5781 Onward

is it common at the end of a time

to wish for closure 

airing out of dreams unleavened

there are some secrets that have me so painfully grounded when I’d like to move on

to take flight

in my new home I will find new peace

I will carefully choose colors, patterns

welcome all the love and tell the bushes, trees, birds and worms, clouds and brooks 

tell them that I come bearing all my truth 

and hope to hear their songs

it was sudden, this, my aging 

this year we write our own haggadah

biblical, these plagues abound and we survive

we survive and so we eat (that is one way I survived)

savor life, like every single morsel, woe or joy

freedom comes when all is written down

as you identify with what you hear

you rectify your wrongs this year

you hope they hear you loud and clear

then close the book at its end

and start over again

Yes, Words Inspire and They Threaten: Change

Did you hear?

Amanda Gorman, she was questioned by a man in polyester

badges flashing, maybe sidearm and I suppose, white.

He wasn’t shy when following her, you know she is so, Black? 

Into her own building, into her own lobby, into her own home she went.

She knows her words are threatening and we’ve heard them, we agree.

Liberation, revolution, pay attention, ask the questions, Why is it that you only listen

when it’s national or capital or someone famous or something tragic? Write to me. Why?

We poets ask why. We better start to do this, write this everyday, for everyone.

Our fervor, hunger for truth, we must love her with our words and then

we’ll meet in bright Times Square or austere Black Lives Matter Plaza,

and we’ll make a giant poet out of poems: poem maché for Amanda.

For Amanda is but one of millions who deserve, demand, command our best good work, heartfelt

commitment to humanity. Don’t delay, she’s on her way to the corner store. Don’t be afraid to fail,

she is walking down the sidewalk. Don’t hesitate to roar the truth, to stun yourself, to call for help,

for every single human who is trying on a life of freedom. 

Use your words, use your words for Change.

March 8, 2021

Pandemic December: A Trip Through Portland, Oregon

We have a yard

green grass and the spiny dried arms 

of summer’s tomato madness

skeletal now, their vines hang over silver cages

reminiscing about a life well lived

as we pour the red sauce over our fettucine

We go out after lunch, pull some weeds and things

and fill the green barrel, our Fall Cleaning Up

then we load the car, bags of donated clothes

a frozen chicken and the presents Grandma Sheila sent

We drive down the hill and to the stop light

cross over past the corner with the errant shopping carts

How do the homeless gather all those bags? Whose are they?

We take Barbur Boulevard to the Ross Island Bridge

where we look the Veteran in the eye, his cardboard sign

misspelled, no face mask in his pandemic

and the girls look past him into the mess of tents and trash

beyond the exit ramp

Out Powell we drive and each next street has more and more

houseless bodies, wrapped in layers, plastic tarps strewn against chain link

graffiti tags on overpasses, underneath which pieces, parts of bikes and cars

of tents and cans and bottles, paper, piles, metal rusting, spray paint letters sloping

neighborhoods that look far different from our own

Neon lights flash hot pink in daytime shadows

women dancers, Kitten Club and our minivan rolls slowly

past a girl whose clothing couldn’t be much smaller 

without telling us she’ll sell herself

Where is her was her oh, her mother, oh dear baby

Whose are you?

We pass the groups of men on porches, vaping 

clouds of white smoke rising past the cars, hoods open

hands in pockets, hats on backwards, trailers with the wheels are missing

up on bricks in traffic lanes, we drive around the obstacles

we’re almost there, Maria’s house

Up ahead on Holgate there’s a man in traffic dancing acting jumping

half his clothes are gone, we turn left, drive down the lane past 

trash cans overflowing, windows with no panes

just pizza boxes keeping out the cold

Maria comes out with the kids. No masks, all play, she says to me

the pandemic will be over soon, it’s almost over, that’s what they say

She’s prayed to God, He healed her boils, I check my dictionary to be sure 

that’s what she meant

On the way home we pass the dancer, his red meth sores, up too close

The grandma in her wheelchair in the four-lane road, with a girl upon her lap

pajamas and tiara and a wand held high to ward off traffic?

Three tweens on cycles with ironed hair, no helmets and no worries

Why should I, oh why should I and yet I wonder, whose are you? 

The twenty minutes back to home

we talk with our dear babies about social services

and government and politics and tax

we are all shocked from what we’ve seen

it’s so much misery

Our house sits waiting, our street is quiet

families play out on their lawns, no trash, no cars on blocks

no tarps on fences, no cardboard signs 

our green bin’s full, our fridge holds food 

and if you’d like more sauce from ripe tomatoes

but I can’t eat, I can only wonder, whose are they? 

And with so much sadness 

acknowledge

They are mine.

Come With Me!

Beware this reliance

on thin clouds in a blue sky

on definitions from the diction of others

who insist that the internet is connection

who imply that we were lost before

that our ways were not working

our weavings imperfect

our songs out of tune.

 

We are not meant to be

made of transaction, of sedated inaction

soft, quiet and blond.

 

Understanding our energy put forth, our efforts

we grow as we gather so we are not spent

on the mimicry of youth, acting helpless and hairless

on dyeing, hides hidden from their true form

what if we women declared wisdom 

instead?

 

Give me your hand! Palm open! Come along!

as this work, like yours

is unfinished.

Nuestro Futuro

Eres mi esperanza,

veo tu imagen

la mujer con quien sueño

Cruzas la calle

sin mirar para trás

Andas con una confianza

que compartes con el mundo

Te miran y se sientan

¡Esperanza!

Poder y belleza y simpatía

Su postura es todo

que queremos del futuro

que sostenemos del pasado

En la mañana entiendo:

Soy mujer, soy palabra, soy sol

soy amiga, soy hermana

soy amor

La mujer de mi sueño soy yo,

¡Esperanza!

Our Future

You are my hope

I see your image

the woman in my dreams

You cross the street

without looking back

You walk with a confidence

That you share with the world

They watch you and they feel

Hope!

Power and beauty and kindness

your posture is everything

that we want for the future

that we hold from the past

In the morning, I understand:

I am woman, I am word, I am sun

I am friend, I am sister

I am love

I am the woman in my dreams,

I am hope!

The Things We Dance Around

I don’t have anything with which to hurt you

I only have questions

My brother André tells me that I might not even

understand you because we do not share values

and perhaps that is okay

I do things because I want to spread real love

and you talk trash, provoke and bully 

I used to be caught up in that

but now I know there is no hiding

not with money or with guns, neither will work

and you profit, live off both

I can only hurt you with my love

because while I am busy working, sowing, gifting

your hate will be smothered by my success. 

When We Are Little We Know

We know to rise and sing and dance 

when the music comes on the radio.

We run because our little legs tell us 

that joy and thrills and giggling 

are all found on the inside of a hoola hoop in motion.

We cannot sit on the bench of life 

and wait 

or be patient 

or be quiet 

or be lonely

even when our bones are broken 

and our feelings hurt.

We have to jump and wiggle 

and race and explore 

and peek and whisper 

and laugh!

We want to meet them

those other kids

to make friends 

to belong 

and to share in the fun.

When we are little, 

the big people teach us

how to wrap a rope 

invisible and tight

around all our impulses 

and our desires

to slowly blow the candles out 

on our excitement 

and to silence too many words

because there is 

not enough time 

for having fun. 

We must learn, 

(that’s what they teach us!)

to walk in a line 

to lower voices 

to keep from hugging 

skipping and joking

unless we find the right time 

and the right place

for each of those 

formerly natural things.

Now I am old

and I see the pale of loneliness

I feel the pinch of anger 

and the sting of silence

there is pain in the division 

of those whose music

no longer flows.

I sit here alone 

and I wonder 

if perhaps 

I ought to rise up 

off this bench

run and wiggle 

and jump out of here

to race and explore 

to hug and to smile

to sing and to dance

to return to who I am.