I am a woman, I have been trained since birth: Poem for my friend's tears

I am a woman

I have been trained since birth to pay attention to the subtle, the unspoken

I will notice when the passionate kisses turn to pecks, the I love you to I care about you, the gazes to glances.

I will fight to hold back the silent tears when urgency gives way to indifference, and humor begins to speak in whispers of mocking

I am a woman and I have been trained since birth to pay attention to the subtle

I will watch with a heavy heart, as gestures of romance become acts of vanilla kindliness,

As passes are by-passed, and my why don’t we's are met with maybe later's

I am a woman and I have been trained since birth to pay attention

You may dismiss my quiet weeping as silliness when stock words of acknowledgement suddenly fill Valentines or anniversary cards

You may respond with annoyance when I ask if you love me

You may tell me it’s all in my head

But I am a woman and I have been trained since birth

Even if no man had ever left me,

I would know.

I have watched men turn and walk away from

Friends

Sisters

Strangers

And I know that the final good-bye

The closed door

The empty room after

Was always sung in the

Missed kisses

The silenced I love yous

The averted gazes

e.e.cummings....

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously) her first rose

-- excerpt from e.e. cummings "somewhere i have never traveled"


The rose....the petals....to one person, the one who is able to "unclose" my heart, this will mean something. To the rest of you, I hope you enjoyed this poetic interlude!

Poetry Discussion

From the poetry discussion at Yearning for G-d

Poem for Poetry Discussion

Primary Wonder
Days pass when I forget the mystery.
Problems insoluble and problems offering
their own ignored solutions
jostle for my attention, they crowd its antechamber
along with a host of diversions, my courtiers, wearing
their colored clothes; caps and bells.
And then
once more the quiet mystery
is present to me, the throng's clamor
recedes: the mystery
that there is anything, anything at all,
let alone cosmos, joy, memory, everything,
rather than void: and that, 0 Lord,
Creator, Hallowed one, You still,
hour by hour sustain it.
-- Denise Levertov

Posted by Jan at 7:48 PM

I posted my comments on Jan's blog, but here it is here too...

The visual picture she creates is amazing! What a a wonderful description of Shabbat...the week as the noisy throng, Shabbat as the the welcome quiet! The Shekihana, the feminine spirit of G-d, the white clad, pure Shabbat bride, moving quietly forward through the week, finally able to be heard and seen in the silence of the Sabbath.

Be sure to go over to her blog to read the rest of the insightful comments from her readers. And perhaps join in!

From The Faith in Commmunity Blog...

Borrowing from another Blogger....

Diane posted on Thursday, July 5, 2007....


Poem: To Be Of Use, by Marge Piercy
Mompriest and I are discussing poetry on our respective blogs. Now it's my turn -- and this is the next poem I want to share.

I discovered this poem in a book of essays called The Impossible Will Take a Little While, edited by Paul Rogat Loeb. The essays, from various faith traditions, speak about the connections between social justice and spirituality. There were also several poems in the anthology, including this one. I think of this poem, as well, when I consider my younger stepson and his girlfriend, who last May built a kiln in our backyard for a school project they did together on Japanese Raku pottery.

To Be Of Use

The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half-submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.

(from collection called Circles on the Water, Alfred A. Knopf, 1982)