 kids.  That poor woman.  But who am I to judge.  Maybe she is privy  to graces and mysteries and gratitudes I could never begin to imagine.   So he and I were chatting as the females were getting dinner together. One of the best days in Palestine.  We were doing what we  were called to do—bear witness—and then in so doing, got to see the daily life.

Some interesting ways you’ve navigated a foreign place

One interesting way in Palestine, the last time I was out of the country, is to take long walks if possible. To be among people.  To see the town.  To notice the traffic.  To see what’s for sale. But then there was that long walk in Rafah with the NY Jewish activist/documentary film maker—I think she later published at Counterpunch and her name is certainly in one of the three notebooks I kept when I was in Gaza, but man! how the Palestinian males, from the kids to the teens to the men in their mid-twenties scowled and hissed at her, and she gave it right back to them.

Some meals you’ve had that you can’t recreate for the life of you

Tepesquintlay, that’s how it’s pronounced.  The year was 1986, late November  I'd studied the summer  before at the Maryknoll School, in NY, and had contacts.  PG and I were in Guatemala, and we met up with Father Mo Healy out in the far country. (He uttered these quotable words, “It’s not only good to say what you see, it’s good to see what you see.”)  Anyway the village welcomed us  and  killed the fatted calf, described to us as a supreme delicacy of a cross between a rat and a chicken.

On your list of “first thing(s) I do when I get home

Buy books… sit at cafe and wonder what had just happened… get my limbs happily entangled with Joan Marie’s … long talks with Andrew …make a list of all the things we have to do to speak about being there…Send emails to Murad … write a thank you to the Palestinian-American lawyer who helped me when I was detained by the IDF …

What’s a place that feels like home that you’ve yet to visit?

It’s not a particular street in Warsaw, nor is it a certain stetl in the old Russian Pale of Settlement which hasn’t existed in 100 years, so I could travel to these ghost zones and imagine with my paltry Yiddish (or I can daydream being super colloquially fluent in mame-loshn), walk around and say Nu? 50 times, or  Oy vey is mir!  or Me shlept zihh  or  A mekayhe! or Vu zennen di yidn?

from the book, H. Leivick: Poète Yiddish– Hommages et textes choisis 

Summuh-Time Driving [by Mark]

Listening to Highway 61 Revisited on a Sunday drive starting in Maplewood: north on Hanley, east on Page, south on Union, west on Lindell, south on Skinker/McCausland, west on Manchester ...and nobody has to think too much about Desolation Row. [2019]

Numerous as the Grains of Gazan Sand (Life under Occupation/8) [by Mark]

“Let me tell you what they did to my uncle. See, he was 20 when…”

“I remember it exactly.  I lost hope after 273 days…”

“Deena slowly went crazy after her husband was shot….”

“You will never, ever, be the same after seeing what white phosphorus can do to the human body...”

“Heaven is three hours of sleep a night—oh, except for the nightmares, which are often. Hell is everything in between…”

Report from the Front Lines of the Demographic Battle [by Mark]

Dear Layla

Yesterday we were with the Mansour clan all day

The greenhouse next to theirs was destroyed by the Israelis last week

They called us to come and stand with our banners and orange jackets

In clear view of Israel’s sniper tower 

To hopefully deter the soldiers from taking shots at them

The men busied themselves with hauling away the skeletal frame of their greenhouse

After an hour of standing there

Johnny and I looked at each other 

And understood without a word

We joined in carrying away and stacking the poles

Job finished by late afternoon 

We were taken inside where it was cool

Given water to drink

As we sat on the floor to relax

While the girls and women prepared the evening feast

Ramadan (Guests) [by Mark]

Ramadan (Guests)

Dear Night Who’ll Endure More Than Fourteen Hundred Medical School Nights

 

We do home-stays here

Like many before us

And some will continue after we leave

 

Breaking the fast at Abu Hamid’s home

On the edge of Rafah

On the border with Egypt

 

We show up: the Irish anarchist

The young U.S. Jew

The aging professor

 

We receive their hospitality

We savor their food

We listen to their silence and tales

 

We are not representatives of our governments

We are not officials of a “peace process”

We are not celebrities

 

We are nobodies

Visiting for a time other nobodies

Who gently or vigorously elbow us awake

 

To the way of the world as it is

And the way of the world

As it could be

Doc

--Dear Layla Welcome to Palestine

Note:  Layla, Arabic, night