At the Death of a Young Girl

"We cannot find Him unless we know we need Him."  Thomas Merton

I see its raw fury clawing at her hands,
Kissing her sallow face with lies so perfect on silk pillows,
Concealing raw, gaping wounds inside, the insult
The harsh silence, the enforced peace.
I have seen all this before, this beast, this darkness, this indifference
To waves of anguish washing through the room
As her mother weeps, and her father strokes
Her dark, perfect hair.
I see her, and
I know.

But what am I to say to their terror? These children
Look at me, questioning … after all,
I am their teacher…
But why did she die?, well, asthma… breath denied… but why?

I know this insistent knot, this question piercing my gut,
And I want to hide in silence, but questions will not be denied,
And I know their questions, all of them…
So what am I to say to calm their red, flowing eyes,
These, my poor, dark flowers, piercing me with their tears?

Faith.
Yes, read the book to them…Lazarus found out… faith…
Promises were made, now to be made good.
Yes, faith… what else is there but
Faith?
And so we say the rosary,
And we go on.

(12/15/2012)

The Poetry Lesson

I’ll turn off the classroom lights

and open the windows wide

so you can see.

Look deeply

as the sun shatters

our rainy world

into rainbows.

Feel how cold wind,

flooding through open doors,

drops to the darkened floor

your poems,

like seeds

piercing fertile soil -

can you hear it?

the steady whisper

of God?

(26 March 2011)

Seaward

Photograph: view Golden Gate Bridge from the galley of The Hawaiian Chieftain. S. Federle

"Grace does not destroy nature, but elevates it and consecrates it to God." Thomas Merton

Seaward waits, poised,
gently rising and falling,
by the concrete pier
ready for our cruise;
the polished bowsprite,
jutting in defiance,
fills my heart 
with an undefined dread.

Underway at last on the calm Sausalito channel
we strike sail, ropes winching
mainsail tight, foresail stretched
catching breezes pushing up
from the foggy Golden Gate

but I see only
watery desolation:
no familiar, solid road
no bright guiding line,
no golden prize
as we speed across
the dark, green desert.

The wind, no longer a breeze,
becomes a cold gale, flailing our faces,
making us hurry into windbreakers and hoods,
and when I turn my tingling cheeks
towards the shrouded city, suddenly
out far and in deep, I see

pelicans soaring and plunging to the kill,
ducks skimming low over like fighter squadrons,
and sea-lions spying on us at water level,
their dog-sly eyes following our every move.

Warfare fills this place
as species battle species, and
Darwin writes all the rules.

On this voyage of discovery
we are like school-children gaping in wonder
at colorful plastic buckets of bay water
revealing sea-worms, and spider-crabs,
preying on tiny krill delicately inching
over fronds of firm sea lettuce.

So the bay is not a desert;
life pours over it,
on it, and under it,
claiming at every level
of this moist, roiling world
its birthright,

and we are unwitting participants in this struggle
tossed high and low in our powerful, winged schooner,
gliding lightly, scooning swiftly on our voyage
through turbid, turbulent waters,
through the violent,
living bay.

(22 July 2010)

Seaward sailing under Golden Gate Bridge

Crows in Fog

Shrouded limbs

hang high 

over the rising red church.

Breathless, 

the muted world

waits 

in morning's 

white core.

That's when crows 

black shadows

on thin branches, 

silently wait 

high above 

the empty schoolyard

for children's shrill calls

to begin another 

innocent day.

(16 March 2013)

Graduation Dance

Graduation Dance

The gym was dim.

Red and white balloons
glittered in the dusk
while flashing lights writhed
on the dark floor
like enchanted water-snakes
gliding through scented fog.

This was a celebration dance!

Eighth grade done at last,
they stepped, hesitant, into the roiling
teen-age sea,their synchronous, bobbing heads
attuned to the be-bop rhythms of the city (not their city),
and the lusty calls of the hood (not their hood).

Smooth gym walls echoed the dj's mechanical angst
endless, relentless beats, the racing heart of the machine,
artificial sighs, nano-seconds long and gigabytes wide.

The boys, spinning on heads and leaping from hands and
flailing legs, showed an athleticism
never seen in PE,
while the girls huddled in their own dark corner
and planned their move;

their fashion walk,
legs strutting ahead
of swaying hips,
heels clicking the hard, dark floor,
as they stalked right up to the foul line

where boys were spinning and leaping
through throbbing lights
to the tribal, primal beat.

So the girls turned,
hips flung in defiance,
and sashayed back to the wall,
staring hard at the gaping boys
over their swaying shoulders.

(28 May 2009)

The English Teacher

When I told them how Jim Crow
made prisons of
bathrooms, restaurants,
candy stores, schools

and how the school bus forced
colored kids into a ditch,
(too black to ride)
and justice finally failed
even Sunday school girls,

they looked askance,
narrowing their eyes
and asked how people
could be so unfair,

so I showed them.

Six million gone
with the careless wave
of the Kommandant’s baton,
and Anne, discovered and reduced
to words on a page.

Their eyes grew suddenly old and grave.

Now
asking them to write April poems,
I say,
look at the cold spring day…
wind blowing
through restless trees,
rain filling the land to
make it green,

but instead they sing dirges,
of children who murder,
and children who die.

So why should I be surprised ?
They did not make this world
and I cannot lie.

Author notes

(after reading Billy Collins’s poem, “The History Teacher”)

Song of Spring

Lusty old bird squats

on branch, bends backward knees and
bawls his song of spring.

Out of the Hard Blue

Out of the hard blue it comes
throbbing, powerful, flinging dust and small stones,
as it clears the swaying tops of neighboring redwoods,
and gives the empty,clear, and calm air
substance, color, and turbulence.
We shield our eyes and turn away
from the spinning propellers as the
helicopter floats slowly down
closer and closer to the playground:
ten feet, six, five, one, done;
and lightly resting on gray pavement,
on the hopscotch lines and painted stars and planets,
the roar of its motor drops from banshee scream
to diminished moan, and finally to whisper
as blurred blades slow, and the flight finishes,
and all motion stops.

Then the school children take over, shouting
as they rush, straining against teachers’ restraint,
to see this amazing machine come to visit.
They gape at what is usually a speck in the sky,
but here it is huge and amazing,
up close, and so real!

After peering in windows, and touching gleaming doors,
and the short speech by the pilot,
(so cool in shades and blue flight-suit)
the scheduled visit ends, and the helicopter
springs again to life, and leaps
into brilliant May sunshine, into
the hard blue sky, and
quickly disappears.