[Oe List ...] Some poems

[ML Jones via OE]

Thank you, Jim.

Mary Laura Jones
Grants Resource Development Consultant
1454 W. Fargo Avenue
Chicago, IL 60626
cell: 773 636-2022
mljones2022 at gmail.com

On Sun, Jan 29, 2017 at 9:05 AM, James Wiegel via OE <
oe at lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote:

> "TWO POEMS FROM THIS MORNING
>
> A Ritual to Read to Each Other"
> by William Stafford
>
> If you don't know the kind of person I am
> and I don't know the kind of person you are
> a pattern that others made may prevail in the
>            world
> and following the wrong god home we may miss
>            our star.
>
> For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,
> a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
> sending with shouts the horrible errors of
>           childhood
> storming out to play through the broken dike.
>
> And as elephants parade holding each
>           elephant's tail,
> but if one wanders the circus won't find the
>           park,
> I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty
> to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.
>
> And so I appeal to a voice, to something
>          shadowy,
> a remote important region in all who talk:
> though we could fool each other, we should
>          consider—
> lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the
> dark.
>
> For it is important that awake people be awake,
> or a breaking line may discourage them back to
>           sleep;
> the signals we give — yes or no, or maybe —
> should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.
>
>
> Deeply grateful to Helen Gerhardt for this:  ............................
>                                        I know, I know
> If you could go back you
> would walk with Jesus
> You would march with King
> Maybe assassinate Hitler
> At least hide Jews in your basement
> It would all be clear to you
> But people then, just like you
> were baffled, had bills
> to pay and children they didn’t
> understand and they too
> were so desperate for normalcy
> they made anything normal
> Even turning everything inside out
> Even killing, and killing, and it’s easy
> for turning the other cheek
> to be looking the other way, for walking
> to be talking, and they hid
> in their houses
> and watched it on television, when they had television,
> and wrung their hands
> or didn’t, and your hands
> are just like theirs. Lined, permeable,
> small, and you
> would follow Caesar, and quote McCarthy, and Hoover, and you would want
> to make Germany great again
> Because you are afraid, and your
> parents are sick, and your
> job pays s@$t and where’s your
> dignity? Just a little dignity and those kids sitting down in the highway,
> and chaining themselves to
> buildings, what’s their f@*#king
>  problem? And that kid
> That’s King. And this is Selma. And Berlin. And Jerusalem. And now
> is when they need you to be brave.
> Now
> is when we need you to go back
> and forget everything you know
> and give up the things you’re chained to
> and make it look so easy in your
> grandkids’ history books (they should still have them, kinehora)
> Now
> is when it will all be clear to them.
> ~Danny Bryck
>
>
>
> Jim Wiegel
> 401 North Beverly Way, Tolleson, Arizona 85353
> Tel. 011-623-936-8671 or 011-623-363-3277
> jfwiegel at yahoo.com <marilyn.oyler at gmail.com>
> www.partnersinparticipation.com
>
> "We are no longer living in an era of change.  We are living in a change
> of era."  Francis
>
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>
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