At Lake Merritt, on the morning of my 70th birth, 11/24/22

Last year, on my 70th birthday I was housesitting, waiting on a balcony by the lake, which was really a slough—a brine estuary glistening with adamantine stars in the hard winter light. I watched the early joggers pass by in slow-mo, their breath visible in the crisp air. And the small red hands of maple leaves, exhausted by all that applause with the wind, they danced down the footpath, across the sidewalk, and flirted with the dangerous wheels of passing cars. We waited for the windsongs to arrive, but the clouds cast their tarot cards on the mirrored lake, as wild geese patrolled the surface like U boats. I drew the hanged man. Some war was brewing, but there was yet another war in progress. Story of our lives. No escaping it. Once Iraq. Then Ukraine. Now, Gaza. The war against nature is a war against the self. I was so near, yet so far from home, that the words never came. I was mute. As if I were never born, as if the wind never had given birth, though this lake was once my constant companion, my familiar, perhaps even a muse. I remember one birthday as we circled the lake—maybe 10 years ago—for I measure this friendship in decades—I once saw what I thought was a white arm reaching out from the water, and I thought, Lady of the Lake. But it was the jawbone of a horse, or mule with large yellow teeth like pawns on a chessboard. Not a sword. No warrior heroes. No dragon quests. Its mate, long gone, much like mine. Has it really been five years? I leaped from the stone gat into the water to retrieve a story of the past, imagining a wilderness of horse-drawn carriages disgorging their bounty from a distant time. Pierced by an arrow of light, I could only imagine my Saggitarian kin, the dance of their clattering hooves on cobblestones, a type of music locked in the distant past. A sound that still stirred the blood and made me remember the names of my dead horses, the memories I harbored during that supple time of youth, when we rode out into the mist, seeking the glimmering light. And the articulate wind was singing, singing to me, a melody of the cosmos on the day of my birth. But I could not celebrate this turn of year, for I had no words left to mark the occasion. A slender silvered fish leapt skyward, as if attempting the rudiments of flight.

11/29/23 Write On! with Susie Terence 

Richmond Bridge bicycle lane

To Whom it may Concern:

Last week, at midday, when traffic is normally light on the approach to the Richmond Bridge, I was stuck in stalled traffic backed up three miles for more than an hour and a half at the approach of the Richmond Bridge. The traffic back up was worse than at rush-hour. It was so bad and there so long a wait that one driver in a jeep pulled over to let his young son pee on the left shoulder.

As we eked our way forward and across the bridge towards Marin, the reason for the traffic jam became clear. A van with a flat tire had nowhere to pull off, so it pulled off in the right lane as close as it could against the cement bicycle divider.

Because the van could not move out the right lane, traffic jammed up for three miles before the toll booth, and there was even more stuck traffic nearly the entire length of the Richmond bridge. No rescue tow truck was dispatched, either. I guess that’s a thing of the past. We just sat there and watched our fingernails grow. Wasted gas idling in line. And during that entire time, only one or two bicyclists used the bicycle lane.

Why are we being held hostage by bicyclists who do not need to use the bridge to get to and from work?For the most part, bicycling is a leisure-time activity, so we are subsidizing their leisure-time against our work time.

This is not acceptable. Either the bicycle lane needs to be removed, or a zipper needs to be put in allowing that third lane to be open during rush-hour and during accidents. By coincidence, my neighbor invented the golden gate zipper. And he would be thrilled if that were implemented.

Maureen Hurley

FIRST LIGHT

Once I held a dream of hope, 

a child looking forward, 

like a horse eager for the trail. 

Once I roamed the fire roads, 

and the backcountry above small towns, 

where the morning fog 

was a lid on the Pandora’s box 

of what was to come. 

Once those ridges held me 

like a mother to child. 

I knew no other home 

and I became a song of wind and sky 

as I traversed those ridges above Tomales Bay 

a sword gleaming in the distance, 

a path of light dividing the lithospheres. 

I didn’t know the wind was a poem,

was also a prayer as well as a road. 

There was only now. Always 

the now, even back then. 

Am I a prayer of the past, 

a prayer of the untrammeled land, 

a prayer of time anchored in memory, 

like a flag full of promise?

I mourn for those islands of youth, 

carefully folded into time, 

distant memories, reimagined 

and tailored to fit the present. 

How do I tell that child 

alone in the wilderness 

that the darkness of this world 

is a lens occluded with sand and grit. 

Call it despair. I am a prayer. 

Let the moon traverse the sky, 

where Orion keeps his sword 

sheathed for an eternity. 

Let the flags of peace be of hope 

to those in war-torn countries. 

Call it Ukraine, call it Palestine. 

It doesn't matter where.

A child once said to me: 

any step toward war is a wrong step.

The fallen children 

who will never again 

gaze upon the restless sea, 

who will never get a chance to share 

the occluded memories of old age,

because in wartime there are no victors. 

Only the wind whispers 

our names as broken prayers 

tangled in dark forests, 

greeting the first light.

11/22/23 Write On! with Susie Terence

The second age of light

I was never much good at hiding the truth, the open book of my face gave away more than it concealed. I never was a good shield, perhaps, because I was also very good at ferreting out the secret assignation and foibles of adults. Lord knows there were enough skeletons in the closet.

After Chernobyl blossomed, I could not hide my dismay when the rains came. The scientists said the cloud was too high in the stratosphere and it posed no danger, unless it rains. And despite all odds, it rained. And so we stood under the portico, listening to the rain. 

And that realization as I avoided the rain, that even the roof of my car offered no protection from the isotopes falling from the sky. This was nothing like what happened at Three Mile Island. That spring of 1986 was a time of no birdsong. 

What could I possibly tell the children when they asked the hard questions that even the scientists sidestepped during this newest age of light?

With an angry child, seeking revenge, said we oughta nuke those Commies, I said, do you think Soviet kids want to nuke us? And at that moment, the doors of perception opened a crack to let the light in.

11/15/23 Write On! Susie Terence

Writing for peace

On the day of invasion, a rabbi wrote a poem, taking the side of peace, no matter what side. But peace is a victim. Susie said to write a poem, personifying peace, hope, war, death, then dress it in garments. I think of the tallit and the hijab, the keffiyeh and the kippah. Neruda said death was dressed as an admiral. All I could think of were those tall ghost ships sailing into port, where the dead gather on the docks to welcome home the fallen. Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish wrote about pigeons and peace, clouds and refugee camps, he was a candle in the darkness that is Palestine. I think how we’ve suffered but, there are invisible bars that hold us in check, no matter what our beliefs. My grandmother said a country without a tongue is a country without a soul. I can’t think help but think of Darwish, a poet who spoke four languages who lived in exile all his life. He wrote: you are my country but I am a stranger stripped of identity. He said Hebrew is the language of love. A love divided from itself. Brother against brother. We are alone in our self-imposed exile. The prisoner said to the interrogator: My heart is full of sage, the remains of dawn, as I walk outside of my own being. In 1984, when we invaded Lebanon, I read Darwish‘s poem about the conference of the birds, and wrote a poem called Death in Lebanon. His poem is no longer on the Internet. The birds have flown. Einstein said to prepare simultaneously for war and peace is a non sequitur. A child said it to me more succinctly: any step towards war is a wrong step. What is the color of prayer, of death? What happened to: Love thy enemy. Darwish was once in love with a Jewish woman, but he was an internal refugee in his country of origin. He said: Without hope we are lost. His name means the wanderer, it also means poverty, but he did not suffer from a poverty of words. His words were a rallying cry. He carried his country within him always. In Paris, Beirut, Moscow, Cairo. He said: I am robbed of my ancestors’ vineyards. Now, nohing is left of his homeland except the thirst of mortared rocks that hunger for peace. Despite past atrocities, peace is always a gift. Where does peace begin with me? Peace is dressed in the feathers of doves in Gaza, and Ukraine. These days we are all living in the crosshairs of the unseen sniper.

11/8/23 Write On! with Susie Terence

Favorite stove burner

Molly Fisk asks what stovetop burner we prefer, and how do we brush our teeth, things which we never tell anyone. I’m a hard left front stovetop burner lover. It’s almost politically ingrained. I brush my teeth up front and center. The molars are in the wings, but my eyeteeth see everything. Corn is eaten in a circle, or more like a möbius strip circling back on itself. I have only two pair of shoes with laces. They rarely come out of the closet. I prefer to walk barefoot whenever possible. Socks are optional. To make up for Robert’s shoelace balancing age test, I have perfected the flamingo stance of dressing. Only occasionally do I fall over, hog-tied by my knickers and jeans. When I do, it’s spectacular. Things which I never tell anyone.

NaHaiWriMo November prompts (abodes)

“Welcome to November NaHaiWriMo! The posts this month will deal with creations, starting with a week of dwellings. Let’s try something different this month. Perhaps write a 3-5-3 haiku, or a monoku (single line), or write a poem that deals with the prompt without using the prompt word. Enjoy exploring the options. Please post your poems inspired by this prompt as comments in response to this posting.”

Visit the website too as I tend to fall off the wagon, and not stay the distance of the month. It could be because writing haiku tends to bore me silly. Maybe I should switch to haibun, to haikai or renga.

The NaHaiWriMo prompt for Nov 1 , 2023: CABIN

AUTUMN ARRIVES LATE

leaves scuttle and dance 
Smoke rises from a cabin in deep woods
woodpecker resumes his carpentry.

11/3/23

I lived in an old cabin

abandoned walnut orchard

slumps back into the mud.

11/3/23

Old walnut orchard

Cabin keeps vigil for signs

Still praying for rain.

11/3/23

DELUGE

Trees thirsting for rain

Cabin keeps an eye on things

Clouds weep in the orchard.

11/3/23

DIVIDED THOUGHTS

Break down the walls, 

reveal the killing fields, 

call it genocide.

Break down the politics 

of divided thought. 

There is no reunification of God.

Let me touch the sea. 

Our better angels 

will let the stars in 

to lick the sky.

11/1/23

BUILDING A WALL

Build a wall made of dusk and old saguaro lace, 

sew it with threads of tumbleweed and twilight. 

Then weave it into a net to catch the errant stars 

as they cross from one no man’s land into another, 

marking that liminal shore, where the voices of dreams 

become tangible, where the ragged mouth of time 

bends to its own vagaries. Tells us stories of the old ways.

A wall, where the past and the future merge 

into a shoreline where it is always now. No borders.

Nothing is written in stone. The old stories of sand 

at river mouths whisper a journey of unimagined time.

Let the river touch the sea until sea and sky become one.

Call off the coyotes and let the voices of the wind 

travel through razor wire, and border crossings 

unimpeded by politics and greed. We are all immigrants 

traveling to one promised land or another.

Make it not a wailing wall. Make it a singing wall 

filled with the wings of prayer rags, and the gods of hope, 

where the vagaries of war smoldering on battlefields 

and contested borders becomes a thing of the past, 

where the politics of religion no longer divide us,

and we move free as the clouds on the horizon.

11/1/23 Write On! with Susie Terence

 (I was channeling Padraig O Tuama’s collects.)

Published in June/July 24 issue of Sonoma County Peace Press