Tuesday, January 24, 2017

Short-Winded and Sharp-Tongued



I've been writing a long time. My father sent me the scrap of paper above which I'll add to a little box full of poems and stories that I wrote long, long ago.

As the dreary news trickles in, my tongue smarts and the words to an old American song drift inside my brain.

Oh give me a home

As I wrote on a previous post, my arms aren't long enough to reach, always, with compassion toward everyone. Mea culpa. 

As my friend said in a text this morning, Trump is the whetstone where we sharpen our tongues. 

where the buffalo roam,

The picture of our President Resident Lech with six other white men standing round watching him sign legislation that tells women what we can't do with our BODIES

where the deer and the antelope play

Our President Resident Lech has given the go-ahead to fuck with sacred land and clean water, and we are being asked to reach out with compassion.

where seldom is heard a discouraging word

I don't think softened words are going to do much of anything.

and the skies are not cloudy all day.



6 comments:

  1. Am protesting tonight. But the real test of mettle will be at Standing Rock. There will not be any holds barred as there had been.

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    Replies
    1. Thank you for your fierceness, Rebecca Yourig.

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  2. The poem that comes to my mind is "The Charge of the Light Brigade"!

    Best,
    Bonnie

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  3. I started to write a fuck you trump post this morning and then i got the news that my aunt died and at that moment i realized it is my late mother's birthday and so i wrote a different kind of post but very much appreciate you putting this post here, speaking for me.

    that poem for a 6 year old is astounding. so is the handwriting. you were a little genius girl weren't you. i can't say i am surprised.

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  4. It's still like I said on the morning after the election- it's as if everything I believed to be true turned out to be false.
    I am having a great deal of trouble trying to figure out what I can do about this new reality which is not a reality.

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  5. What a sweet, beautiful poem; and written at age six! You were already well on your way to becoming a writer.

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