The Chaos of Germinating Seeds
Sometimes dreaming is so exhausting that you have to wake up
Punarmṛtyu — dying again
Punarjanma — and again being born
This guest house of opening and closing one’s eyes
Is like the opening and closing of a banned book that must be read and digested
cover to cover
To get at the mental nutrition between its covers,
Milk does not come from bottles
It comes from the stars
Nor does butter come from waxen sanitary coverings
Samurdra Manthan — churn the cosmic ocean of milk
and remember: all that is golden comes from super novas.
Love is neither easy nor natural
It requires work like the churning of milk to separate butter
Or, churning the cosmos to produce this moment.
And speaking of unconditional love
Is like dreaming of churning butter
Without knowing how to actually milk a cow.
Love is the sun darkened necks and chapped hands of farmers
The Forgotten
In our silicon chip facilitated frictionless virtual and virtueless worlds
Where lies can grow faster than the best genetically modified food grains
The chaos of germinating seeds
The arhythmic bursting of husks
Rice shaken and thrown into the air and the breeze takes the chaff
I’m not singing about Shamballha
I sing of America
Wisconsin corn
Arkansas Rice
Kansas wheat
We fly over these states without even saying a thank you
Or saying our grace
O, Embodiments of Sandburg-ian songs
O, Golden husk covered food grains that if thrashed could feed all of our tomorrows
Let me take you into my body so that I can be
Strong enough to both plant
And harvest you
To be strong enough to help America live up
To all of its broken promises.
Hidden beneath the rotted roses and wreaths of heroes
Men and women who have offered their lives for a dream
Democracy slumbers waiting to be reawakened, rediscovered
And reborn.
It is a field in which an enemy has sewn weeds
Do we have the Nazarene grace to separate the weeds from the tares?
Upāya— the skillful means
Can we grow ever larger to include
Martin’s Dream
Gandhi’s Dream
Malcolm’s dream
Baldwin’s dreams
Nina Simone’s Dream
Zora Neale Hurston’s Dream
Maya Angelou’s Dream
Toni Morrison’s Dream
And every other thinker on a list of banned books
In spite of the
Old time American revival tours
Militant generals using Jesus as a weapon
Churches used as MAGA gun emplacements
And the politicians who take our heroes and she-roes names in vain
But won’t allow us to study about them in our schools
Let me be hot pepper and lemon juice squeezed into our culture’s soured milk
And salvage what seems to have gone wrong
With the grace of a mother making yogurt and curds
All milk products aren’t sweet
And all sweet things aren’t good for you
Let the sour, the spicy, and the bitter all abide together
To form something new and unexpected.
Another poem like this?
And another one?
and another one?
This Groundhog’s day contemplation
Let me work Until I get it right.
I salute the epic, dramatic, and inevitable round of this lifetime
And humankind’s role within it
Maybe we will finally learn compassion
By killing enough curlews blithely flying while melodiously singing
Murdering enough deer in the midst of amorous love sport
Bombing enough children in Ukrainian apartment complexes
Shooting enough people when they least expect it
And killing enough young men in our streets under the color of law
The proof of our living as sages would be the simple ability for us to live well together while still disagreeing.
We won’t see anything new;
We’ll only recognize the promises we have made to ourselves
And broken so many times
Samsara is Nirvāṇa
and Nirvāṇa is Samsara
Worlds woven together
Turn the wheel once twice then thrice
We are a part of this world
and not apart from it
And Democracy will appear on the earth
When it is no longer needed.
(By Heidi Lindemann and Michael Perry)
(Image Credit 1: Sheila Machlis Alexander / Smithsonian Museum) (Image Credit 2: Smithsonian Museum)