Poems

I'd forgotten about summer, somehow,
like a comfortable and familiar shirt
carelessly returned to the wrong dresser drawer
after the wash,
found again—the smile of reunion.

Now, on the warmest night yet this year,
late May, after a lumbering spring and too little sun,
standing on the porch
to take in some air before sleep—
the night luxuriant with silence—

That twinge of familiarity.
Ah, yes,
I remember it now—
the heat, the light, exuberant growth,
a flood of awakening memory;
how had this been lost?

Spill light from the porch lamp
strains to reveal burst dandelion heads below,
waiting for a breeze;
and though I feel none,
the newly blooming redosier dogwood by the foot of the stairs
wriggles silently, expectant.

Clearly, she'd forgotten too.

Please listen.
Do not be afraid.
Wait for me to speak. Do not try to speak for me. Just listen.

I chose a bat as my host because I could not begin my journey in you.
You are too strong and powerful and have too many ways of fighting.
I had to search for a weakness through which I could enter you
And I found it.

I had to find a way to speak to you.
It was imperative. Is imperative.
The little bat gave me entry.
Please listen. I am still speaking.
Speaking because I love you.
How otherwise can a thing as tiny as a virus find a voice
Against all your defenses?

My name is Coronavirus.
I began my journey in China because it is the most populous on Earth.
I need to reach as many people as possible.
I am traveling now the United States
Because you are the most powerful on Earth.
I apologize for my stop in Italy.
A land of poetry and song and love.
It did not deserve the horror I left there.
But, you see, once I began traveling,
I was guided by science.
That is the way I travel.
It is the only way I can.
But maybe something in me also knew
That the West as you know it
Began in Rome.
And being who I am, I was drawn there.
To the beginning of what you call “civilization.”

You ask why I am here.
I am asking you to stop and rethink.
What of all your inventions?
What of all your technology?
What has it brought you?

Has it allowed you to better enjoy a sunrise?
Does it sharpen your ears to hear the birds sing in the morning
Or hear the crickets as night begins?
Is swimming in a river more pleasurable now?
Is your ascent to mountaintops
Or your descent into valleys more full of wonder?
Does the scent of the rose bring you more joy?
Or the giggles of children bring you more delight?
Does the taste of the peach burst more brightly inside the vestibule of your mouth?
Can you see more clearly into the tide pools?

The insects are disappearing.
The rivers are drying up from your unquenchable thirst.
The views from the mountaintops are occluded.
Your roses altered for easier transportation
So they have lost their scent.
The children are sad and ill-equipped for enchantment.
Our fruits also modified for travel, not taste.
The old stories are lying untold and unread.
The reefs too are dying.

Wake up beloveds.
I am here to awaken you.

Why did I choose you as a host?
Because you are the most beautiful of the creatures.
All of the creatures are beautiful.
Were they not, why would the love that made them have called them so?
Yet you,
Most of all.
Who else can sing together in great choruses?
What other creatures have painted
Guernica, the Sistine Chapel, or Starry Night?
Who else has formed
The great sculptures of ancient Greece and Europe?
The cathedrals along the Rhine
Or created Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony?
Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus” or Leonard Cohen’s?
Who else the great gardens of England or the delicate ones of Japan?
The pyramids of Egypt? Those within the rainforests of America? The Taj Mahal.
Who else has written the Arabian Nights, The Brothers Karamazov?
Les Misérables? The Razor’s Edge?

It has been you, my hosts.

Yet all this majesty has made you proud
It has made you believe you are invincible.
You have become self-important.

These gifts were given you
Because you were meant to be co-creators with God.
But too many of your gifts have been ill-used,
Used to build your egos instead of your art.
To spread justice.
Or engender peace.

It is time now to
Stop.
Listen.
The cataclysms that were meant to stop you
The hurricanes, and floods, and fires
Did not make you stop.
You kept using your creativity to kill instead of birth.
So the fire has come inside your bodies.
It has come through me,

I am your teacher.
I am your lover.
Please stop.
And listen.

This poem was highly inspired by #Listen “Letter from the Coronavirus” by Kristin Flyntz, posted on YouTube, 3-12-20
My eternal thanks to her.

facing the sun this morning
i sing
to the cosmic christ
to the ancient of days
to “the newest thing there is”

standing in my golden circle
i chant the psalms
“oh give thanks to the lord
his mercy endureth forever”

planted
i chant john’s vision
“in the beginning was the word
and the word was with god
and the word was god
the same was in the beginning with god”

a kirtan facing east
a curtain thrust aside

to speak simply

of late I see a
world turned
to shit

and yet last night
washing the dishes
with my family

dogs underfoot
my daughter
singing to herself

my entire being felt
— luminous.

That is my poem

The pain of this world has worn me out this morning
I need a nap
I need to forget that babies are being torn from mother’s arms at the border
I need to forget that an anarchist
presuming himself to be a king sits in the Oval Office
And the lies keep coming

I need to forget about the melting ice sheets
And the Rohinga huddled together in great masses
with scarce food and water and no reason to live
And of 22% of my own country’s children
who go to sleep food insecure every night

I need to forget that our children are afraid to go to school
for fear of being massacred (thank God it’s summer)
And I don’t want to remember all the other things I also want to forget

I need a nap, and it isn’t yet noon

Ah, but a hawk just landed on my garden fence
In its world too the strong eat the weak
Even so, in its world
Unlike in my country
Something is natural about that