I will not ask you not to cry
though most of you will know that I
have gone to Glory leaped into the light been embraced by Gaia
moved on to my next body next level next planet next lesson
or become a small red puppy.
Even when spirit still sings to spirit
when skin is parted from skin bodies must cry. Continue reading
Bob Santos is a long-time community activist and public service official in Seattle. As the Northwest Representative for HUD during the Clinton administration,, he worked enthusiastically with homeless organizing groups, and among other things opened the first homeless shelter in a Federal building. He left HUD with the change in administration, but is still working to start new housing projects. The members of WHEEL homeless women’s organization are not the only ones to call him “Uncle Bob”. He is one of the few community leaders trusted by both activists and elected officials.
At the party for Uncle Bob’s leave-taking fom HUD, a very large room was packed. There was a wall full of panels displaying his accomplishments, the housing he’d seen built. There was a lot of laughter, a lot of tears.
I wrote this poem for that occasion, as WHEEL‘s gift to Uncle Bob. Continue reading
Trench coats do not create terror
Pierced lips do not create terror
Even Marilyn Manson
Does not create terror
Loneliness
locked inside your heart
where no one can hear you scream
is terror
Not even the internet
Not even the guns
Not even the swastikas
Create terror
Pain that doesn’t
have an end
that eats silently away inside
becomes a black hole
unrecognized by all averted eyes
a non-event horizon
you slip across
to spend forever
sliding down
Terror is not born in talk of guns.
Terror is born in silence.
“Madonna & Child” by Wes Browning
Mary,
holding your baby;
did you see a shadow fall
on the stable wall?
Did the wise men dare to tell you all they knew?
Mary,
who are you?
Frightened child bride,
towed by an angry Joseph
through the swirl of history,
shouting prophets
thundering over your huddled form…
Untouched maiden
meekly kneeling
to the Master of the Universe,
raising one cuckoo
and a flock of sparrows,
never losing serenity
or innocence… Continue reading