In a 1916 letter, Robert Frost described his vision of a complete poem as "one where an emotion finds the thought and the thought finds the words."
It is impossible not to be affected by raw emotion and grief when contemplating the sheer scope of death and destruction in this latest chapter of many years of conflict and contradiction: In the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, Hamas took the lives of 1,200 people and took 240 people hostage. By Nov. 24, some 14,500 people have been reported killed by Israel's retaliations.
Members of Write Action, a community-based, grassroots writers organization with its membership base in southeastern Vermont, have submitted this collection of poems. For a variety of reasons, The Commons usually leaves poetry to other publications and venues, but when Arlene Distler brought this idea forward, we agreed that a special feature in this week's Voices section could bring a fresh approach to helping words, ideas, and universal truths resonate in an increasingly polarized environment. And make no mistake - this environment is polarized. Just before we first wrote these words on Monday, three young people of Palestinian origin were shot in Burlington. Don't think for a moment that it couldn't happen here.
May these words from our region's poets (including Vermont's former poet laureate) speak to a common humanity and serve as a clarion call for us - all of us, from those who are trying to learn and understand what is going on to those who are approaching these issues with deep convictions and moral clarity - to retain and maintain grace, compassion, fairness, and respect. -Jeff Potter, editor
Bearing Witness
The children of Gaza with piercing dark eyes
are caught by the camera,
faces smudged with ash, dirt, blood
confused, not yet old enough for anger, for anguish,
not yet old enough to know what they've lost.
§§On the other side of the fence
that separates the powerful
from the powerless,
there too are pictures of children -
those captured or killed
parents, siblings in grief, worried
as days roll on with no mercy
on either side.
§§Screams, the blank stares of children,
their bodies contorted, limp
carried through rubble
by hands that had loved them,
tended them.
§§Grief knows no language barrier.
Now do you get it?
Is this what it takes for two peoples
to recognize their kindred humanity?
§§-Arlene I. Distler, Brattleboro
Beneath an Ancient Olive Tree
As I stopped to take a needed rest beneath an ancient olive tree,
within a peaceful desert grove southeast of Ashkelon,
I heard a whisper, "What once had been will never be again for thee."
§§A lonely desert lark - it sang a mournful dirge, but for whom I could not see.
The song I heard exclaimed all joy and peace herein would soon be gone,
as I stopped to take a needed rest beneath an ancient olive tree.
§§Next spoke the wind. She sighed a sigh of sadness - a tearful elegy -
perhaps a warning that this peaceful desert grove was weak and wan.
I heard a whisper, "What once had been will never be again for thee."
§§The tree, itself, appeared to reach out weeping - its olives rancid, foul debris.
No one resolved to take its branches. I sensed apocalypse anon,
as I stopped to take a needed rest beneath an ancient olive tree.
§§I heard thunder in the desert. I saw Negev's scarlet scree
spread out across a stark terrain at break of dawn.
I heard a whisper, "What once had been will never be again for thee."
§§This peaceful desert grove, it is a site I had longed to see.
So, I came, but saw instead a tribulation - peace, a sacrificial pawn.
As I stopped to take a needed rest beneath an ancient olive tree,
I heard a whisper, "What once had been will never be again for thee."
§§-David Kent Young, Stratton
I woke with the word "rage" embedded in "tragedy."
§§GAZA / GUILFORD
1.
the rage :: in tragedy
not arable :: unbearable
§§the ache :: in treachery
and spite :: with no respite
§§scant rations :: for generations
the rift :: is short shrift
§§the lure :: despite failure
the loss :: is colossal
§§how vile :: to be servile
literate :: obliterated...
§§2.
Shots ring through autumn.
They trigger no panic.
§§Who's sighting a rifle
or hunting for winter?
§§Our pal will stop over
with quick-frozen venison.
§§I'll offer fresh cider
but it doesn't agree with him.
§§We chop trees for the stove.
I pay in the kitchen.
§§This warmth changing hands
is our benediction.
§§- Verandah Porche, Guilford
* * *
I called my Israeli cousins living in a horrible war
Who grew up in South Africa so our relationships were poor.
When we tried to talk politics
We thought we were going to find a fix.
But we hear different news
Which lead us to different views.
I stopped trying to convince
No longer did we slide down a cliff.
We told stories about our lives
Which led us to discover our ties.
We continue to send love every single day
We hope to keep our differences at bay.
§§-Lynn Levine, East Dummerston
Current Conditions
"[Every day the adult human body produces] 200 billion red blood cells, 10 billion white blood cells, and 400 billion blood platelets [...]". -"The origins of bone marrow as the seedbed of our blood," Barry Cooper, M.D.
§§I look at the images in the news
and have to turn away
my gorge rising
§§I attend an event
at our local school
and find myself
hypervigilant
§§I hear a plane
fly overhead
and struggle to imagine
running with my children
to the nearest shelter
§§Look - a pheasant runs across the road
flash of blood-red face
§§-Nancy A. Olson, Putney
Did Max Ehrmann Ever Doubt?
"And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should […]. [I]t is still a beautiful world." -from "Desiderata" by Max Ehrmann
§§Hamas has invaded Gaza and
it's difficult to determine whether
the universe is unfolding as it should or
whether it's a catastrophic mess not
to be confused with history as it
intensely repeats itself until peace is
foreign and tomorrow's promise not clear.
§§A notification on my phone interrupts to
break my news feed obsession - a text from you
§§about tickets for tonight's star performance by
a young neighbor in the local high school play
where there's also a fundraiser at intermission
and brownies I promised to bake for
her class's travel to - of all places - Vietnam.
So maybe things do reset if not resolve in time
and I can stir the mixing bowl, regain my calm
§§more easily than one who ducks from Hamas's bombs
shelters a child and disappears more quickly than
§§I swallow the last taste of chocolate on the edge
of the bowl, place a pan in the oven and wait
for the stage lights with their full-house applause to
shine on our young friend as she takes a bow while
you and I glance at one another,
nod our heads in recognition.
It is still a beautiful world.
§§Not in surrender to fire nor fury
the forest leafs out at dawn.
§§-Anna N. Jennings, West Townshend
* * *
I keep tying and untying my shoelaces
splitting hairs over definitions
in the absence of meanings
like little dolls bundled preterm
on the hospital floor
cold like the memories of tortured pasts
genocide, holocausts
8 million then, now unimaginable
to the point of forgetting
where we came from
and why we are here
§§-Stephen Minkin, Brattleboro
Lives Lost
§§Where does the story start?
How did it begin?
§§Can we trace the path that brings us here today?
The same path that ends at the heels of our feet
§§Tracks of countless footsteps left in dirt, sand, mud
Laid across soils forever stained
§§We can't tell which ones wielded the sword - or fell to it
Which ones drew blood - or bled
§§But today we can tell - we just need to look up
Look up to see the swords in hands
§§The blood still red, flowing
Cries still piercing the air
§§Do the cries of innocents leave their own mark?
Do they share the same fate?
§§All tears fall to the same earth
Wet the same path of countless words and lives lost
§§Only the story never dies
§§-Mel Martin, Newfane
Drooling After a Perfect World
(after Franny Choi)
§§The woods, this morning
were perfect
mostly golden
soggy underfoot
following a seep down
§§Next to the brook, a wolf maple
beheaded
arms akimbo, above
a trunk thickened
with centuries
§§Danny is in the Negev
Trees, buildings, people
all blasted
Sitting shiva for soldiers
died in service,
And civilians
by terror
What's the difference?
They're all dead.
The hostages and
Palestinians fear and
maybe wish
they were
Who thought war was a good idea?
§§Perfect sunshine
running water
I sit in paradise
Around me, decay
decomposition
death
§§A tree
unable to get up
feeding legions:
beetles, worms,
fly larvae
§§I've come to Paradise
Shot through with
spider thread
Back to a tree
filled with dread
afraid I'll get lost while
lusting to spear a
white-tail dead
§§-Deborah Lee Luskin, Williamsville
Metta 4 Peace
Last night we watched a film, Levitated Mass,
about one man's vision for an installation
a massive project involving many
working together in a concerted effort
to accomplish this man's dream -
an enormous boulder
moved through the streets, communities
where people came out to gawk, to cheer,
to stare in wonder
at the huge rock, and the four enormous trucks pulling it.
Over 100 miles it traveled
to its L.A. museum destination.
Many of us thought of peace in Israel
watching this immovable rock being moved
amid celebration, the impossible possible,
children gleeful.
It could have been called Hope.
§§-Arlene Distler, Brattleboro
My Fears, Nov. 19, 2023
I fear the chaos in thought the unexamined chaos in thought
I fear the inhumanity its power to shape events
I fear the impossibility of pausing, stepping back from the static
I fear ambient projectiles blowing up dreams
I fear Trump, MAGAs, Putin Republicans, Biden's failure to step aside
I fear the extinction of the Commandment Thou Shalt Not Kill
I fear Humpty Dumpty and the Emperor's New Clothes
I fear the bombs and cruelty
genocides and holocausts
the cries of child ghosts in shrouds
I fear the deniers, the justifiers
I fear my own indifference
and yours
§§-Steve Minkin, Brattleboro
'Not so Deep as a Well, Romeo, but It Will Do'
Sometimes reading the news
is like hearing from cat after cat,
crying about the monstrous dogs
with no mention of the mutilations
of songbirds or mice.
Truly horrific true stories
about kittens chased mercilessly,
feline spines, bit in two by the evil dogs,
and no mention of the ratcheted claws
and the thrashing hind feet,
gutting the squirrels who could only
squirm to get free
and were left headless
on doorsteps at dawn.
A blessing on both your houses.
§§-Rolf Parker-Houghton, Brattleboro
The Silence
You standing at the doorsteps, enter
and drink Arabic coffee with us
(you might sense you're human like us)
you standing at the doorsteps of houses,
get out of our mornings,
we need reassurance that we
are human like you!
-Mahmoud Darwish
§§I want peace right now while I'm still alive.
I don't want to want like that pious man who wished for one leg
of the golden chair of paradise. I want a four-legged chair
right here, a plain wooden chair. I want the rest of my life peace now.
-Yehuda Amichai
§§is deafening here because it amplifies
the ordnance exploding "over there,"
which no matter how hard I try
not to hear, it continues to boom
inside the ear inside my ear
where the sounds of that intransigent,
ancient war exceed the speed
of light on the wings of news.
I'm whispering because I can hardly speak
in the din that cripples my tongue.
I'm releasing doves from inside
my chest through the door I've opened
for them - each one a priest delivering
an elegy for a child or parent or sibling
or friend who's died at the hand
of the enemy whose God is the same
monotheistic deity with a different name.
I play a song in vain to subdue the silence
like a patient on the ward who hears
so many voices simultaneously
they cause him to scream.
Can you hear? The scream grows
louder and louder inside the silence.
§§-Chard de Niord, Westminster West
Ursula K. Le Guin at the Border
Ursula, who died five years ago,
told me in an essay,
that fantasy literature
allows people to read stories
of outrageous behavior
without triggering the identities
of nations people feel
partisan about,
so that compassion can sweep the reader
into the caressing currents
before they have a chance to resist
the final powerful tug
of that great ocean,
and their prejudice has a chance
of getting washed off
into the relief of grief.
Outrageous behavior by Martians
against the people of Pluto
and by the people of Pluto
against the people of Mars
can be recognized by everyone
as unacceptable, indefensible, unjust,
and - most importantly - avoidable.
§§Bombs aren't just for maiming and killing people,
they have other important purposes.
And bombs aren't just dropped anymore,
relying on some hotshot young ace pilot, with
excellent vision, a steady hand, and a good aim.
No, that's so December 1941.
§§Bombs are guided by lasers now
and the reporter, writing in 2022, pointed out
it is no accident, that they landed
on Anthedon Harbour in Gaza,
exactly where the archeologists had been working
on a world heritage site,
a place where ancient Greek and Egyptian,
then Philistine, then Byzantine, then Arab sailors,
displaced each other
and docked their boats
for more than 3,000 years
and left their homes,
and their engraved stones,
and even their bones, now all blown to bits
by a bomb and then another bomb,
craters replacing the carefully measured
transect lines of the archeologists.
The news story featured Palestinians outraged,
over what was done,
and more importantly,
who had done it.
§§On the West Bank, in 2021,
an ancient wall that was protecting
the oldest Israelite unhewn altar stones
was ripped out of the earth of Mount Ebal,
by a Palestinian road crew.
The news story featured Israelis outraged
over what was done,
and more importantly
who had done it.
§§Ursula, I know I've fucked it up
by not setting today's news on Mars,
and just stealing it from the newspapers
in some attempt to frame
parallel stories that will be brushed aside
by some readers as some attempt
to create false equivalence.
And these last lines
are just a placeholder
for the ones that will allow some reader
to cradle another person's pain,
like a crying newborn
they tenderly welcome
into their lives.
§§-Rolf Parker-Houghton, Brattleboro
Wisdom
{em}{em}better to look out a window
{em}{em}than listen to the radio
§§one crow footprints a white roof
pecks reconnects with snow
§§by mid-day warmed to ice pellets
a treachery incomparable to war
§§that devastates scares up another
holocaust as protestors not per-
§§ceiving rooted complexity are wise
to scream for ceasefire to scream
§§against persecutors power-grabbers
death's stench along numerous roads
§§as the crow gathers strength wings high
onyx feathers stark contrast
§§to what falls imprints disappearing
amid calls of prayer across air-currents
§§-Louise Rader, St. Johnsbury
* * *
We {em} open our eyes on this {em} the second day of the hostage exchange
the second day of the cease fire in the land of sand
under the auspices of Gods in all languages.
§§We {em} rise from our beds
§§on this {em} the second day of the ceasefire declared in the land of dates.
§§We {em} bow our heads to the hostages exchanged
released from dark tunnels
who walk slowly
exhausted and dazed
into light.
§§We see the tears of the families who wait.
§§We bow our heads to those buried under rubble whom we cannot see or name.
We {em} open our eyes on this {em} the second day of the hostage exchange.
bow our heads to body parts
let go of how {em} why {em} when..
§§We {em} open our eyes on this {em} the second day of the hostage exchange
arranged by the brokers of peace cloaked in opulent robes who drink from golden bowls.
§§We stare at the hands of the clock
pray the cease fire will never end.
§§-Toni Ortner, Putney
This Voices Poem was submitted to The Commons.