Author: Christina's Words

“The darkness around us is deep.” ~ William Stafford

“Thanks” by W.S. Merwin

On By Christina's WordsIn Poetry4 Comments

Listen
with the night falling we are saying thank you
we are stopping on the bridges to bow from the railings
we are running out of the glass rooms
with our mouths full of food to look at the sky
and say thank you
we are standing by the water thanking it
smiling by the windows looking out
in our directions

back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging
after funerals we are saying thank you
after the news of the dead
whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you

over telephones we are saying thank you
in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators
remembering wars and the police at the door
and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you
in the banks we are saying thank you
in the faces of the officials and the rich
and of all who will never change
we go on saying thank you thank you

with the animals dying around us
our lost feelings we are saying thank you
with the forests falling faster than the minutes
of our lives we are saying thank you
with the words going out like cells of a brain
with the cities growing over us
we are saying thank you faster and faster
with nobody listening we are saying thank you
we are saying thank you and waving
dark though it is

“Thanks” by W.S. Merwin, from Migration: New & Selected Poems, Copper Canyon Press.

* Thank you to everyone who has helped those affected by Hurricane Harvey. If you would like to help, I shared several links at the bottom of our last post, “Hurricane” by Mary Oliver.

“Hurricane” by Mary Oliver (and how to help those affected by Hurricane Harvey)

On By Christina's WordsIn Blog News, Poetry5 Comments

It didn’t behave
like anything you had
ever imagined. The wind
tore at the trees, the rain
fell for days slant and hard.
The back of the hand
to everything. I watched
the trees bow and their leaves fall
and crawl back into the earth.
As though, that was that.
This was one hurricane
I lived through, the other one
was of a different sort, and
lasted longer. Then
I felt my own leaves giving up and
falling. The back of the hand to
everything. But listen now to what happened
to the actual trees;
toward the end of that summer they
pushed new leaves from their stubbed limbs.
It was the wrong season, yes,
but they couldn’t stop. They
looked like telephone poles and didn’t
care. And after the leaves came
blossoms. For some things
there are no wrong seasons.
Which is what I dream of for me.

Mary Oliver,  A Thousand Mornings.

Related read via OnBeing.

***

Please consider supporting those affected — and those helping those affected — by Hurricane Harvey. I’ve included several links: to J.J. Watts’s YouCaring page, to the SPCA of Texas, to two NPR articles (one on the many animal rescues that have taken place, and one on the many ways you can help), and more:

How to Help:

J.J. Watts’s YouGiving Site

The SPCA of Texas – Hurricane Harvey Support

Soul Horse is coordinating efforts to rescue horses and livestock, as well as hay transport. I fell in love with Randi Collier’s facebook page and all of the photos of local cowboys taking on the “hard” or “impossible” rescues. Specific needs and how to donate (mostly need $ to cover fuel and transportation).

The Harris County (Houston, TX) Animal Shelter has an Amazon Wishlist.

This Facebook Group “Texas Shelters Donations/Supply List Needs” has several organizations’ Amazon Wishlists posted.

NPR: “Here’s How You Can Help People Affected By Harvey” (includes links to local food banks, shelters, animal rescues…)

If you cannot give money or items, please consider giving blood.

NPR: “From Hawk To Horse: Animal Rescues During Hurricane Harvey”

This video from The Dodo shows some of the animal rescues mentioned in the above NPR article. (The Dodo also has an article on how to help animals affected by Harvey.):

And click to help the Humane Society’s Animal Rescue Team who have been rescuing animals from flooded homes and bringing them to safety:

 

Thank you we are saying and waving / dark though it is*

*with a nod to W.S. Merwin, whom you will hear more from next time. ❤

 

“Natural Disasters” by Faith Shearin

On By Christina's WordsIn Poetry2 Comments

During natural disasters two enemy animals
will call a truce, so during a hurricane
an owl will share a tree with a mouse
and, during an earthquake, you might find
a mongoose wilted and shivering
beside a snake. The bear will sit down
in a river and ignore the passing salmon
just as the lion will allow the zebra
to walk home without comment.
I love that there are exceptions.
At funerals and weddings, for example,
the aunts who never speak nod
politely to one another. When my mother
was sick even the prickly neighbors
left flowers and cakes at our door.

“Natural Disasters” by Faith Shearin from Telling the Bees. © Stephen F. Austin State University Press, 2015.

“Alive Together” by Lisel Mueller

On By Christina's WordsIn Poetry8 Comments

Speaking of marvels, I am alive
together with you, when I might have been
alive with anyone under the sun,
when I might have been Abelard’s woman
or the whore of a Renaissance pope
or a peasant wife with not enough food
and not enough love, with my children
dead of the plague. I might have slept
in an alcove next to the man
with the golden nose, who poked it
into the business of stars,
or sewn a starry flag
for a general with wooden teeth.
I might have been the exemplary Pocahontas
or a woman without a name
weeping in Master’s bed
for my husband, exchanged for a mule,
my daughter, lost in a drunken bet.
I might have been stretched on a totem pole
to appease a vindictive god
or left, a useless girl-child,
to die on a cliff. I like to think
I might have been Mary Shelley
in love with a wrongheaded angel,
or Mary’s friend, I might have been you.
This poem is endless, the odds against us are endless,
our chances of being alive together
statistically nonexistent;
still we have made it, alive in a time
when rationalists in square hats
and hatless Jehovah’s Witnesses
agree it is almost over,
alive with our lively children
who–but for endless ifs–
might have missed out on being alive
together with marvels and follies
and longings and lies and wishes
and error and humor and mercy
and journeys and voices and faces
and colors and summers and mornings
and knowledge and tears and chance.

 

“Alive Together” by Lisel Mueller from Alive Together. © Louisiana State University Press, 1996.

“Invitation” by Mary Oliver

On By Christina's WordsIn Poetry4 Comments

Oh do you have time
to linger
for just a little while
out of your busy

and very important day
for the goldfinches
that have gathered
in a field of thistles

for a musical battle,
to see who can sing
the highest note,
or the lowest,

or the most expressive of mirth,
or the most tender?
Their strong, blunt beaks
drink the air

as they strive
melodiously
not for your sake
and not for mine

and not for the sake of winning
but for sheer delight and gratitude –
believe us, they say,
it is a serious thing

just to be alive
on this fresh morning
in the broken world.
I beg of you,

do not walk by
without pausing
to attend to this
rather ridiculous performance.

It could mean something.
It could mean everything.
It could be what Rilke meant, when he wrote:
You must change your life.

 

Mary Oliver, “Invitation,” A Thousand Mornings (New York: Penguin Books, 2013).