Memorial Day Weekend: Remember the Earth, Air, Water: Part 2

This was the very first poem I co-created with Facebook friends, back in July 2010 after the BP Disaster in the Gulf. My new book, Wednesday, traces the evolution of our co-creative possibilities for coming together to save the natural world.

Because one person is not enough.

One element is not enough.

We must learn to come together to co-create.


The Fifth Element

We had four elements:
The earth was bustling.
There was oil in the ocean.
Fire wasn't helping.
Despair in the air.

I wanted a fifth thing there:
the quintessence of ether
to transform despair.
Humans are the essence
of not knowing

what they are doing, said the tree.
Dance joy with me then, I said to the tree.
Dogma doesn't turn me on.
It felt like midnight.
I wasn't wrong.

I was wearing saffron knickers.
Serve something succulent
was my motto.
I wanted the sanguine world
to ululate a new song.

Tomorrow would take too long.
End the hush today.
Only serious play can cleanse
this dance floor.
We turned the music on.

 

Co-Created with Robin Zavada Amy Coquillard Sunita Dhurandhar Kristine Hartvigsen Charlotte Koon Ehney Suzanne Kamata Rhonda Baker Uzzolino Becci Robbins Kimberley Goeglein Puryear Christi Stewart Stacey Hamilton Adrienne Leeds Katherine Beth LaPrad Christopher Allen Natalie Brown Mark Plessinger Rebecca C Jacobson Julie Smith Turner Cindi Boiter Vicky Saye Henderson

So, this is where I normally post the link to the book so you can preview and buy it, but today I want you to do something else instead:

The March against Monsanto, happening worldwide, starts TODAY at 2 PM in Columbia.

There will be live, local musicians there to "turn the music on."

Because the best food and music is both live and local!

Check out the Facebook event page!

Memorial Day Weekend: Remember the Earth, Air, Water: Part 1

Since 2010, I have been posting a status update each Wednesday, asking friends for words—and I’ve been putting these words together into a co-created poem.

Now these poems have been collected in a new book called WEDNESDAY, co-created by me and over 300 Facebook friends.

All this month, I’m posting a poem a day from the new book. Today and this Memorial Day weekend, I’ll be posting poems that are about how we can co-create together to save the earth, air, and water.

This one is about the earth.

The Tao of the Earth

The world is a sacred vessel.

The Tao of the Earth is unfinished.

While we want scenes of serene hope,

dreams of possibilities and resilience,

the truth is random and cataclysmic

and heartbreak pops like popcorn

more often than we want to admit.

It should not be meddled with.

The Tao of the Earth is unfinished.

Katrina, Haiti, BP before this, and now

the world's womb smacking into Tokyo

while we listen in stereo, vaguely vowing

to help as we arrange our mélange

of belongings into our cars before work.

It should not be owned.

The Tao of the Earth is unfinished.

At the last minute, noticing raindrops,

we grab an umbrella, tie a child's shoe.

What would you have us do? we ask,

trembling at the overwhelming body

counts, and turning the volume down.

If you try to meddle with it, you will ruin it.

The Tao of the Earth is unfinished.

Should we jump suddenly

from the height of our lives

into the erratic movement of the ground?

Is this what the Earth is asking of us?

Where is the solution to be found?

If you try to own it, you will lose it.

(Lines in italics are from the 29th chapter of the Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu.)

Co-Created with Robin Zavada, Betty Cobb Gurnell, Coralee Harris, Annmarie

Lockhart, Kimberley Goeglein Puryear, Al Black, Kate Fox, Kezia Slaughter, Gail

McGrail Glasser, Tammy Wilkins Jenkins, Janeen Musselman, Pamela Cauthen

Meriwether, Annie Hitselberger Fell, Virginia Clare Andrew, Duna Miller, Carol

Agnew Black, Elizabeth Akin Stelling, Lisa Nielsen

So, this is where I normally post the link to the Wednesday poems book so you can preview and buy it, but today I want you to do something else instead:

The March against Monsanto, happening worldwide, starts at 2 PM tomorrow in Columbia. 

Check out the Facebook event page!

Tornado, Trauma, Terror or Tears? What Helps

This past Monday, I had the honor of leading a workshop on poetry as a way of healing for the Her War, Her Voice group at Fort Jackson.

As a scholar and poet and writing coach, I felt the evening was a way for me to bring together the different parts of myself as I helped these women -- who have given so many parts of themselves over the past 11 years of war -- put themselves back together.

We gathered around a table beautifully set out by Liz with candles and pens and paper and shells and stones. Because women know these things matter -- beauty, calm, and peace. Thanks, Liz!

I read poems by Anne Sexton, Audre Lorde, Sylvia Plath, Ellen Bass-- and me. :)

They listened.

In between poems, we wrote a poem where we let the rhythm of the words, "Yours, Mine, Ours," take us deeper into what we remember, what we've lost, and what we still share. Because trauma takes away our connection to ourselves and each other, and putting words on paper in the form of a poem - even when there is no story, even when we can't say out loud "what happened"-- begins to re-establish the internal witness and our connections to each other.

We listened to the Joy Harjo song, "Woman Hanging From the 13th Floor," and we talked about what it takes not to jump.

We wrote lists of things we love, and we vowed to use these lists to help us rise above.

We danced to the U2 song, "I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight" (in the name of gender balance and because here, on the land where we live, the Cherokee men would sing to the women when they met in council. Their memories are still here.)

We ended with this poem from my new book, Wednesday, co-created with over 300 Facebook friends.

History is Like a Family

History is like a family.

That's a mnemonic.

Cajun came, for example,

as a gift from our rich uncle.

Peace usually comes when

the parents are helpless and

the kids are perplexed.

It often happens after a

fight. Dissidents are the teens

who stay up all night.

Democracy is ambiguous.

The majority live in darkness.

The ones who do the work--

pass, repeal, break through--

are like tired dandelions

in the evening dew. The law

is meant to oust uncertainty.

But even the magic erase board

does not always guarantee

that we will do our chores.

Then mom gets sad. Sometimes

she leaves when the house

is a colossal mess. It often

happens in autumn.

Right after the equinox.

But before the election.

They create ads for her

on the square TV. Usually

she comes back. She still

has days of aggravation.

But in spite of everything,

we share a history.

We are a family.

This is our destiny.

~

And then I handed out these little cards for the women to put in their wallet.

What helps

·      know your body has wisdom and write down what she is saying

·      you do not have to have a story for you to begin healing

·      let language lead you

·      when you are thinking about jumping, write down one thing you love

·      rise up and live for that

·      as often as you can, dance

I share it with you so you, too, will know what helps when you are faced with tornado or trauma or terror or tears.

Want to know more? Here's Melissa Seligman, the co-founder of Her War, Her Voice. You can learn about her wonderful work with women whose lives have been affected by the fact that they happen to love people who are in the military.

And you can contact me if you'd like to know more about how I can help you or your group begin to heal through writing.

Blessings of poetry and healing,

Cassie

All photos by Susanne Kappler

Abu Ghraib and history meet on a Wednesday

This poem was written during the time when the events at Abu Ghraib were just hitting the press.

Like rain, history often hits us some time after it happens.

The Motion of Rain

The motion of rain is more than fluid.

It deconstructs the air as it tries to

beckon us to something deeper,

a tempered heart to persevere

through all that has splintered and

come apart. This is reconciliation:

taking our bodies, like wet and

wounded dogs, away from the

street and into a place of peace.

The pictures the soldiers took

were a way of making lucid,

maybe, what they'd done so

later someone would know

exactly how much was needed

to forgive. Only something limpid

can be seen through; everything

else is an excuse to overlook.

The grey Paris skies and rain

above London and Washington

join our longing here, wherever we are,

in a prayer for breaking through.

Co-Created with Wilma Margono, Daniel Dowe, Kimberley Goeglein Puryear,

Kim Lovelace McMahon, Christi Stewart, Virginia Clare Andrews, Kezia

Slaughter, Annmarie Lockhart, Gail McGrail Glasser, Christopher Allen,

Charlotte Koon Ehney, Mary Ann Joseph, Copeland Kapp, Annie Hitselberger

Fell, Carol Agnew Black

Since 2010, I have been posting a status update each Wednesday, asking friends for words—and I’ve been putting these words together into a co-created poem.

Now these poems have been collected in a new book called WEDNESDAY, co-created by me and over 300 Facebook friends.

Get your copy of Wednesday- on a Wednesday!-

at Amazon!