"I Am The Tree Planted By The River"

Already another month has fallen to the steady march of time, toil, and purpose. And despite the dark spills and oil clouds that threaten to choke our air and waters, April came with all her loveliness, springing forth in brightness of hope and futures abloom. I think that is the sentiment and spirit of Dan Chiasson’s Next, a fitting synopsis for our month of poetry and compassionate experience.

Next

If you can orbit the planet, why can’t you see

what makes the human heart happy?

Is it art or is it sex?

Or is it, as I suspect, just keeping going

from next thing to next thing

to next thing to next thing

to next to next to next to next

pulsating stupidly to outlast time?

But let us not tick-tock too quickly, nor mindlessly on to the next thing, as Dr. Maya Angelou’s poetry invites us to slow it down. Savor it, the sensual and rhythmic pulse of life, like a good cup of morning joe and wave to the stranger who has loved us, “hello, good morning.”

The Rock Cries Out to Us Today

A Rock, A River, A Tree

Hosts to species long since departed,

Mark the mastodon.

The dinosaur, who left dry tokens

Of their sojourn here

On our planet floor,

Any broad alarm of their of their hastening doom

Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages.

But today, the Rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully,

Come, you may stand upon my

Back and face your distant destiny,

But seek no haven in my shadow.

I will give you no hiding place down here.

You, created only a little lower than

The angels, have crouched too long in

The bruising darkness,

Have lain too long

Face down in ignorance.

Your mouths spelling words

Armed for slaughter.

The rock cries out today, you may stand on me,

But do not hide your face.

Across the wall of the world,

A river sings a beautiful song,

Come rest here by my side.

Each of you a bordered country,

Delicate and strangely made proud,

Yet thrusting perpetually under siege.

Your armed struggles for profit

Have left collars of waste upon

My shore, currents of debris upon my breast.

Yet, today I call you to my riverside,

If you will study war no more.

Come, clad in peace and I will sing the songs

The Creator gave to me when I

And the tree and stone were one.

Before cynicism was a bloody sear across your brow

And when you yet knew you still knew nothing.

The river sings and sings on.

There is a true yearning to respond to

The singing river and the wise rock.

So say the Asian, the Hispanic, the Jew,

The African and Native American, the Sioux,

The Catholic, the Muslim, the French, the Greek,

The Irish, the Rabbi, the Priest, the Sheikh,

The Gay, the Straight, the Preacher,

The privileged, the homeless, the teacher.

They hear. They all hear

The speaking of the tree.

Today, the first and last of every tree

Speaks to humankind. Come to me, here beside the river.

Plant yourself beside me, here beside the river.

Each of you, descendant of some passed on

Traveller, has been paid for.

You, who gave me my first name,

You Pawnee, Apache and Seneca,

You Cherokee Nation, who rested with me,

Then forced on bloody feet,

Left me to the employment of other seekers--

Desperate for gain, starving for gold.

You, the Turk, the Swede, the German, the Scot...

You the Ashanti, the Yoruba, the Kru,

Bought, sold, stolen, arriving on a nightmare

Praying for a dream.

Here, root yourselves beside me.

I am the tree planted by the river,

Which will not be moved.

I, the rock, I the river, I the tree

I am yours--your passages have been paid.

Lift up your faces, you have a piercing need

For this bright morning dawning for you.

History, despite its wrenching pain,

Cannot be unlived, and if faced with courage,

Need not be lived again.

Lift up your eyes upon

The day breaking for you.

Give birth again

To the dream.

Women, children, men,

Take it into the palms of your hands.

Mold it into the shape of your most

Private need. Sculpt it into

The image of your most public self.

Lift up your hearts.

Each new hour holds new chances

For new beginnings.

Do not be wedded forever

To fear, yoked eternally

To brutishness.

The horizon leans forward,

Offering you space to place new steps of change.

Here, on the pulse of this fine day

You may have the courage

To look up and out upon me,

The rock, the river, the tree, your country.

No less to Midas than the mendicant.

No less to you now than the mastodon then.

Here on the pulse of this new day

You may have the grace to look up and out

And into your sister's eyes,

Into your brother's face, your country

And say simply

Very simply

With hope

Good morning.

Meet you back here soon, in May. Peace and blessings,

Your goodie bag:
Famous Poets And Poems

Writer's Digest's Poetic Asides blog

Knopf DoubleDay's Poem-A-Day featuring Derek Walcott

The Stranger Who Has Loved You

We continue National Poetry Month and the theme of compassionate experience with some picks from Derek Walcott and the Sufi sage Hafiz. It must be said that the Derek Walcott pick does have some bias being that he is a celebrated native son of St. Lucia. His notoriety goes beyond the accomplishment of Nobel Poet Laureate. Just recite these opening lines in the vicinity of any St. Lucian “After the hot gospeller had leveled all but the churched sky, I wrote the tale by tallow…” The tell-tale glint of recognition you will see flitting across that face speaks also of an indelible memory of the historic tragedy in the capital of St. Lucia marked by the popular sonnet, A City’s Death by Fire. He was our Poet Laureate long before the Nobel.

Given the massive, ominous cloud of volcanic ash over the Icelandic sky it would seem in poor taste to feature that automatic choice, instead here’s a tribute to springtime and renewal.

Love After Love

The time will come

when, with elation

you will greet yourself arriving

at your own door, in your own mirror

and each will smile at the other's welcome, 

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart

to itself, to the stranger who has loved you 

all your life, whom you ignored

for another, who knows you by heart.

Take down the love letters from the bookshelf, 

the photographs, the desperate notes,

peel your own image from the mirror.

Sit. Feast on your life.

What are you thinking? How is this about springtime, or renewal? Love After Love seems to speak of recovery after hurt, heartbreak. It can be that on one level, but read deeper and you will discover its secret of a soul’s awakening, and compassionate experience. Arriving at your own doors says you are home, a place of belonging, and acceptance. At peace with yourself, you no longer seek happiness through, nor do battle with, the reflection of your soul in the world, but greet the other with the smile of recognition. And recognizing yourself in that reflection you arrive at the ability for compassion, not just tolerance, and true meaning of the Golden Rule: love.

Poetry is often written in ways that shroud its true meaning with flowery or grandiose metaphors, the point of which may be to usher the poet and poetry-lover into exclusive, hallowed fellowship. As confusing as it might seem when a secular poet tricks us into the numinous with a seemingly mundane subject, so have many sages incited great sanctimony when they attempt to share the all consuming joy of Divine experience through the language of love. Admittedly, what happens when the outer meaning shimmers away to reveal the wonderful treasures of inner meaning is truly a delightful experience. None conveys that more playfully than Hafiz:

What Happens

What happens when your soul
Begins to awaken

Your eyes

And your heart

And the cells of your body

To the great journey of Love?

First there is wonderful laughter

And probably precious tears

And a hundred sweet promises

And those heroic vows

No one can ever keep.

But still God is delighted and amused

You once tried to be a saint.

What happens when your soul
Begin to awake in this world

To our deep need to love

And serve the Friend?

O the Beloved
Will send you
One of His wonderful, wild companions--
Like Hafiz.

A beautiful meditation. Have a wonderful week and say 'hello' when you meet the stranger who has loved you...all your life.

 

Peace and blessings

 

I Am Still Here!

Hello Dish-friends. Time to resume our weekly discussions. April is National Poetry Month so we will savor a few well-loved poems and some fresh discoveries. This weeks title grabs from African American poet Langston Hughes. There is no science or allusion in making this selection (and others to follow) except that it brings us back after a brief hiatus. If there is anything to take from these selections is how to channel the powerful emotions in reaction to life’s experiences in healthy, constructive ways. Mr. Hughes captured the zeitgeist of his time, conveying the indomitable spirit of “people who keep on going.”

Still Here
I been scared and battered.

My hopes the wind done scattered.

Snow has friz me,

Sun has baked me,

Looks like between ’em they done

Tried to make me

Stop laughin’, stop lovin’, stop livin’--

But I don’t care!

I’m still here!

Haha! Can't help loving that blasé punctuation, I am still here! We are still here. Our world may be shaking up, earthquakes in the literal sense, and economically, politically, ideologically among other ways. Even so we are a scrappy lot who have lots to be thankful for. We once reached for the moon and there we planted our flag. Now we reach for Mars; from seed to harvest…

Still Here reminds me of a similar affirmation of life and our common threads, presented here selectively (space and attention spans withstanding) from Walt Whitman’s collection.

Song of Myself
1.

I celebrate myself, and sing myself,

And what I assume you shall assume,

For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

6.

A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands,

How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he.

I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven.

Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,

A scented gift and remembrance designedly dropt,

Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners, that we may see and remark, and say Whose?

Or I guess the grass is itself a child, the produced babe of the vegetation.

Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic,

And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow zones,

Growing among black folks as among white,

Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the same, I receive them the same.

31.

I believe a leaf of grass is no less than a journey-work of the stars,

52.

The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab and my loitering.

I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,

I sound my barbaric YAWP over the roofs of the world.

Song of Myself invites us to compassionate experience; a disparate lot we might be but our humanity, democracy, and mortality ties us all together. Rather than turn our hierarchical tendencies on ourselves, let us instead reach for the stars and sound our mighty YAWP over the galaxies.

Let's get it!

Peace and blessings