poetry lamenting war #12

Radiation
        a liturgy for August 6 and 9


A Call to Worship

Stand in the sun long enough to remember

that nothing is made without light
spoken so firmly
our flesh is its imprint.

Whirlpool nebula, the eye of the cat, snow
crystals, knotholes, the X-ray diffraction
pattern of beryl--all these echo the original

word that hums in the uncharted mind.
Listen and answer.

Responses

If the corn shrinks into radiant air and our bread
is a burning cinder
                        like chaff we will wither and burn

If the thrush and oriole vanish, borne off in the wind,
unhoused and barren
                           we forget how to sing and to mourn

If our cities and mountains fall into the fields
and sleep with the stones

how can we leaf through old photographs and letters
how summon our lives
                              our hands will be smoke

Confession

The bomb exploded in the air above the city destroyed hospitals markets houses temples burned thousands in darkened air in radiant air hid them in rubble one hundred thousand dead. As many lived were crippled diseased they bled from inside from the mouth from sores in the skin they examined their children daily for signs scars invisible one day might float to the surface of the body the next red and posioned risen from nowhere

We made the scars and the radiant air
We made people invisible as numbers.
We did this.

An Ancient Text

There is a dim glimmering of light
unput out in men. Let them walk, let them walk
that the darkness overtake them not.

Private Meditation

(Shore birds over
the waves dipping and turning their wings together,
their leader invisible, her signal their
common instinct, the long work of years
felt in a moment's flash and veer--

we could be like that.)

--Margaret Gibson, Long Walks in the Afternoon. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1982.

LINKS:
Here is a biography, with links to poems and an audio file of Gibson reading (

( Error: Irreparable invalid markup in entry. Raw contents behind the cut. )

bookkeeping

for Sunday

Proj2.3: 686 words
Verdict: Would've done better if I hadn't gone nuts in the bookstore. Oh well.

***
I'm in one of those states where I feel as if I'll never have anything interesting to say ever again. (Except for the fiction. The fiction's fine.) I could embark on a long whiny post here--because really, who can't work up a good whine at the drop of a hat?--but I think I won't. Eventually, I know, I'll have something interesting to share again, but for now I'm going to go get some work done.

great big glowy joy phoschrysanthemums of gratitude

renenet, as I believe I have said before, is a goddess.

And now I need to say it again:

Renenet is a goddess and should let me know how she wants to be worshipped.

That is all.