Category: poetry

Hope in the Dark

Against other constants, and at random.

“Everything I ever thought to be a nightmare is nothing compared to what I am witnessing.”

Voice of Diana Berg, Mariupol Resident, in “No Water, No Electricity: Life Under Siege in Mariupol”

I wanted to tell you, when we spoke last week, about the child returned to the swing before the bombed-out building where he once lived, lifting his foot to the sky anyway, before he can know the word for resistance; and also about the the women gathered close in a kitchen, by the thin window before it broke, passing cake around on patterned plates with good silverware, saying to one another Here, here. Eat––

but the conversation followed another line, and then time was up, and now the shelling is constant and at random and I don’t think the child is swinging anymore, and I don’t know what happened to the women with the cake, if they got on a train the next day, or went underground, and I don’t want to end with this––

constant

––did you hear about the babies born in the basement of the Metro station? Yes, there were several and you could hear the mothers’ screams below against the shelling above, but it is said they are okay now, these babies not because they are at home––and where will that be–– the shelling constant

and at random

––when this is done, 

when is this done? It is constant

but they are at their mother’s breasts and there is still milk even as the mothers are weeping, especially as the mothers are weeping, there is weeping constantly now and at random, and there are also the tiny fingers wrapped tight around a mother’s pointer finger, as if to hold her pointing in place

this

finger like a compass needle dotted with this row of little nails. Strong grip, people say, for some excuse to laugh, and everyone agrees, because this is here now, the grip of the newborn whose first days begin and end here, whose home is mother.

***

Inspired by the documentary mentioned above, featured in the New York Times, March 5, 2022 (Created by Masha Froliak, Ainara Tiefenthäler, Dmitri Khavin, and Sarah Kerr), in which Diana Berg also observes, “The shelling is constant and at random.” Also by stories like this, of births in the metro station. The title of this piece nods to Rebecca Solnit’s brilliant work, especially her Hope in The Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities.  

Holding

Our pieces.

The babies are at the window 

of the train, watching the smoke 

rise, and here’s another reminder 

that words are only shards of 

of our shattering selves, collected 

in each aftermath, in pockets, and

in the corners of silence, to be

glued into the mosaics we are 

always making with the bits, and

to give some shape to the next

cry when it comes, whenever

it comes, faces pressing this 

window of whatever that is at

the border of a full breath. 

Exodus

It’s an old story.

There’s a chronicle, now familiar, which begins with the names of the dead, to announce how the land was filled with them before their children ripened and became more and mightier than those that had meant to harvest them year after year for profit.

The king got wise, orchestrated erasure of the boys first. But the midwives saved them and among these was one from the tarred basket in the river who once saw his brother badly beaten by a guard and was moved to kill and bury the body. Back into hiding, he was found again by a woman at the water, and because he helped her, she bore him a son, and when the king died it was time to cash a check in the name of the children.

So went the keeper of Jethro’s flock, to the mountain to witness a burning light. Take off your shoes, said a voice. Here is holy ground.

The voice continued: I’ve heard them, know their sorrows. Now you go, release them. The man asked for a name, saying they will want to know who sent me, but all that came was this reminder, I am.

He got the elders, and they took a lamb to the desert, and nothing was known at all but this command to go forth, and begin the work of ––don’t say freedom, because if salt loses its flavor what is the point? Say instead, not having to hide the babies in the river. Say instead, not having to hide the bread, or trade bodies for bread for hidden babies in the river.

Again, the voice: Take the serpent by the tail. Show them a sign with your hands. If they won’t see it, offer another. Teach your mouth, too, and leave me to the ears. 

***

With prayers for the safety and protection of all who flee persecution and war.

Chorus

Against the dread.

Where terror shattered our speech, there came some who showed us how to make a song with the silences between our words. We listened, and the poets taught us how to meet what was coming. Look, they said. When the enemy explodes the bridge between the beginning and the end of a thought, only the form changes. What was concrete is now a fibrous web, and all of us in it. What was solid is now porous, and like other porous substances, we now absorb what may come. While the enemy creeps its silent convoy, we are here, and as we listen, one among us begins to sing. Soon, our bodies are saturated with song. The fullness is almost too much, but here we are, holding.

***

Inspired by stories like this of people singing while sheltering from attack. And by poets across time and nations, united against war. With love and prayers for the persecuted people of Ukraine in this hour. May you continue to hear one another, and hold.

Notes Before Dawn

Against the void.

So much depends on finding some beginning, a way in––the next breath, the first word, the next right thing, the first step into it. The despair before the task is so looming, a body could easily be swallowed in its shadow. And will be, unless. There is the next breath, the next right thing, the next step, the first word. Say it.

On the Bridge

Portraits in courage.

Waiting, somebody asks, what will happen when the silence breaks? When the sirens come, so does this announcement: turn off the lights, gas, water. Take what you can. At the window of the train, a hundred Pietàs. Close up on camera, the most hunted among them is refusing his chance to escape. We are here, he says, both reminder and call. Here, Our weapon is truth. This is our land, our children, our country, he says, and we will defend. Civilians run to the wrecked tanks in twos and threes to pick up armor. The defenders are on the bridge. The attackers are coming soon. The living pass the dead, over the river. The bodies need collecting. The holes need repair. Certainty? A grandmother laughs. That’s only for the dead, she says. And then, as if remembering, she crosses herself, and says an inaudible prayer.

***

With love for all who are persecuted by greed, tyranny, and war, especially the people of Ukraine in this historic moment. A prayer for your safety, peace and continued courage. May every witness to your example take heart, and offer it to others in your name.

Go Down

Waiting in the dark.

When it came time to hide in the cellars again, in that dark damp we all feared, some would not go. One of the grandmothers said, I’d rather die in my perfectly decorated flat. Whatever moves in the dirty basement she will not enter, it does not scamper like the mice in the attic. What moves here is slow like the drips from the faucet. There are candles, flashlights. Faces glow against the screens before them. Some close their eyes, try to sleep. 

Do they dream? Fitfully. The cellar dreamer knows that the walls of the cellar are buried walls, with the entire earth behind them. Tell me, where is the fear that does not become exaggerated? The cellar becomes buried madness, walled-in tragedy. When they say take shelter, we wait.

***

The grandmother’s protest is a reference to Nika Melkozerova’s recent guest essay in the New York Times. Other italicized lines are from Gaston Bachelard’s The Poetics of Space.

Safe Passage

For shelter in the event of this now.

How do you enter?

What, you mean this? It can help to know that you are already here.

Parents have been sending the children to school with special stickers: names, telephone, blood type––in case, in the event––unmentionable, but. Some schools made these stickers mandatory. They have been practicing. In case of fire, one drill; bomb, another. The idea is not to panic.

How?

It can help to know that–– 

Not to say too much. We want them to feel normal, say the mothers.

What now?

We pray, says one mother. We pray a lot, she says, for peace.

But how can––

Look. We are already here.

But––

We hold the babies, hold the prayers. We hold on, and the windows are shaking.

Shhh, we say, shh.  What else?

***

For the mothers and the babies, the brothers, fathers, the missing, and those holding in solidarity and love.

Sources referenced: Foreign Policy and Today.

Dark Matters

And other enigmas of being.

You can try to name it with an austere smile or sprinkle it over the garden; count the universe in years, a galaxy in stars, a recognized species in projected numbers to a beginning or end; you can wave self-proclaimed insights with the strength of an eye pressed hot against an iron will, claiming the inconstant sun like a trophy in a body’s feeble attempt to make itself into a direction. But then comes this spinning and the compass will not hold, and all the fragile parts of a theory of everything collapse into the gap between the last exhalation and the next breath.

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