Testimony by Rebecca Baggett

I want to tell you
that the world is still beautiful.
I tell you that despite
children raped on city streets,
shot down in school rooms,
despite the slow poisons seeping
from old and hidden sins
into our air, soil, water,
despite the thinning film
that encloses our aching world.
Despite my own terror and despair.

I want you to look again and again,
to recognize the tender grasses,
curled like a baby’s fine hairs
around your fingers, as a recurring
miracle, to see that the river rocks
shine like God, that the crisp
voices of the orange and gold
October leaves are laughing at death.
I want you to look beneath
the grass, to note
the fragile hieroglyphs
of ant, snail, beetle. I want
you to understand that you are
no more and no less necessary
than the brown recluse, the ruby-
throated hummingbird, the humpback
whale, the profligate mimosa.

I want to say, like Neruda,
that I am waiting for
“a great and common tenderness,”
that I still believe
we are capable of attention,
that anyone who notices the world
must want to save it.

Testimony

I was drawn into this poem by that opening line, in wholehearted agreement that the world is still beautiful despite so much evidence to the contrary – the rape and deaths of children, the many ways we are poisoning our aching world. There is much that is beautiful despite my own terror and despair which can send me spiraling downward. The poet doesn’t need to enumerate at length what causes despair; we all have our own personal list.

She calls on us to recognize the tender grasses, / curled like a baby’s fine hairs / around your fingers – an image to focus the mind. To hear the crisp / voices of the orange and gold October leaves, to note the fragile hieroglyphs / of ant, snail, beetle. In other words, to pay attention to all that this world offers us. And more than that, she implores us to understand that you are / no more and no less necessary than the spider, the whale, the flower that represents the sun. Your presence matters as much as every other being; you are necessary.

She is waiting for “a great and common tenderness”, as the poet Pablo Neruda said in expressing his faith in humanity, a tenderness both expansive and ordinary. Because we are each capable of paying attention, she believes that anyone who notices the world / must want to save it. Perhaps she is also saying that in noticing the beauty of grass and leaf and insect, we can save ourselves, can feel that great and common tenderness for life.

Against Panic and Pandemic by Molly Fisk

You recall those times, I know you do, when the sun  

lifted its weight over a small rise to warm your face,   

when a parched day finally broke open, real rain   

sluicing down the sidewalk, rattling city maples   

and you so sure the end was here, life a house of cards   

tipped over, falling, hope’s last breath extinguished   

in a bitter wind. Oh, friend, search your memory again —   

beauty and relief are still there, only sleeping. 

Against Panic and Pandemic

I first read this poem in the collection How to Love the World, edited by James Crews. It was titled there as Against Panic but when I searched for Molly Fisk, it appears as above. Regardless of whether this speaks to our anxiety about the pandemic or our everyday anxieties, this short piece has that magic that holds both the dark and the light.

She opens with when the sun / lifted its weight over a small rise to warm your face, and rain, real rain / sluicing down the sidewalk are recalled. Then the anxiety, the panic arises: and you so sure the end was here, those thoughts that can paralyze us, hope’s last breath extinguished / in a bitter wind. Who has not gone there to the worst possible outcome?

But finally, Oh, friend, she addresses us, search your memory again, reminds us that all is not lost, hope is not extinguished. What we long for is still there, only sleeping. It’s true, is it not, that when we feel hopeless, drowning in worry, beauty and relief have not truly gone forever; we’ve just lost sight of them and can find them again. Beauty and relief, strong medicine and ever more sweet after the moments of panic – perhaps this poem will remind you of that.

Cherries by Danusha Laméris

The woman standing in the Whole Foods aisle
over the pyramid of fruit, neatly arranged
under glossy lights, watched me drop
a handful into a paper bag, said how do you do it?
I always have to check each one.
I looked down at the dark red fruit, each cherry
good in its own, particular way
the way breasts are good or birds or stars.
Doesn’t everything that shines carry its own shadow?
A scar across the surface, a worm buried in the sweet flesh.
Why not reach in, take whatever falls into your hand.

Cherries

I have been listening to Danusha Laméris the past few weeks, as she co-hosts with James Crews a series called Poetry of Resilience, delighting in her delight with poetry and discovering new poems. There was a passing reference to this one last week, written some years ago, so I looked for it and now want to share my pleasure with you.

Be it Whole Foods or some other grocery store, have you not exchanged a brief comment with a stranger over some food you are both considering? I can imagine the woman’s how do you do it? curious to see someone take cherries by the handful when she herself feels the need to check each one. This then causes the poet to reflect on how each cherry, to her, is good in its own, particular way / the way breasts are good or birds or stars.

Such a generous perspective, that everything has its own light and shadow, that there may be a scar, a worm buried in the sweet flesh and it is all good. Therefore, Why not reach in, take whatever falls into your hand. Why not, she seems to be asking us, receive all of it, the shine, the blemish, no need to look only for perfection. Kind of like life, don’t you think?

Quote by Robin Wall Kimmerer

Even a wounded world is feeding us.

Even a wounded world holds us, giving us

moments of wonder and joy. I choose joy

over despair. Not because I have my head 

in the sand, but because joy 

is what the Earth gives me 

daily and I must return the gift.

from: https://voxpopulisphere.com/2019/10/14/robin-wall-kimmerer-i-close-my-eyes-and-listen-to-the-voices-of-the-rain/

Some of you will be familiar with Kimmerer’s outstanding book Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants. Her writing is wise and poetic, full of rich quotes such as this one, as she shares her botanical and indigenous knowledge of the natural world, her beliefs in our interconnectedness, in the possibility of change.

There is so much contained in these few words – how a wounded world (and who could argue with that description?) is feeding us, holding us, giving us / moments of wonder and joy. Her response to these moments is I choose joy / over despair. Then lest we think her choice unrealistic, she explains that joy / is what the Earth gives me / daily and I must return the gift.

Every day she finds joy in the living world of plants, earth, water; she receives this joy with gratitude. And so in her world view, it is incumbent on her, on us all, to return the gift, to share it so that we do not succumb to despair for this wounded world. I am inspired by the idea of returning the gift of joy even in the face of despair. May you also be inspired.