Deena, thanks so much for posting all this. The Thank you poem is one that I quote often. I hope to come to one of your next seminars. I had a beautiful afternoon last Sunday with Greg and Becky since we are members of the same temple. They are both very special and we love them at Ahavat Torah. Many blessing, Leslie Tuchman
Thank you, Deena. I needed to read this and think of my dear friend, Sam Hamill, whom I thought of yesterday, who is missed, whose best friend was my friend, Poet Thomas McGrath, who introduced us. Yes, bless the magic of synchronicity to remind us there must be invisible threads of higher consciousness connecting us all. It must be carried by the Collective Wind, these whispers of Soul to remind us it is possible Nature has the answers and War is never the answer.
one of your most powerful posts dear deena, words that need to burn through the shame and horrors of these times and cry for each soul to stand up for life and for the world we are losing day after day. thank you as ever for being a clarion in the wildernesses...xx, m
We are all interconnected as the trees are interconnected, so why don't we live accordingly. YES. Thank you so much for weaving together these connections, and pointing the way forward from the 'brutality and banality' we live in and impose on everything. And thank you for your urgency.
Prediction of the cautious is a curious thing right now it gives the machine exactly what is put in, the only difference between humans is our poop can be beneficial to the soil. Feeling need to remind us all The Tao is Now and that is our universe in all its splendor and pain. Thanks for all the work we have shared and the healing of the heart, Deena.
A stunning essay, Deena. Thank you. Blessings upon Merwyn, Rexroth, Hamhill... and Metzger, and all the poets and visionaries helping us find our way. I think of a poem from you, Deena, that has sustained me for many years, which I recently taught in my writing groups. Thank you for seeing in the dark. Thank for you for your stubborn insistence on life. Thank you for holding fast to poetry. Thank you, we say, dark though it is.
Leavings by Deena Metzger
(For Sister Cao ngoc Phuong)
I want what is left:
The tea leaves, the soiled images on cards,
The gasp of words as meaning slips away,
The rinds of the alphabet,
The chewed poems of prisoners,
The bones and the skeletons,
The secretions, the shattered sperm,
The blind blood, the phlegm and the cough.
It has always been women’s work to prepare the corpse.
But, I will not make a corpse from these elements,
The military leader of Hamas has said he believes he has gained the upper hand over Israel and that the spiralling civilian death toll in Gaza would work in the militant group’s favor, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal, citing leaked messages the newspaper said it had seen.
“We have the Israelis right where we want them,” Yahya Sinwar told other Hamas leaders recently, according to one of the messages, the WSJ reported Monday. In another, Sinwar is said to have described civilian deaths as “necessary sacrifices” while citing past independence-related conflicts in countries like Algeria.
The "cruel culture" is Islam, in all its horrific glory. They murder innocents in the name of their allah. They attack and attack, and when they are then attacked by their victims they yell "Islamophobia" and "genocide." The Islamo-nazis of today want to finish what Hitler started.
There is only one question - how do we stop destroying the Earth, and learn to hold all beings in our hearts. Otherwise — extinction follows quicker than you can imagine.
thank you.
Deena, thanks so much for posting all this. The Thank you poem is one that I quote often. I hope to come to one of your next seminars. I had a beautiful afternoon last Sunday with Greg and Becky since we are members of the same temple. They are both very special and we love them at Ahavat Torah. Many blessing, Leslie Tuchman
Oh Deena! You say it all here. I feel so grateful to read this, to have you as an old friend. Respect and love!
Thank you, Deena. I needed to read this and think of my dear friend, Sam Hamill, whom I thought of yesterday, who is missed, whose best friend was my friend, Poet Thomas McGrath, who introduced us. Yes, bless the magic of synchronicity to remind us there must be invisible threads of higher consciousness connecting us all. It must be carried by the Collective Wind, these whispers of Soul to remind us it is possible Nature has the answers and War is never the answer.
one of your most powerful posts dear deena, words that need to burn through the shame and horrors of these times and cry for each soul to stand up for life and for the world we are losing day after day. thank you as ever for being a clarion in the wildernesses...xx, m
We are all interconnected as the trees are interconnected, so why don't we live accordingly. YES. Thank you so much for weaving together these connections, and pointing the way forward from the 'brutality and banality' we live in and impose on everything. And thank you for your urgency.
Prediction of the cautious is a curious thing right now it gives the machine exactly what is put in, the only difference between humans is our poop can be beneficial to the soil. Feeling need to remind us all The Tao is Now and that is our universe in all its splendor and pain. Thanks for all the work we have shared and the healing of the heart, Deena.
A stunning essay, Deena. Thank you. Blessings upon Merwyn, Rexroth, Hamhill... and Metzger, and all the poets and visionaries helping us find our way. I think of a poem from you, Deena, that has sustained me for many years, which I recently taught in my writing groups. Thank you for seeing in the dark. Thank for you for your stubborn insistence on life. Thank you for holding fast to poetry. Thank you, we say, dark though it is.
Leavings by Deena Metzger
(For Sister Cao ngoc Phuong)
I want what is left:
The tea leaves, the soiled images on cards,
The gasp of words as meaning slips away,
The rinds of the alphabet,
The chewed poems of prisoners,
The bones and the skeletons,
The secretions, the shattered sperm,
The blind blood, the phlegm and the cough.
It has always been women’s work to prepare the corpse.
But, I will not make a corpse from these elements,
I will make a child.
I will make you such a rose of a child,
A rose of a child held in the crook
Of the dark hand of a dead branch,
I will make you a child shining
Like an angel from these elements of dark,
And the child will sing.
This is what we have
This is what we have to work with.
So give them to me,
First your dead, moldering
In the dreadful heat of your deserted cities,
Then give me the iron birds in the sky,
With their demented warbling,
Last, I want your radiant soul
With its eternal shimmer.
Give me everything mangled and bruised,
And I will make a light of it to make you weep,
And we will have rain,
And begin again.
CNN —
The military leader of Hamas has said he believes he has gained the upper hand over Israel and that the spiralling civilian death toll in Gaza would work in the militant group’s favor, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal, citing leaked messages the newspaper said it had seen.
“We have the Israelis right where we want them,” Yahya Sinwar told other Hamas leaders recently, according to one of the messages, the WSJ reported Monday. In another, Sinwar is said to have described civilian deaths as “necessary sacrifices” while citing past independence-related conflicts in countries like Algeria.
The "cruel culture" is Islam, in all its horrific glory. They murder innocents in the name of their allah. They attack and attack, and when they are then attacked by their victims they yell "Islamophobia" and "genocide." The Islamo-nazis of today want to finish what Hitler started.
There is only one question - how do we stop destroying the Earth, and learn to hold all beings in our hearts. Otherwise — extinction follows quicker than you can imagine.