The ghost of life: whatever a sun will always sing

We have now reached the portion of National Poetry Month where I turn it over to e.e. cummings. In fact, I’m giving you two of his takes on death and love, the two things on which poets usually concentrate in times of plague, war and pestilence.

“Buffalo Bill’s”

Buffalo Bill ’s

defunct

               who used to

               ride a watersmooth-silver

                                                                  stallion

and break onetwothreefourfive pigeonsjustlikethat

                                                                                                     Jesus

he was a handsome man 

                                                  and what i want to know is

how do you like your blue-eyed boy

Mister Death

I do not believe it’s possible to have too much cummings; he succinctly captures the most expansive emotions into perfect drops of language.

“i carry your heart with me(i carry it in”

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in

my heart)i am never without it(anywhere

i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done

by only me is your doing,my darling)

                                                      i fear

no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want

no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)

and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

The ghost of life: One thing that I can hold on to

We had Dylan last week; seems only right that John Prine should be today’s entry for National Poetry Month. We learned Wednesday that Prine, 73, died of complications from COVID19, and our cultural life took a body blow.

My heart is so broken, I’m just going to give you Prine and Bonnie Raitt singing “Angel from Montgomery”.

The ghost of life: Far-off events full of wonder

Pesach began at sundown yesterday. Pesach is the celebration of that time when the Angel of Death passed by Jewish households when it spread calamity across Egypt. It also marks the joyful but speedy exit of the Jews from their captivity; in too much of a hurry to let bread rise. Ergo matzoh.

Pesach is a time for huge family gatherings around the table, recounting the whole story, eating (but nothing leavened) and drinking, talking and singing. This year, though, so different; no extended gatherings. No latkes for 20. No kitchens piled up with the food and wine brought by family and friends. Just each immediate family social distancing and asking the four questions as best they can.

Elijah will find many empty seats to choose from.

So today my entry for National Poetry Month is a poem about this holiday by one of my all-time favorite writers, Primo Levi. The second line is highly appropriate.

“Passover”

Tell me: how is this night different, from all other nights?

How, tell me, is this Passover, different from other Passovers?

Light the lamp, open the door wide, so the pilgrim can come in,

Gentile or Jew; under the rags perhaps the prophet is concealed.

Let him enter and sit down with us; let him listen, drink, sing and celebrate Passover;

Let him consume the bread of affliction, the Paschal Lamb, sweet mortar and bitter herbs.

This is the night of differences, in which you lean your elbow on the table,

Since the forbidden becomes prescribed, evil is translated into good.

We will spend the night recounting, far-off events full of wonder,

And because of all the wine, the mountains will skip like rams.

Tonight they exchange questions: the wise, the godless, the simple-minded and the child.

And time reverses its course, today flowing back into yesterday,

Like a river enclosed at its mouth. Each of us has been a slave in Egypt,

Soaked straw and clay with sweat, and crossed the sea dry-footed.

You too, stranger. this year in fear and shame,

Next year in virtue and in justice.

The ghost of life: This world uncertain is

Thomas Nashe was a contemporary of Shakespeare; like Shakespeare, he was a poet and a playwright. Additionally, he wrote pamphlets, satires and defenses of the Church of England.

While technically, the Elizabethan era did not feature a pandemic, it was certainly beset by pestilences—typhoid, smallpox, cholera and probably even little outbreaks of bubonic plague. It’s said that Elizabeth herself took to heavy makeup to cover the scars of pox.

In 1592, Nashe wrote a play called Summer’s Last Will and Testament, in which the season flails about for a bit and then turns over the reins of time to its successor, Autumn. Today’s poem for National Poetry Month, “A Litany in Time of Plague”, comes from this play.

The form of prayer called the litany is a series of petitions, usually with a repeated response. Nashe’s poem takes that form. Summer starts out strong and rather stroppy. By the end, though…

“A Litany in Time of Plague”

Adieu, farewell earth’s bliss,

This world uncertain is;

Fond are life’s lustful joys,

Death proves them all but toys,

None from his darts can fly.

I am sick, I must die.

Lord, have mercy on us!

Rich men, trust not in wealth,

Gold cannot buy you health;

Physic himself must fade,

All things to end are made.

The plague full swift goes by;

I am sick, I must die.

Lord, have mercy on us!

Beauty is but a flower

Which wrinkles will devour;

Brightness falls from the air,

Queens have died young and fair,

Dust hath closed Helen’s eye.

I am sick, I must die.

Lord, have mercy on us!

Strength stoops unto the grave,

Worms feed on Hector brave,

Swords may not fight with fate.

Earth still holds ope her gate;

Come! come! the bells do cry.

I am sick, I must die.

Lord have mercy on us!

The ghost of life: hi neighbor

There are all kinds of plagues, all kinds of pandemics. One constant, though, seems to be the need of many people to brand the victims as somehow deserving of their disease. Almost always that branding is framed around God—you contracted [bubonic, Ebola, influenza, whatever] because you are ungodly. You have offended God, and now you must pay.

We’re seeing that now as the right-wing evangelicals attribute the COVID19 pandemic to their Old Testament God being really, really pissed off at…well, everyone not a right-wing evangelical. They were out in force when the AIDS epidemic exploded on our horizon in the 1980s, so they’ve had decades of practice. AIDS was an obvious target of the holier-than-thou contingent, because its sufferers at first were almost exclusively gay men. Then intravenous drug users. This vector group made it easy for Ronald Reagan to ignore the public health crisis, which in turn helped spread the disease.

It took years and years—and recognition by the pharmaceutical industry that there was big money to be made in HIV/AIDS therapies—for treatments to be developed. HIV is no longer the death sentence it was at first, but many tens of thousands around the world died before we got to here.

Today for National Poetry Month, I’m giving you a couple of poems that encapsulate that arc. The first is from Tim Dlugos, who died of AIDS-related complications in 1990 at age 40. This was one of his final poems:

“My Death”

when I no longer

feel it breathing down

my neck it's just around

the corner (hi neighbor)

By contrast, Jericho Brown lives his diagnosis in the 21^st Century.

“Psalm 150”

Some folks fool themselves into believing,

But I know what I know once, at the height

Of hopeless touching, my man and I hold

Our breaths, certain we can stop time or maybe

Eliminate it from our lives, which are shorter 

Since we learned to make love for each other 

Rather than doing it to each other. As for praise 

And worship, I prefer the latter. Only memory

Makes us kneel, silent and still. Hear me? 

Thunder scares. Lightning lets us see. Then, 

Heads covered, we wait for rain. Dear Lord, 

Let me watch for his arrival and hang my head

And shake it like a man who's lost and lived. 

Something keeps trying, but I'm not killed yet.

Gratitude Monday/The ghost of life: trying to fix up a human

Today I’m grateful for all the medical professionals who are literally putting their lives on the line to care for COVID19 patients—in addition to everyone else needing healthcare. These doctors, nurses, EMTs, physicians assistants, medical and nursing students, retirees and others are working grueling hours with little or no protection around the world—in rich countries and poor. I cannot imagine what hell they’re going through, but I send them all respect, admiration and gratitude for their caring and their courage.

So today’s National Poetry Month entry is by the Twentieth Century American poet, Anne Sexton. I don’t think it needs any introduction; it says everything.

“Doctors”

They work with herbs

and penicillin

They work with gentleness

and the scalpel.

They dig out the cancer,

close an incision

and say a prayer

to the poverty of the skin.

They are not Gods

though they would like to be;

they are only a human

trying to fix up a human.

Many humans die.

They die like the tender,

palpitating berries

in November.

But all along the doctors remember:

First do no harm.

They would kiss if it would heal.

It would not heal.

If the doctors cure

then the sun sees it.

If the doctors kill

then the earth hides it.

The doctors should fear arrogance

more than cardiac arrest.

If they are too proud,

and some are,

then they leave home on horseback

but God returns them on foot.

The ghost of life: Hosanna

Today is Palm Sunday, the day Christians in the West remember the entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem. Ordinarily churches would be handing out palm fronds for congregants to wave in emulation of the palms that were laid before the Christ. In Roman and Anglican Catholic parishes, they take the triumphal entry story all the way to the crucifixion, with the congregation acting the part of Jews screaming “Crucify him!”

(I think that these days, the order of service refers to the screamers as “the People”; the Roman Church only stopped calling Jews Christ-killers after Vatican II, and a lot of people are still begrudging that.)

It’s kind of weird to think of churches—except for the evangelical nutjobs across the former Confederacy—not enacting the procession, singing “All Glory, Laud and Honor”, weaving palm spikes into crosses and preparing for Holy Week. But here we are.

Well, anyway, today’s entry for National Poetry Month is from someone I’ve never heard of, Lloyd C. Taylor, Jr., a resident of North Carolina. I was trawling an archive of seasonal poems and stopped at this one, because we should all be asking its question. We should be asking it every year, but this one in particular.

Sadly—very few will.

“What Have We Learned?”

They shouted with praises, reaching the sky,

Pushing and shoving to see Jesus pass by.

Crying, 'Hosanna, hosanna, glory to the King!

He comes to us today, great joy He doth bring.'

They threw down palm leaves, covering the way,

Clearing the way for His entrance that day.

Raising joyful voices, as praises filled the air,

The day had come, God answered their prayer!

But, in a short time they changed their chant,

From joyful noise, to a mob's hate-filled rant.

From Hosanna, hosanna, as when He was praised;

To crucify Him! Crucify Him, as their anger blazed!

In disbelief we might question why they turned?

But maybe the question is, 'What have we learned? '