Month: October 2023

In Light of You

photo courtesy of Cannundrum.blogspot.com

Here, beneath the trees,
we sit in the peace 
of a sunlit afternoon.
My words, my pale pathetic words,
fade in the light of you.

As the words 
I grasp at as possibilities
to say all I mean
evaporate 
from my hands and mind
like the water
in this drying arroyo
shrinks away from its banks
before us, 
I am left wordless.

For no words can stand
in the light of you
and the gifts you bring
to places where
I discovered 
pieces missing
in light of you.

Blood Reign

All photos courtesy of Ap and Twitter

I’ve revised and reworked an earlier piece written in 2017 as a response to the terrorism of Hamas and the war Israel has declared. It seems to me that this slaughter by Hamas and the retaliation that Israel is now forced to take cannot be what any God wants. Surely, it is not what the Palestinian people or the people of Israel want either. 

The blood of children
falls as rain
on Holy ground.
The blood of their parents
chasing after
as if to save it,
stopping it
from concreating the land
to evil born of old hatred
as the world,
emptied of all care,
watches.

No uprisings.
No shouting in the streets
as this blood rain of innocents falls, 
flooding the silent world 
as nations watch, 
hands bloodied 
in pretense of helplessness
before turning their backs.
 
The seven descend.
Each with wings spread
enough to fill a house.
Shalom upon their tongues.
Throughout the compass points
they search to find
all the gnawed bones,
the muscles and sinew,
the heart and entrails
torn with teeth of hate.
And once the seven
gather all the tiny bits,
With flaming swords
used as needles,
they try to stitch
all humanity’s bloody bits
into one thing well knit.
Neither their swords,
nor spirit of their breath
have the power to seal
the meat and sinew to bone.

And then they know--
those who showed no mercy
would be given none.
Their heads hang--
Inshallah upon their lips
as they ascend.
Their flaming eyes
weeping tears of fire
as they see the red rider
striding across the land.

It is then the seven know 
humanity’s avarice and hate
had broken the fourth seal.

Maa shaa’Allah a whisper of smoke
within their throats.
From the seven sets of fiery eyes,
their tears of fire
stream Retzon ha-el 
across the night sky.

Birds Fall Silent

I tear the trailing ivy
From the trunk of the crepe myrtle tree,
A routine autumnal yard task,
Look up to a partly cloudy Texas sky,
Think of madmen and bombs,
A madman and eleven shot dead
As they prayed on Shabbat—
No words, no words come
Even the birds fall silent.

If I Could Sing

I would sing melodies

of healing to fade the scars of yesterday’s pain.

I would sing tales

            of velvet nights to cushion any regrets.

I would sing the notes

            of the forests and mountains for the joys of today.

I would sing songs

            of promises made and kept in the morrows to come.

I would sing hymns

            of praise and gratitude for you.

In Honor of Narges Mohammadi, Jailed Iranian activist and 2023 Nobel Peace Prize winner

Hair Part I & II

Image courtesy of the BBC

Women, we are tortured by our hair.

It is never what we want.

It never obeys our desires.

A mischievous heathen, 

it laughs at our attempts

to bend it to our will.

We grow it, cut it, dye it,

curl it, straighten it, 

treat it with carcinogenic chemicals

to beat the mischief making 

blasphemer into submission.

All the while, it laughs at us

as our enemies, humidity and wind,

destroy in seconds 
the cooperation 

we thought we’d earned 

with our torturous machinations.



Hair:

Too thin,

Too thick,

Too curly,

Too unruly,

Too straight,

Too limp,

Too frizzy,

And the color—

Too…too…too…too-too little 

and too-too much of everything—

Never exactly as it should be.

It will not follow our will.

Pull it into a ponytail.

Shove it under a baseball cap or a sun hat.

Why don’t we just shave our heads

And let it be done?





This woman’s crowning glory,

a temptation enough to make angels fall

from the heights of heaven at the sight it,

necessitates head coverings and wigs for women,

according to some.

After all, who wants it to rain angels

into the streets of the world?

That’s a sight I wouldn’t mind seeing

since I’ve got questions for those angels.

For one, why do women have to help angels

control such lusty impulses?

But I digress as I begin my morning battle

with my own head of hair.

II
I grasp this beast of kinky

curls that sits upon my head,

attempting to tame it into submission.

First, the wire brush stretching strands

straight as concentrated hot air

dry the water from the beast.

Slowly the taming comes.

Finally dry, frizz left there,

making me aware who the boss really is. 



I break out my next weapon 

against this frizzy beast:

The flat iron.

And while it heats,

I tune the speakers to a podcast

about the missing women of Juarez.

Sectioning my beast hair as I listen

about women missing,

women found dead,

women to whom no one paid attention 

because 

they were

women, girls

because

they were

brown

because 

they were

poor

women, girls

brown

poor—

The things 

that do not grab attention

that fade away in the media

easy to say of these—

They ran away.

With a boyfriend, likely. 

Oh, she’s a drug addict.  
Who knows where she went?



And on I go to straighten another section

Of hair with my hot flat iron.

My beast neatly tamed.

I think it would be easier to braid my hair into rows.

Decorating the braids with small beads,

a bead for each missing woman,

a bead for each murdered woman,

a bead for each missing, murdered, indigenous woman of color

in this land, across the globe.

Each tiny bead 

with a name microscopically etched

and then braided into my hair

as beads of grief,

a bead for each woman, each girl—

If I could then even lift

my bead heavy head

like the mothers who carry

sandbags of grief searching

the world for daughters

gone missing—

what could I, one person, do?



The world spins on.

Despite the burden of beads,

these beads braided

into the fabric of motherhood

across the globe

for girls gone missing,

girls glanced at, ignored 

by a society that sends up invisible prayers

then turns forgetting what it deems valueless,

girls marked by the violence of poverty,





Then I think of 22 year old, Mahsa Amini.

dead in the twisted irony

of morality police custody for a hijab violation.

I should shave my head in solidarity 

with the women of Iran 

who protest.

But what could I, one person, do?



Would beads or a shaved head here make a difference?

Would anyone know the meaning?  

My neck cannot bear the weight of braids with beads enough for each woman.

My bald head would not be understood as sign of solidarity.



So I send out my chicken scratches of a poem

into the world, and I choose to leave it as it is, 

Untamed and ugly.