Laura M Kaminski Verse-Virtual 2018 March

March 2018

Note: In considering what I might be able to send in keeping with the "prayer" theme, I was struck by how few poems I have found worth keeping that are about anything else. I feel very fortunate to have found places like V-V where such poems are welcomed. Both of these poems are from The Heretic's Hymnal: 99 New and Selected Poems (forthcoming later this year from Babylon Books / Balkan Press).

Ya-Qayyam: Poem Ending with Lines from Dike Chukwumerije
note: closing lines are from “Simplicity” in Dike Chukwumerije’s
On My Way To Azure Shores, Afriscope Publishing, 2012

places where the psyche of the earth
is scorched – Auschwitz and Jericho,
Nagasaki and New York – dark scars
where some people proclaimed them-
selves as chosen to carry out some
judgment on some others – the film
still rolls slowly through our entire
history, unchosen uniting reluctantly
to fight against oppression, dethrone
the most recent chosen ones, decimate
and scatter them – again and again,
human flesh left scorched and broken
in the name of manifest destiny, unity,
purification, retribution – day by day,
place by place, frame by frame,
atrocities continue –

and yet, look:
here a blade of grass emerges
from the ashes

look: two small
girls with skin of different colors
are skipping down a path together
hand in hand

look: here dolphins and men
are fishing side by side
without entanglements

look: here both parties
in an argument have just
decided their differences matter less
than staying friends and lift a glass
in truce –

and here a group of Buddhists born
most recently in France and the US
receive permission from the communist
government of Vietnam to come walk
through the country-side and offer
chants to heal the land –

and stop – look now at myself:
where am I scorched?

kneel within the temple of my
body – speak to G-d through any
lens or none – crawl together through
the rubble – G-d is not too proud to crawl
through my heart and yours
on hands and knees –

look:
here a blade of grass emerges
from the ashes

look:
for the truth is often naked
and the heart is always fragile.

An-Nur: Poem with lines from Sheikha A.
(lines in italics are from her poem "Cure")

The job description of a human being
is to attend, show up ready every day
willing to study any lessons we receive.

So often I've been hurried, stressed, all
focused on whatever I am planning
to do next that I forget to complete

both sides of a transaction. Have you
too been to the market, filled your basket
with fresh oranges and asked the price,

nodded your head in agreement, then
(because your consciousness is already
leaping ahead to the next item on

your shopping list) almost left without
taking the time to pay? Or having given
more than the necessary money, somehow

forgotten to wait, receive your change?
Daily I shortchange myself this way,
fling a hurried question in the general

direction of the Is, gather up whatever
I think it is I need, nod vaguely
without ever really listening for an

answer to the question I have asked:
how to reach / down into a well...
and come up with a light emitting

from the tip of the index finger.
If the Is were to give me the answer
to this question, showing the way

through signs and inner whispers, would
I even be listening? Or do I treat the Is
as just a theory, my prayers not really

two-way conversation? You and I, we've
joked that G-D spelled backward is a DOG,
but then we've gone that backward way,

we speak to Is as if we really don't
expect any answers to be forthcoming,
as if the Is is only capable of barking,

so we say our piece, often thoughtless,
in a hurry, then leave the table before
the other part of the transaction can

take place. We ask rhetorical questions
and do not wait for the answers, don't
make time to listen, real conversation.

I have left the table with my oranges,
flung my money, failed to wait for change.
I've asked to be shown the way to where

camels rest / on their front knees
and then rushed off before the answer,
I've fallen off the map-edge, missed it:

A path uncomplicated: so simple
In following, leading straight to water.