Thought for the Day

Be grateful, be father and mother, /

Be teacher, sister and brother /

In all that you dream and do, /

Against the day your ledger /

Is opened to you.

~ Robert McDowell 

___________________________

Quoted from Robert McDowell, "Grateful" from On Foot, In Flames (University of Pittsburgh Press) in Robert McDowell, Sweet Wolf Selected & New Poems (Homestead Lighthouse Press, 2021), p. 96

Robert McDowell, Poet, Author (Fiction, Criticism, Translation, Creative Nonfiction), Editor; Co-Founder (with Mark Jarman) of The Reaper Magazine and Story Line Press; Founder, Rural Readers Project; Co-Founder, Poets Prize; College and University Educator; Social Activist; Public Speaker

Robert McDowell Website

Staying Ahead of the Danger (Poem)

Staying Ahead of the Danger

Drone-dropped leaflets float down

like so much manna from heaven:

 

warnings with QR codes for

downloadable color-coded maps

 

outlining the "dangerous combat

zones" in the killing fields of Gaza.

There is no electricity to charge

the phones the IDF is calling.

Texts follow anyway. Evacuate,

those first ones order; stay inside

"known" shelters and schools,

command others. An official

spokesperson fails to see

the contradiction, estimates

that for every one Hamas militant

eliminated, two civilians die.

Let's be clear: This is the calculus 

only his government can live with,

the toll now "something more"

than the losses recorded yesterday,

and still "more than acceptable

compared to other armies

facing similar challenges 

in urban battlefields." After all,

what choice is there? "We

didn't start this war," he argues. 

__________________

The quotes in this poem come directly from an Israeli military spokesperson's explanation of his country's warning system, which uses air-dropped leaflets, drone broadcasts, telephone calling, texting, and Internet communications to warn Gazans to move out of harm's way as the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) advances its war against Hamas militants. Displacement in one area flows from displacement in another. As this Washington Post article makes clear from interviews with Gazans and humanitarian aid officials, there are no safe spaces for the Palestinians, not in homes, schools, hospitals, churches, or other shelters, especially where all essential services have ceased to exist. (See "Israel touts civilian warning system, but for Gazans, nowhere is safe".) The spokesperson's additional comments about the number of civilians killed compared to the number of militants are appalling, though the individual hastened to add – too late, in my opinion, to register a sense of compassion – that "any loss" is unacceptable. Numbers are telling. Facts are facts. We must all drop the scales from our eyes if we are to see this war, and this horrendous crisis for Palestinian civilians, in clear light and at last acknowledge those unlike ourselves as the human beings they are. (See also this New York Times coverage and, in particular, "An Airstrike hits Rafah, where Israel had urged Gazans to seek safety," (December 6, 2023): https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/12/06/world/israel-hamas-war-gaza-news.)

Thought for the Day

[. . . ] I lived in the present, which was

that part of the future you could see. [. . .]

~ Louise Gluck

_________________________________

Quoted from Louise Gluck, "Landscape," The Threepenny Review, Winter 2005

Louise Gluck (April 22, 1943 - October 13, 2023), American Poet and Essayist; Winner, Nobel Prize in Literature, 2020; United States Poet Laureate, 2003-2004

 

Thought for the Day

[. . .] I have come around to understand the fact that in promising

us an afterlife, we are being given a chance to take care of

unfinished business. Because who, except the greatest 

of saints and the most innocent of persons, 

doesn't have unfinished business? [. . .]

~ Denise Levertov

_______________________________

Quoted from Emily Archer, "Conversation with Denise Levertov," Image, Issue 18, Winter 1997-1998

Denise Levertov (October 24, 1923 - December 20, 1997), British-Born Poet, Writer, Translator; Teacher; Political Activist

Uprootings (Poem)

 Uprootings

1

 

Ungloved hands once plucked ripe olives,

Palestinian symbol of resilience and pride.

They harvest now no more than branch

and bone, sprayed hectares amid grove fires.

 

2

 

In Khan Younis, beyond the border fence,

no one dances dabka. In Nablus, a farmer

hugs her tree, and cries; another watches,

his grape vines crushed, his fingers broken.

 

3

 

A city center's oil spills. A boy's toy

plane soars from a concrete balcony

just seconds before the blast

of a white phosphorus bomb.

 

4

 

Love of the land, for the land:

even the natural history of the soil

is denied, crops confined behind iron

gates, earth mounds, secure checkpoints.

Thought for the Day

[. . .] Peace, not only /

the absence of war. [. . .] 

~ Denise Levertov

_____________________________

Quoted from Denise Levertov, "Making Peace" in Breathing the Water (New Directions Press, 1997)

Text of Poem and Commentary by Felipe Herrera

"Making Peace" in The Collected Poems of Denise Levertov (New Directions, 2013), pp. 757-758

Denise Levertov (1923-1997), British-born American Poet, Writer, Translator; Teacher; Political Activist

Denise Levertov Profiles at Academy of American Poets, Image Journal, New Directions, The New York Times

Thought for the Day

Eat the cake!

~ Hadley Vlahos on Advice from the Dying

____________________

 

Quoted from "Biloxi Native Writes WSJ bestseller 'The In Between'," Interview on WLOX (Video), June 27, 2023

 Hadley Vlahos, Hospice Nurse; Author, The In Between (Penguin Random House, 2023)

 

Excerpt from The In Between

 

David Marchese, "A Hospice Nurse on Embracing the Grace of Dying," Interview, The New York Times, October 21, 2023

Thought for the Day

. . . if your moral compass is attuned to the suffering of only one

side, your compass is broken, and so is your humanity.

~ Nicholas Kristof

____________________

Quoted from Nicholas Kristof, "Opinion: Seeking a Moral Compass in Gaza's War" in The New York Times, October 11,  2023 (Online)

Nicholas Kristof, Columnist, The New York Times; Pulitzer Prize Winner; Author

Thought for the Day

It is not because spring / is too beautiful /

that we'll not write what / happens in the dark.

~ Etel Adnan

______________________________

Quoted from Etel Adnan, "The Spring Flowers Own" in The Spring Flowers Own & The Manifestations of the Voyage (Poet-Apollo Press, 1990)

Etel Adnan (1925-2021), Lebanese Poet and Artist

Etel Adnan Profile at Poetry Foundation

A Poet's View (Poem)

A Poet's View

1

Explosions settle

dust on the table,

the last of the bread

in orbit, saucers

overflowing with

black tea, stains spreading

from here to there and

a mother, crying

between screams. Her

child, motionless.

Beit Lahia was warned.

2

The children have no

room to run, no pitas

to calm their asking

for juice. No biscuits.

No mangoes to toss

like footballs. Olive

trees: splintered. Water

erupting old pipes.

Books - by Gibran and

Darwish and Shihab

 

Nye - floating past as

another shock wave

 

works its way through the

electrical grid.

 

Thirteen floors tumble

to garden level.

 

Drones yet whirred like flies.

 

3

 

Numbers. Begin with

one thousand four hundred

 

news-worthy names shared

world-wide. Not Beit Lahia's.

 

There, leaflets, like birds,

still fall from the sky,

 

where the cries of dogs

become lullabies;

 

pots and pans, rockets.

 

4

 

Stones or bombs:

what's the difference?

 

5

 

All going south.

 

____________________________________

 

This poem was inspired by poet Mosab Abu Toha’s essay in The New Yorker, “The View from My Window in Gaza,” October 20, 2023. Online: https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-weekend-essay/the-view-from-my-window-in-gaza