"...Meurent d'un oubli subtil dans le nœud d'un foulard."

[bronze_ribbons]

What kind of idiot manages to lose their library card on Shakespeare's deathday? Not that Shakespeare or death have anything to do with it...

*rolls eyes at self for the n-tieth time today*

Anyway. In observance of IPSTP:

(1) a number of my poems are available for your use as e-card texts, chez Blue Green Planet.

(2) I've unlocked the initial draft of the agnostic Jewish Advent poem I posted as a gift for orbitalmechanic last November. Here's the current incarnation of that story:



Unconverted: A Non-Messianic Advent Poem

Every December, I wonder why in the world
God planted me within a tribe of live-wire Baptists 
and die-hard agnostics, yet chose to tune my heart 
to the scales of traditional Jewish prayers.
Hebrew remains beyond me, but I go to synagogue
and also to church, reveling both 
in the melody of the Kiddush and
the soothing rumble of T.’s rich bass
celebrating the Gospel of Luke, its hapless
fruitless fig trees notwithstanding. Still, 
no matter with whom I share siddur or hymnal,
I cannot shake my sense of being the daughter
neither of the Son of man nor Sarah:
a side-spawn of the unrepentant thief.

Oh, the neither-nors, they could render
a whole life parenthetical. And yet
the nights I can steal to the temple to toast 
my ever-perplexing God with too-sweet wine
shimmer with the glow of luxury -- of having
the means to read for fun. During Hanukkah,
I watch the slender blue and silver candles
shine in my living room window, pour myself
a glass of pinot noir, and open a book 
I don’t have to read but want to.

I am a fortunate woman: this is a life 
I already craved by the time I was ten. I loved
to slip out of bed and sneak up to the sill
to stare at the panes of the well-lit church 
across the street from my parents' house.
But after three winters’ worth of Sunday school,
I still didn’t know Advent from Ascensions: all
I carried away were the tongue-twisting names
of minor prophets -- the trimmings of the myths
but not their actual meat and bone and thrust.
That came later, and when religion
somehow became not merely a set of stories 
but actual sustenance, prayers my daily bread,
I ceased being able to curse the devil, knowing 
my tongue would have sought to taste the apples
no matter who guarded the tree. 
				
 
				And neither can 
I speak of saviors, not when I have found
I don’t want deliverance from this world 
in spite of the plagues inseparable from its veins
and not when my heart insists that heaven
is merely a name for what we choose to cherish 
out of present disaster and future chaos.
I don’t believe in miracles, beyond
the staggering beauty of being alive. As such,
I wrestle with Advent, enchanted by its doors
and windows and wreaths, and yet
I’m all too aware it isn't my season, 
					And yet
there's more to what we expect and what we hope
beyond what blood and belief would inspire.
Jesus arrived -- who knows, was it really in March
or October? And yet the not knowing -- I don’t
fear its shadows, not when each short day
brings with it unforetold reserves of light:
not only the promises locked in shared begats
but also the arc and grace of choices not frozen.

(3) Here's another poem for which I fear the sell-by date has come and gone, but for which I have a soft spot for nonetheless. If nothing else, it reminds me of things I've already (already!) forgotten since then.


Mittens at Fenway, 2004

As Halloween approached, the unnaturally long games
stretched and spun the October nights 
into cadenzas of fleece-thick anxiety 
and adrenalin-embroidered drowsiness.
Farmers spelled "GO SOX!" across their fields
with pumpkins and haymounds and bushels of apples
while gusts of New England swooped into my kitchen
breathing not only of ancient Atlantic salt
but also of fresh-ground grit and spice.

"We’ll sleep in November!" blared the papers and the blogs.
The litanies of ghosts for whom to win the Series –
grandfathers, aunts, professors and coaches –
those of us praying, we outsang the gallery
of eighty-five fat ladies and their finales of doom.

It’s two weeks later – All Souls’ Sunday
become but a drift of petals and smoke,
the ringing peal of yesterday’s organ 
already blended into the potent distance 
that swallowed the joyful clamor of the bells
shouting triumph over Massachusetts Bay.
I stand on my porch, cold
in spite of my sweater, sleepless
in spite of fatigue.  The ballparks closed,
I sway at the threshold of winter,
warding against the heralds of fresh curses
and wishing, willing stray stars to arc
their blessings toward my outstretched glove.

~ pld