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AwakeningPoems
Before dawn the sky is the colour of opened flesh, and over the sleeping roofs the planes pass so high they are only silver wounds stitched across scarlet reds. The old crow on the telephone wire turns its head west. It knows something. Smoke writes its thin scripture over the world. Not prophecy. Exhaust. Not angels. Men. Men in helmets, men behind screens, men whose hands never touch the bodies their decisions enter. East to west, west to east... all night the iron birds cross over the earth, our Grandmother, who receives without complaint the ash, the oil, the names of the dead. In the kitchen light I sit awake with coffee gone cold, watching the dark window become a mirror. At my age the world no longer arrives as news. It arrives as recognition. Another war. Another flag. Another holy name strapped to a missile. How easily the mouth learns to bless what the heart should refuse. There are men who speak of God with blood still wet on their sleeves. There are men who kneel for cameras and rise to sign the orders. The churches fill with thunderous certainty. And mosques. And temples. And chambers of government. Everywhere a creed is lifted higher than a child. Everywhere the message is left behind like a coat forgotten on a chair. Blessed are the poor, someone once said. Blessed are the meek. Blessed are the peacemakers. Yet the stock exchange opens at nine. And all morning the numbers trend upward like fire up dry grass. How strange that instructions so gentle could be bent into a sword. How strange that love, once spoken plainly on a hillside, could be reissued as doctrine, as campaign slogan, as marching song. I think if that carpenter returned now, boots dusty, hands scarred, face lined with desert light, he would not be welcomed beneath the polished glass. Not in the cathedrals. Not in the capitols. Not by the men wearing his name like body armor. They would call him dangerous. Subversive. Unpatriotic. They would ask whose side he was on, as if mercy must choose a border. As if compassion requires a passport. As if heaven could be partitioned by pipelines. And he'd be gunned down cold. Outside, the snowmelt runs black through the gutter. Even here the season is wrong. The winters come thin now. The summers linger like fever. The sea is rising in the mind before it rises at the shore. A friend on the Pacific leans over instruments and watches the numbers inch upward like a pulse that will not slow. Two degrees. A number so small it can sit on the head of a pin. A number so large it can empty nations. A river dries. A field fails. A father with no bread for his children becomes more frightening than any army. Because hunger has no ideology. Because despair is older than every empire. And still the billionaires build higher walls, deeper bunkers, longer tables. They stack wealth like sandbags against a flood that does not bargain. As if gold can be eaten. As if shares can be planted. As if money will mean anything to the wind. A wife saw this long ago. Not the dates. Not the graphs. The shape of it. A world tilted out of balance. Take more than you need, she said, and the taking will not stop with you. It enters the soil. It enters the blood. It enters the mind until greed itself begins to sound like reason. And what is religion in such a time? I cannot call it evil. I have seen too much bread broken in its name. Too many hands washing wounds. Too many women in plain clothes feeding strangers. A daughter in a kitchen in Kraków, ladling soup into bowls, never asking who believed what, never asking who voted how, never asking who deserved it. Only hunger. Only need. Only love made practical. That too is religion. Not the banners. Not the chants. Not the men who invoke heaven before war. But the bowl. The loaf. The hand reaching outward. So then what fails? The faith? Or us? Can any good thing pass through human hands without taking on our fingerprints... our fear, our vanity, our lust for power? Can even light be made into shadow once it passes through stained glass? I do not know. That is the question the dawn keeps asking. The sky pales. The first birds begin. Somewhere children are waking. Somewhere a market opens. Somewhere a missile is fueled. Somewhere a prayer is whispered for peace by the same lips that will later cheer for war. And still our earth turns, wounded, beautiful, bearing us. Perhaps nothing we touch remains pure. Perhaps that is our tragedy. Or perhaps the purity was never in the thing... not in religion, not in nation, not in philosophy... but in the moment one human being chooses not to corrupt it. A loaf shared. A weapon lowered. A lie refused. A child taught to love the earth. The Sacred Hoop broken, yes... but somewhere beneath the snow the roots remain. I think of my grandchildren, Seventh Generation arrived. Small hands reaching toward spring-time. And I wonder whether the Tree might flower again not because we were wise, but because they might be.
0
Mar 31
Mar 31, 2026 at 10:04 AM UTC
Beneath the Frost
Before dawn the sky is the colour of opened flesh, and over the sleeping roofs the planes pass so high they are only silver wounds stitched across scarlet reds. The old crow on the telephone wire turns its head west. It knows something. Smoke writes its thin scripture over the world. Not prophecy. Exhaust. Not angels. Men. Men in helmets, men behind screens, men whose hands never touch the bodies their decisions enter. East to west, west to east... all night the iron birds cross over the earth, our Grandmother, who receives without complaint the ash, the oil, the names of the dead. In the kitchen light I sit awake with coffee gone cold, watching the dark window become a mirror. At my age the world no longer arrives as news. It arrives as recognition. Another war. Another flag. Another holy name strapped to a missile. How easily the mouth learns to bless what the heart should refuse. There are men who speak of God with blood still wet on their sleeves. There are men who kneel for cameras and rise to sign the orders. The churches fill with thunderous certainty. And mosques. And temples. And chambers of government. Everywhere a creed is lifted higher than a child. Everywhere the message is left behind like a coat forgotten on a chair. Blessed are the poor, someone once said. Blessed are the meek. Blessed are the peacemakers. Yet the stock exchange opens at nine. And all morning the numbers trend upward like fire up dry grass. How strange that instructions so gentle could be bent into a sword. How strange that love, once spoken plainly on a hillside, could be reissued as doctrine, as campaign slogan, as marching song. I think if that carpenter returned now, boots dusty, hands scarred, face lined with desert light, he would not be welcomed beneath the polished glass. Not in the cathedrals. Not in the capitols. Not by the men wearing his name like body armor. They would call him dangerous. Subversive. Unpatriotic. They would ask whose side he was on, as if mercy must choose a border. As if compassion requires a passport. As if heaven could be partitioned by pipelines. And he'd be gunned down cold. Outside, the snowmelt runs black through the gutter. Even here the season is wrong. The winters come thin now. The summers linger like fever. The sea is rising in the mind before it rises at the shore. A friend on the Pacific leans over instruments and watches the numbers inch upward like a pulse that will not slow. Two degrees. A number so small it can sit on the head of a pin. A number so large it can empty nations. A river dries. A field fails. A father with no bread for his children becomes more frightening than any army. Because hunger has no ideology. Because despair is older than every empire. And still the billionaires build higher walls, deeper bunkers, longer tables. They stack wealth like sandbags against a flood that does not bargain. As if gold can be eaten. As if shares can be planted. As if money will mean anything to the wind. A wife saw this long ago. Not the dates. Not the graphs. The shape of it. A world tilted out of balance. Take more than you need, she said, and the taking will not stop with you. It enters the soil. It enters the blood. It enters the mind until greed itself begins to sound like reason. And what is religion in such a time? I cannot call it evil. I have seen too much bread broken in its name. Too many hands washing wounds. Too many women in plain clothes feeding strangers. A daughter in a kitchen in Kraków, ladling soup into bowls, never asking who believed what, never asking who voted how, never asking who deserved it. Only hunger. Only need. Only love made practical. That too is religion. Not the banners. Not the chants. Not the men who invoke heaven before war. But the bowl. The loaf. The hand reaching outward. So then what fails? The faith? Or us? Can any good thing pass through human hands without taking on our fingerprints... our fear, our vanity, our lust for power? Can even light be made into shadow once it passes through stained glass? I do not know. That is the question the dawn keeps asking. The sky pales. The first birds begin. Somewhere children are waking. Somewhere a market opens. Somewhere a missile is fueled. Somewhere a prayer is whispered for peace by the same lips that will later cheer for war. And still our earth turns, wounded, beautiful, bearing us. Perhaps nothing we touch remains pure. Perhaps that is our tragedy. Or perhaps the purity was never in the thing... not in religion, not in nation, not in philosophy... but in the moment one human being chooses not to corrupt it. A loaf shared. A weapon lowered. A lie refused. A child taught to love the earth. The Sacred Hoop broken, yes... but somewhere beneath the snow the roots remain. I think of my grandchildren, Seventh Generation arrived. Small hands reaching toward spring-time. And I wonder whether the Tree might flower again not because we were wise, but because they might be.
Awakening
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Awakening
Mar 31
Mar 31, 2026 at 10:04 AM UTC
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