Click for The Beginning,
a long
poem
that emerged in the first half of 2000.
2001
2002 2003
Bing Yu Guo
2004 2005 2006 I hear women
2000
An urban lyric?
Ferlinghetti!
The very same burgundy paisley
I told-- Ghette – my
Filipina
friend
in Manila
I had gone to a reunion
of high school journalism students,
and she e-mailed, “Wow!
I can just imagine how it must have
felt
going through this memory lane,
talking about events of 49 years
back
and perhaps, feeling that age again!
Was I reading it correctly
that your first love's name
is also Grace?
Hey, maybe you should write a poem
about this!'
With love and
warmth,
Ghette”
Dear Ghette,
You know, you are
imagining
across a span of time twice your age.
Yesterday I had trouble believing
it was a half century ago
that these people were the heart of
my life.
My first Grace, my
first young love,
picked me up at the airport.
We remembered and celebrated
the true gifts we’d given each other,
far beyond the trembling passion of
teen kisses.
We had seen each other so early,
recognized completely
the persons we would become.
I described my dear
family in the
Philippines.
She told me two of her daughters
married
Filipinos.
They’d learned the warmth of your
people,
Ghette,
growing up with farm workers in Delano.
I was apprehensive as
we arrived at
the
gathering.
I’ d cut myself off from this past –
a school embedded in industrial towns
fearful memories of muttered threats
from duck-butted low-riding toughs.
But in Bungalow B we’d formed a family
of excellence
led by a real teacher,
one who saw each of us as we could
become
just as Grace and I had seen each
other.
Mr. G – Charles
Garven -- confessed
that some Monday mornings
he had just returned, sleepless,
from gambling in Las Vegas.
Yesterday afternoon in a new century
we told him how his gambling on us
had paid off,
gave our thanks
for lives that have communicated
around this small world
across this small space of time.
When I first saw Mr.
G yesterday I
gasped.
The nylon fabric of his necktie
was the very same burgundy paisley
as the shorts I wore!
What an absurd and improbable image
of our connection,
of how his teaching lives on in us.
With him I’d learned to see my life
as a part of this world’s flow, Ghette.
October 15, 2000
Doi
Suteph
On the mountain above Chiang Mai
I could buy flakes of
gold leaf to
stick
on the statues,
rows of Buddhas with gold leaf
flickering
in the mountain breeze.
Children and parents ring thirty-three
deep-toned bells
hanging beside the temple wall.
A small white dog wearing a green
jacket
sprawls in the sun.
A hummingbird hovers
sipping nectar from bouganvilla
blossoms.
A novice stands on a dragon’s back,
white washing the temple wall.
Then he balances on the red pipe
that holds the bells
still ringing.
A temple at each
corner of the
temple,
each holds a deep-toned bell.
A temple at each axis of the temple.
A pavillion has large round gongs.
Tokyo Pipe Company Limited
paid thirty thousand baht to build it.
German tourists, Laotian pilgrims
maintain
a random gamelan of sound
praising the Buddha’s silence.
Sri Maha Bodi tree,
transplanted from Bodhgaya 7 July 1943,
grows in a front courtyard.
A crudely sculpted, garishly painted
Buddha
sits under the tree with dirty feet.
A spider’s web shines in the sun
between his head
and the tree of his enlightenment.
November 25, 2000
The eternal return
Geneva’s rubber plant
sits atop
the lawyers bookcase
with its sliding glass doors.
Twenty years ago
that plant was steeped
in Jungian myths of
the eternal
return and
an elder’s rage against Reagan.
Sixty years ago the
book case
shelves
held my encyclopedia
my parents’ pledge
to my life of knowledge.
Today
the case holds antique stemware,
a cutglass bowl and pitcher
iridescent
carnival glass
family treasures.
Geneva,
the mother of my oldest friend,
how she would have treasured
my life of
knowledge
spread-eagled now
across the internet.
Grace waters her
rubber plant
living slowly
atop the lawyers bookcase.
July 13, 2001
A Level of Complexity
Just beyond the
Browning Memorial
I lost footing on a steep trail
slid down the slope
towards Dos Palos Creek
til I grabbed the trunk
of a Bay Laurel.
This past week I
mounted a new
computer
Pentium IV racing at 1.3 gigaherz.
Invested many hours
in the errors of my false assumptions.
Hardware x software x
operating
system =
a level of complexity
beyond the most skilled support line.
This morning I sent
Geng Yong
a framework for a conference and workshop
the first steps for a city of six million souls
along the path toward green survival.
(They already have
the world’s largest Walmart
underground!)
Sixty-seven years
old, I still learn
though my feet sometimes stumble on the path.
Can I now
learn
to take this great leap?
August 14, 2001
The towers falling
I poured water for morning tea,
hearing Larry Bensky
saying airliners have crashed into the twin towers
of the World Trade Center,
the towers have collapsed.
I go into shock,
dead to emotions,
before I even start the obsession
of seeing the towers falling,
the people running,
the smoke rising,
the towers falling
the towers falling
the people running.
Tonight Jimi sings
“The sky is hellfire red”
his guitar screaming
a healing theme for this day.
The distinguished panel
of presidential historians and PBS pundits
affirm our national resolve,
our strength as a nation
to rally our forces
to address this threat
to seek out and punish
the source of this attack
on freedom.
I shout “Get Kissinger!”
I see the bodies of Salvador Allende,
Patrice Lumumba,
Mossadeag.
I read the hit lists the CIA gave Suharto
to guide his slaughter –
hundreds of thousands of Indonesians –
when he “assumed power.”
Eliot Abrams affirms,
once
more,
our support for the freedom fighter death squads
we armed from Iran
the freedom fighter drug lords
who free-based our ghettos.
The smoke rising,
the towers falling
the towers falling
the people running.
“America was targeted for
attack
because we're the brightest beacon for
freedom and opportunity
in the world.”
President Nobody
Jimi sings Dylan’s All
Along
the Watchtower.
“There must be some way out of here.”
Finally, I can cry
for my thousands of dead brothers and sisters.
for my
millions of dead brothers and sisters.
Ernest Lowe, September 11, 2001
Notes for Towers falling
This next morning I remember that many people with whom I share my life and poems have witnessed only a fraction of my two-thirds of a century. Perhaps they know the name of Salvadore Allende, in the news now as the courts of several countries, even including the US, consider the prosecution of Henry Kissinger for his leading role in supporting General Pinochet’s terrorist coup in Chile and the murder of Allende and thousands of his compatriots. (Nixon administration.)
But who is Patrice Lumumba? In 1960 The CIA assured a brief tenure for his democratic socialist regime in the Congo, protecting the multinational corporate interests in the rich minerals of Katanga Province. Through his murder the US put Mobuto in as a dictator who raped his country for the next four decades. (Eisenhower administration.)
Mohammed Mossadegh was the Premier of Iran who nationalized his country’s oil reserves in 1951. (US media ridiculed him because he cried in public for the pain of his people.) Alan Dulles, Director of the CIA and attorney for major oil companies, provided US support and direction for Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi’s royalist coup. The Shah of Iran’s dictatorship tortured and murdered hundreds of thousands of his people. This is the basis for the rage against the US of the Ayatollah who finally threw him out. (Eisenhower administration)
This morning the SF Chronicle’s local section headline reads: Bay Area somberly wonders why. The media are piecing together the details of yesterday’s terrorist attack on America. An Arabic flight manual in a car abandoned at Logan Airport. The intercept of Bin Laden’s cell phone calls. But who speaks of the long context in which these “madmen” murdered my brothers and sisters in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania?
I misremembered Jimi Hendrix’ spelling of his name when I first sent out this poem. I can never forget his guitar’s shrieking of the Star Spangled Banner. His recording is perhaps one of the most deeply patriotic works of art in our country’s tragic history. Jimi felt the soul-ripping distance between our American Dream and the nightmare of our napalm and agent orange in Vietnam’s jungles. His anguished song calls us to live the dream.
Ernest Lowe, September 12, 2001
(For these notes I refreshed
my
memory
from a 1984 book by a renegade Wall Street Journal reporter, Jonathan
Kwitny,
entitled Endless Enemies: The Making of an Unfriendly World. "How
America's
worldwide interventions destroy democracy and free enterprise and
defeat
our own best interests." Published by Congdon and Weed, NY. This is
only
one of many works telling the stories of American state terrorism.)
Out of nowhere
Django et ses amis Americaines
accompany me as my Singapore Air jet
brings me into San Francisco
from a month in Sri Lanka.
Rex Stewart, Barney Bigard, and Django
jam on Low Cotton and You Know What I Know.
Somewhere in mid Pacific flight
I read Su Tung Po
whose Sung Dynasty poems
speak of the aches of old age
sadness at the way things come down
in a dark age.
I am on my way from an airport
the Tamil Tigers bombed four months ago
from a city where a suicide bomber
tried to kill the Premier last week.
I’m on my way to my home
where last week one more person died of anthrax
and the governor warned
the bridges I’ll soon fly over
might be attacked.
Now Stephan and the Hot Club
join
Django
You Came to Me from Out of Nowhere
Such sweet joy
across these sixty five years.
November 9, 2001
Galle Face Walk
Here, at the Western edge
of a
hot tropical Third World city
I stroll along Galle Face Walk
every evening.
The deep peace of
Indian ocean waves
sweeps across the dark feet of families
wading in the glowing light
as the sun’s red ball
goes down into the sea.
The walk above the beach
is crowded
with lovers, elders,
balloon-hawkers,
ponies mounted
by laughing boys and girls.
Friends walk
hand-in-hand,
couples stand on the edge
smiling into each others’ eyes
as the sea breezes cool their day
in the hot city.
This place
crowded with life
resonating to the beat of the ocean
awash with
colors –
saris, jelabas, sarongs,
long Victorian dresses
this place!
I would be content
to reach paradise
and find
these
people there
dancing in the waves
laughing in the warm breezes
living in a certain splendor.
February 17, 2002
Colombo, Sri Lanka
The Peri Hara
I come to the lions first
dancing on the road by the lake
manes of coir from coconut husks.
Then a band of waiting Hanumans
monkey masks on top of their heads
and
beginning
to dance to the drums.
The monk’s voice comes across the lake
on a shrill P.A.
I walk for blocks
beside the waiting procession
until I reach the first
of the hundred elephants
each masked with glittering fabric
and beginning to move forward
between the clubs of dancers
from all over the island—
the
brigade
of dark-clad men
with three legs,
looking like somber missionaries
the stilt dancers
the flock of peacocks
all dancing and whirling
to the drummers’ beat.
I am buoyant, joyous
dancing around the elephants
refusing to stand and watch.
By the open temple over the
lake
glowing strings of light
somehow link this procession
these hundred elephants
these dancers and drummers
into the Sangha
Buddha’s community
dancing the Dharma
Buddha’s wheel of the law.
Detachment?
How else can one really dance?
February 26, 2002
Colombo, Sri Lanka
The rest one needs
While hearing Franz
Schubert’s
Piano
Sonata no. 18, opus 78, D 894,
performed by Mitsuo Uchida.
Schubert’s melody
sweet as his
tragic miller’s
flowing stream
but this time
halting
full of the rests one needs
to contemplate the abyss
between the terrors
and joys
of this time.
I have just returned
from a country
one bloody
from twenty years of civil war
where a vendor
by the Indian Ocean
hawks placemats
olive branches,
two doves and the
moon
“There is only love.”
The suicide bombers
are unshrouding their bodies
wrapped just a moment ago
with charges of plastique.
The army has de-mined the A-9.
Norwegian mediators
are traveling
between Colombo and Joffna.
I rest for a few beats
in the wonder of it
this land making peace
between Buddhists and Hindus
between
speakers of Sinhala
and speakers of Tamil.
It all started with language,
you know.
I am joyful
to have been in the one nation
driven at last
to peace.
But I have returned now
to our dying empire
where the hawkers
of missiles in the sky
mines in the land
promise a terrorist security
at the cost of our souls.
Schubert’s sonata
now moving more rapidly
allegreto
is still halting
gives many rests
to contemplate the terrors
and the joys of this time.
March 8, 2002
our holy duet
Our casualties were heavy today
in this
bitter
struggle
between your evil
and my good
my brother.
I seldom claim to own
this quality of evil
that exists only
in our separation
my brother.
My murders are
defense of freedom
yours, sheer terrorism.
Satan is born
in every moment
I make you apart
from me
my brother
in every note I sing
as though your melody
were not
counterpoint to mine.
Our casualties were heavy today
my brother.
April 14, 2002
Across flowing water
Serasinghe poles the catamaran
up the Bentota River
against a mild tidal current.
He steers
along
the eastern bank of mangroves
pointing out each monitor lizard,
long tongue flicking in and out.
He speaks quietly of Buddhism
a philosophy, he tells me, not a religion.
His face reflects
the deep peace
of gliding across flowing water until
with shouts and claps
he stirs the fruit bats
to fly up from their sleep in the tree tops.
He ties the boat to a stake on
the
shore
and we walk through the forest
to Wanawasa Viharaya Temple.
He shows me the Meditating Buddha,
the Teaching Buddha,
and the 108 fold patterned soles
of the Reclining Buddha’s feet.
Serasinghe
boatman
on the Bentota River
teaches, like the Buddha,
the deep peace
of gliding across flowing water.
Ernest Lowe, November 6, 2001
“. . . the same river twice . . .”
Serasinghe meets me in the
lobby of
my
hotel.
One night’s stay here
would cost
one third of his monthly salary.
He is free to serve as my boatman again
but first we stop at his home to meet his family.
They
share this small house by the Bentota River
with two other families.
I sign copies of November’s
poem
for
his proud wife,
his teen
daughter,
and the two young men who are his sons.
The sons work at tourist hotels, including mine,
where it would
take two months wages and tips
to earn one night’s stay in my room,
a room the size of their house.
The elder son bows to his
father as
he
leaves for work.
The daughter shows me her stamp collection,
one that Serasinghe started thirty years ago.
She smiles as she shares this treasured gift
and shyly asks me
if I could please send her stamps from America.
I promise to send her my heroes—
Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Bessie Smith.
The younger son asks me to
record
his
father’s poem.
I introduce it, telling how my friends in South Africa,
the
Philippines,
Austria, England,
China, Sri Lanka and all across the US
have met their father through its rhythms.
The catamaran is tied up near
the
house.
Serasinghe’s boss owns eight boats and two restaurants.
He lives in a spacious house down the river
where he watches with binoculars
to count his passengers.
Taking this trip up the
Bentota
River
again
is like listening once more to the Moonlight Sonata
or reading As
Kingfishers Catch Fire,
a poem alive in my heart for fifty years.
My boatman poles through
the
lagoons.
We are surrounded by thousands of mangrove roots,
like fingers reaching down into the water.
We meet children gathering mussels for the market,
a woman washing clothes, hip deep in the water,
a monitor lizard swimming across our path.
Serasinghe
asks one boy how he did on his exams,
to a woman by the river, Is your husband well now?
He frowns only at the family
that collects waste from plastic and garment factories
and dumps it on the river’s edge by their house.
My friend shouts the fruit
bats out
of
their sleep again,
tells me, as hundreds of them soar above the trees,
how they steal the farmers’ papayas and mangos,
even sip the fermented nectar of coconut flowers,
robbing the boys who climb from tree to tree
across networks of ropes
to collect it for toddy by day.
Young men who can’t find work
are also stealing by night now, he says,
mangoes, coconuts, and nectar,
to buy hashish and heroin.
A cormorant stands on a post
in the
last
lagoon
before we start back down river,
wings spread out to catch the warm winds.
When I listen next to Mozart’s g minor
quintet
I’ll hear Serasinghe’s stories
as the counterpoint to its piercing beauty
as the counter currents in the deep peace beneath its pain.
I’ll be with him again in this music,
my teacher
gliding across flowing water.
June 16, 2002
click Bing
Yu Guo, poetic journal of a visit to "little Guilin", north of
Dalian
a painter and poet
A polemical memorium for Stafford Beer
“ . . . there has been a
change
in
the rate of change . . . At the top is the spectacular advance in human
misery. I estimate that more human beings are enduring agony today than
ever before; the number could be greater than the sum of sufferers
throughout
history. I speak of starvation and epidemic; war and terrorism;
deprivation,
exploitation, and physical torture. I repeat the word agony; I am not
talking
about 'hard times'.”
-- Stafford Beer
Ten years ago
Stafford
spoke the problem statement
of our time
with The World in Torment.
Oligarchs mismanage all
global systems
never conceiving
that their inflated self-interest
could somehow serve the common good.
CEOs
and Chairmen
store up the treasures of the earth
in offshore accounts
while drought dried rain forests
burn.
Before he zeroed into coma
Stafford had asked them to pull the plug.
Allenna’s
e-mail
told me the scheduled day
while I was in China.
I remembered his rule for travel abroad:
“I’ll not visit a country
where I would be a prisoner
if I were a citizen.”
All that day I
prayed
clear passage
with light baggage
and returned to America
where I am a citizen and
I could become a prisoner
perhaps more easily than in China.
Here the oil companies’
President
drives us toward a war
motivated by Saddam Hussein’s
earliest evil behavior --
in 1972 he nationalized the oil fields
those companies believe
are their God-given property.
In World in Torment
Stafford says
the oligarchs
are triaging the emergency room
seizing the commons
abandoning our brothers and sisters
in most critical condition
so CEO’s stock options can soar.
Stafford showed us again and
again
how the world system
is governed by sub-optimizing fools
without the wisdom
of the giant puppets
we carry in our demonstrations.
But he was a painter and a poet
So The World in Torment
goes beyond the problem statement
to “an idea whose time has come.”
Here he works out
the dynamic geometry of democracy,
a forum for creativity at the systems level.
Teams are applying this process
around the world.
Meanwhile, “regime change” in
Iraq
is the euphemism of the day.
If achieved,
it will mean the oil fields will burn,
for a time,
as civilians and soldiers alike
die in high tech fire storms.
The Dow and most other markets
dove again today.
Investors somehow don’t perceive
their advantage in a two-sector war,
where the star warrior corporations
profit from the weapons
that secure the oil companies’ victory.
Stafford’s vibrant shade
suggests
that
we may even stop an “inevitable war”
if we keep in mind
that the oligarchs
have lost their consensus.
Perhaps the message
of the steep “market corrections”
will join with our puppets and protests
to form the attenuating feedback loop
Stafford so loved to sketch.
thank you Stafford!
for the text of , click here
October 7, 2002
Why we’re here
for Paul Wellstone
Witnesses for peace
are
gathering
in Baghdad
willing to die
while
living their timeless prayers.
But in Moscow the special
forces
not allowed to wait
for a living solution
killed over one hundred hostages
with “sleeping” gas and
shot the “sleeping” Chechen captors
in their heads.
A day later I remember to remember
the dead hostages and their captors
were living beings.
Their attackers must now live with their death.
I pray for
them all
though I can’t say to whom I pray.
Grace and I visit the
botanical
garden
in the hills.
I chat with a woman who gathers seeds
of the native California plants growing there.
I offer seeds of the white Clarkias I’ve bred
true to a new cultivar.
Along the trails we see Fall
colors
the red stems of dogwood
the white trunks of aspen glowing
and come upon a desert plant in bloom.
Two women tell us its name is
Wooly Blue Curls.
One of them
was with Bill and me yesterday
at the peace rally in The City
with one hundred thousand others.
This garden was created
by men and women and children
who
love
life in all of its diversity
who seek peace as our living solution.
Isn’t that why we’re here?
October 28, 2002
As a new storm comes in
Full moon morning
just before the Winter Solstice
chilly and clear with wind gusting
as a new storm comes in.
Each year I chant
the sun back
from the belly of the Dragon.
If it weren’t
for our chants and prayers and incantations
who can say
how dark our lives would become.
And remember, our lives
include
not just the red tailed hawks and dolphins
but also the cockroaches and microbes
even the
viruses
circling the Earth.
How dark our lives would become!
So yes dear friends
in Denmark,
Sri Lanka, Germany,
South Africa, the Philippines,
Austria, the USA, France, India,
Brazil, Switzerland, Thailand,
Canada, Australia
wherever you are
persist in your devotions
to
rescuing
the Sun
from the Dragon’s embrace.
Our tiny star
lights up the life webs
of our insignificant planet.
Yet, who knows
we may find one day
we are
the primary experiment
the Universe has chosen
to demonstrate
its transcendent excellence.
Or perhaps
we are only one among many
brilliant
designs for this vision
of life learning its true form.
Ernest Lowe, December 20, 2002
The Horse-Trap Corral
“In constructing this barrier
the Goldings had used
the cast-off horns, or coronets,
of elk,
all pointed down the ravine
and piled on top of one another.
This barrier of elk horns
gave the name Elkhorn to the Ravine.
The horns of the bull elk
made a very effective corral.
The wild mustangs
trapped in El Ravine
between the barrier and the narrow gap
between boulders
were, in effect,
inside a condemned prison cell,
packed in solidly
without room to lie down,
with nothing to eat or drink.
The
effect
of this first confinement
of these wild animals
must have been tremendous.
Their training
for the refinements of civilization
had begun."
From Early E. Williams. 1980. Carrell
of Corral Hollow. Privately printed and available for study at the
Livermore Heritage Guild. Livermore California
We’ll collect seeds
There will be new maples leaves
flaming brilliantly after Autumn
freezes.
When the Winter’s windchill
bites too deeply
Grace and I will fly
to the tropic forests of Yunnan
or perhaps even China Beach in Vietnam.
I have asked for a greenhouse
as one of the requirements
for our stay in China.
Grace and I will gather
a team of volunteers
to teach us the flora
of Northeast China,
the endangered species
of the Liaodong Peninsula.
We’ll collect seeds,
make softwood, hardwood,
and root cuttings.
We fly in two or three months,
carrying fabrics and rugs,
batiks from Africa,
as D. H. Lawrence taught us
to always create the living texture
of our home anew,
wherever we are.
There’s a much larger mission
for us across the Pacific.
But we like to ground our concepts
of a sustainable China,
to bury our hands in the living soil,
working it deeply,
inviting seedlings to live vibrantly.
This gives us hope that we ourselves
–- another endangered species –-
will survive our own worst efforts.
Oh, the sacrifice of it all!
The fear of just giving away
the treasures of our present lifetime
and pulling up our roots.
Ah, what would the Buddha say?
December 25, 2002
These warm rocks
the river flows through
these pools of water
in grindstone holes.
Stone remembers
the Yaudanchi women
who ground their acorns here.
With fire-heated rocks
they leached the poison out
in finely woven baskets,
cooked the ground meal.
Bulbs of brodaia and allium
flavored their porridge.
Black oaks and Ponderosa pines
grow on the edge of the of this
river’s
canyon.
Ferns and mosses cascade down
the canyon’s north facing slope.
Twenty thousand feet above
a jet’s vapor trail
is the only sign
of our dying civilization.
December 30, 2002 remembering
a
spot
on the Tule River
This
afternoon
two blind musicians arrived
inventing and reinventing
their instruments
as thought the laws of composition
were honeycombs
or deep rock wells
of pure water.
I receive melodies
from Groz
Dalian and Shanghai.
Harmonies grow wild
in my terraced winter garden.
I dance polyrhythms
up and down a favorite road
in Joaquin
Miller
as the red ball of the sun
slips into the Pacific.
Music is not a mere ornament
on our lives.
Our lives are
in fact
music.
January 8, 2003
Driving up the hill I hear the
news:
The new Premier in Turkey,
said one no is enough,
he would not ask parliament
to vote again to base US troops in his country.
Bush can’t strong arm the Security Council.
Only three other countries will vote
for the US war on Iraq
and France and Russia would veto anyway.
There’s a move in the General Assembly
to invoke Resolution 377 Uniting for Peace.
The 191 Assembly members can meet to avert war
when the Security Council is unable to reach agreement.
Kofi Annan declared earlier this week
that without UN approval
the US and Britain would be in violation
of the UN Charter -- this would be an illegal war.
I go into the wine shop where I park in the village
saying “listen to this good news.”
The tall Texan behind the counter shouts and laughs,
“you mean Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld
would be war criminals?”
I share the news at the stationary store and the owner says,
“You know I’m from that region. I’m Palestinian.
This war on Iraq will only increase the violence
all over the Middle East. Maybe it can be stopped.”
I tell Mohammed my friend Joe
is working on economic development in Palestine.
“Is there a way I can help? I’d give half my store
to make things better there.”
I return to the wine store and another Texan walks in,
asking what happened in the UN today.
I tell him and he laughs.
“You know we never should elect a Texas governor
to be President. He’s just a damned figurehead.”
The storeowner picks out a bottle for me
Chateau Sainte Marie Entre-Deux-Mers,
a fine white Bordeau.
“Here, drink to our friends with the veto.”
Today Moshe sent an e-mail about
how he too wants to help the Palestinians.
The tag line at the bottom:
“The future belongs
to
those who believe
in the beauty of their
dreams.”
- Eleanor Roosevelt said that
Ernie Lowe March 14, 2003
For the
children in
a time of war
i
Little friend
I’m afraid
you may be afraid.
King Fear is sending his soldiers
to war in the desert.
His airplanes
and rockets
are killing
mothers and
their children.
Many father soldiers are dying.
Did you know King Fear is afraid?
He leads us into deeper fear
when he tries to kill
all fear.
He doesn’t know that fear
is a golden treasure of our lives
a feeling in our stomach
in our chest
in our throat
put there to love and protect us.
I’ll not be afraid any more for you
little friend.
I’ll love your laughter
when the night is dark
when the light
doesn’t shine.
ii
I’ll not try to tell you
everything will be alright
little friend.
But I do know you’ll play
hopscotch.
You’ll watch a caterpillar
climb across a leaf
to nibble its edge.
You’ll make believe
you are a pirate or a princess
or a wondrous wizard
or even a lizard.
You’ll dance to music only you can
hear.
You’ll be alright
safe and happy inside your skin
alright all up and down
your
living dancing bones and muscles.
Little friend
I’ll not try to tell
you
everything will be alright.
But I know you’ll be alright.
iii
Dear little friend
can you put together dreams
that wars have broken into pieces
and
scattered in the sands?
Can you do this?
Not tomorrow
not even next year
but later
when your heart is strong
and your mind is clear.
This old man’s dream of peace
please carry it
pick up the sharp pieces
don’t cut your fingers
on broken dreams.
Put the
shattered pieces
together again
into a beautiful circle
a circle of light
a dream that can’t be broken.
iv
I wonder, little friend,
how do you
and your friends
talk together
about the scary things?
Do you talk about
the girls and boys
stolen away
from their mommies and daddies?
Do you ever wonder
how grown ups
could be so dumb
that they kill each other
and say they’re doing God’s work?
Or do you play make believe
where flowers all smell good
and birds always sing
sweet songs?
I know you all know too much
too soon.
But
I hope you’ll remember
the sweet smell of a rose
the lovely notes
of a meadowlark’s song.
v
I don’t understand
how to help my little friend
live in this world at war
and keep your
child’s joy alive
the somersaults
the cartwheels
the whirling til you’re so dizzy
you fall down.
This war world
is puzzles inside puzzles
even for the grown ups
who
pretend they can control it.
I hope that you wake up each morning
praising the sun’s light
or the dark cloud’s rain
warm in your mommy and
daddy’s love
even though the TV tries to explain
the insane fact
that we are killing not dancing.
vi
I see you running
to catch up with your family
little friend
running from Basra.
You carry only a water bottle
as
you flee into the desert
away from the street
where you played
with your friends.
It may soon be a battlefield.
Your Mother’s hand
reaches back to you
as she runs
her hand
open
as my aching heart.
vii
Its been ten days since King
Fear
attacked your land
my little friend.
I don’t know how
I’ll send this poem to you.
I don’t know how
I’ll ever show
you the pictures
in my heart
my arms held out
to comfort you
bright flowers in my hands
to brush away your tears.
Please know my little friend
in my country
here in my town
children marched up Market Street
carrying pictures
of their little friends in Iraq.
They cried with silent outrage
at King Fear’s bombs
falling into your
markets.
I know you’ll be hungry tonight.
You’ll hear explosions
and
smell bitter smoke.
Someone you love
may be dead in the morning.
I hope you’ll feel
how this
American’s heart
has a green valley in it
a stream of pure healing water
for you to drink
and honeycakes
with dates and
raisins
for you to eat.
My little friend
you are this world’s future.
viii
Little friend
always always remember
the moon.
A few days ago it was full
lighting the night sky
as a mirror for the
sun.
Now it is waning
thinner each night
until it disappears
into
darkness
the dark of the moon.
Then a thin crescent
will show itself
again
early in the evening
Diana’s bow.
Twenty eight days
from dark to light to dark
from light to
dark to light.
Always
always
Remember the moon.
-Ernest Lowe
March 2003
ix
Why are there monsters?
Dear little friend
you must remember
the smell of the
flowers
your Momma grows
the way your Daddy laughs
even when his back hurts.
Remember the music
so
lively lovely
that you must just dance
your delight.
Remember,
even when you know
this world has monsters
worse than any
in your story books.
You’ve heard
rumors
of their evil actions.
Why are their monsters?
I guess some of us
are
hurt so often
that we only know
how to hurt others.
We forget
the song
that lives inside us.
Little friend
you are a dream
you are a rose
with raindrops
between your petals
you are a star
and a teardrop
falling
for the pain
of the monsters.
Flying
For Martha’s birthday 2003
All through
the recent war in Iraq
I said So Hum –
I am Thou
and Thou art That
even to cluster bombs
and
the men who decided
to drop them
from the
safety of the air.
I finally could cry no more
at what I was doing and–
collateral damage –
I could write no more poems.
Today I flew
with red-crowned cranes
black-necked swans,
white pelicans,
arctic terns,
Canada geese
and mallards,
saying “I am Thou
and Thou art That.”
I flew thousands of miles
south to north
and north to south
along the age old
paths
in the sky.
I could cry again
my heart pierced
by the beauty of snow geese
flying before falling glaciers
black and white cranes
landing in the sand
of the North African desert.
Then I suddenly realized
your children
are the herons and mallards
who take refuge
in the wetlands you save.
My grandchildren
are the sandhill cranes
and the least terns
the whip snakes
and red-legged frogs
You and I
have grown up together
sharing our love
for the birds’ dawn chorus
gathering seeds
in the
canyons of our hills
by mountain trails
along the Pacific shore.
Our succession
and heritage
is in the scarlet monkey flowers
the lodge pole pines
the
rare white clarkias
that grow from those seeds.
We are the paths
our wings beat
in our migrations
from Arctic to Antarctic.
I am Thou
and Thou art That.
Your dad
Some of the migratory
birds
in Winged Migration
Mallard
Barnacle geese
Skudur Isl, Iceland = Puffins, Guellemot, Northern Gannet
Red-crowned cranes
Whooper swan
Grebe
Pelicans
White Pelican
Idaho - Sage Grouse
Nebraska, Sandhill Crane
NY Maple Forest – Canada Geese, Snow Geese
Camarque, Starlings
Kolimbine Valley, Mali – European turtle doves
Aubrac – Eurasian Cranes
Brittany – Black-necked Swans
Lake Powell – Canada Geese
Sologne - Great-crested and Black-necked Grebes
Cap Tourmente – Snow Geese
Blyot Island, Canada – Snowy owl, Sandhill Crane, Snow Geese
Iceland – arctic Tern
Disko Bay, Greenland – glaciers falling
Senegal, Langue de Barbaric – Great white pelicans
Manche – Starlings
Aveyron – Graylag geese
Peru, Amazon – macaws
Bharatpur, India – Bar-headed geese, cranes
Wandering Albatross
Europe – India - Great Crane
Ibis (Wader) – along both coasts of N and S America
Your own unique map
Welcome to this amazing world
Kiran and Suraya!
You will hear many birds’ songs in your hills
each
pleasing your ears
with its unique sound.
You will see the dappled light
on a bed
of leaves
when you crawl under a bush
to rest.
You will each learn
your own mysteries and
wonders
with love always
as the deepest tone
of your
lives.
Each of you will have
your own unique map
to guide
your
wonderfilled steps.
I am joyful
that you two
are out
here with us now
born –
the two of
you so interdependent –
on our day of independence.
You are here to praise our world
to heal its many troubles
to remember always
this is a world of love and beauty
filled with the unique songs
of its many different birds.
July 26, 2003
Poems
from the Old
World
Limousin painted
with fine brush
a ceramic retablos
blue on white
the crucifixion
facing the rising
from the dark cave
into eternal light.
In the side panels
one angel
carries the crown of thorns
another the spear
a third the barbed scourge
all the inevitable
tools of torment.
Each angel testifies
to the divine
to the holy
to the unity
not only
of
Jesus’ life and death
and living.
They sing the grace
that
lies deep within
each moment
of our earthy pain.
Paris July 12, 2003
A blue man
elegant in his robes
sings praises
to the mother line
of power and
property
his people carry
from oasis to oasis
across the Sahara.
But too many drought years
have come and gone.
We must sell our camels.
Our men descend
into the cities
taking any unfamiliar work
to their hands
so they can feed
their children.
Issyad takes my hands,
says to me
“Come.
I will
show you the beauty
of our desert
the beauty
of the life of my
people
a heritage
that
is our prayer
to Allah.”
Colonialists stamped
the borders of states
upon maps
but
the Tauregs long to follow
the routes their camels know
from oasis to oasis.
The primary
almost the only
export of Niger
is the uranium
required to power
the reactors of France.
Chalon en Champagne July 15
I am very tired
too tired
to sleep and dream.
I ask questions
no one can answer
yet I insist
and demand
our clever species
can learn again
to create
the answers.
A man from the Sahara
in his blue robes
a Taureg
a Polish farmer
still resisting the apparatchics
(now rich capitalists)
they insist
we can create
the anwers.
Moligilani July 19, 2003
The train south
from Warsaw to Krakow
passed through thousands of farms
first on a broad plain
then scattered across
hills and valleys.
The fields were mostly small
with poppies,
corn flowers,
yarrow and woodruff
growing along the edges
apples and peaches
in the orchards
cabbage and beets
potatoes, wheat, and oats
onions of course
were growing organically
most farmers too poor
to buy pesticides and herbicides.
Wood lots, farm houses, and villages
completed the country side.
One fourth of Poland
lives on the land.
Too many
say the technocrats
of the European Union.
Not efficient
say the technocrats
who whistle
sustainable development
and cannot see it
where it lives
in these hills and valleys
full of farms and cottages.
Just a few changes
and these farms
could be an organic
cornucopia
for Europe.
Is there still a way
to save this living fabric
of small
farms
and the flowers
that grow along the edges?
Moligilani July 19, 2003
My brain
starving for the moment
could not guide my tongue
to speak
last
words of inspiration.
A fade to black
was all I could manage.
Twenty per cent unemployed
and more to come
as private investors
buy the steel plants
as farmers are driven from the land
by abstractions
from Brussels.
I challenge Kuba
to answer questions
I can hardly articulate.
We sit watching a queue of women
waiting to
consult
an enormous fortune teller
soaked in perfume.
Companies are moving their plants
from
Mexico to Vietnam
where workers are willing to work
for even less than less.
Of course we can create jobs
here in Poland.
That old woman
in the park
shouting protests
against long gone
communists
she needs a loving hand
to smooth her
distraught
elder years.
The prayer of service
has any economist
validated
this industrial sector?
Krakow July 22, 2003
Danke auf Rilke und Wenders
An angel falls into human form
moved into embodiment
by a child falling
from her balcony
by a sudden inability
to simply witness another
death
with intense grace.
He can feel now
the roundness of his face
in his cupped hands.
He can fall even further
into the very gutter of life
but he rises again
to join acrobats
swinging
from trapeze to trapeze.
Some of them were once angels.
A minute ago I realized
I’d been in Basra
ten seconds too long.
That kid across
the market
had a grenade in his hand.
Yesterday
the
kid that took Toby out
threw a grenade.
I
was a spasm of kill or be killed
and the child was dying
his blood soaking into the sand.
He held a peach in his hand.
I’ve been in Basra ten seconds too long.
He held a peach in his
hand.
The angels watch the torment
and silent
dismay of our lives
wearing trench coats
a day of
stubble on their chins
occasionally holding an unseen hand
at the back of an old man’s head
to sooth his bewildered mind.
Perhaps they are simply artifacts
of our deep mind
witnessing
with such clarity
each stumbling step we take
each graceful swing across the sky
reaching for the hands
of our lovers.
He held a peach
in his hand.
August 21, 2003
I am walking away
from the ruins
dazed
blood streaming down my face.
I don’t know
who I am
or who did this
or even where I am.
I look back
at the dust in
the air
the flames and the smoke
but I can’t remember.
Was that a mosque
or a Christian church
a foreign embassy
or a hotel discotheque
a clinic
or a police station?
I only know
my brothers and
sisters
are dead and wounded there
and somewhere
someone is
already planning
vengeance.
But I can’t remember.
Perhaps . . .
is it possible?
Could I perhaps
be the one who killed?
I am walking away
from the ruins
songs of black angels
in my ears.
September 5, 2003
A French film
tells Grace and me
the story of Artemesia Gentileschi
daughter and student
of Orazio.
She was the first woman artist
Western historians
honor
as great
one of the few
they bother to mention.
The film is an erotic romance
and a lie.
Grace sensed the fraud
directly
but I needed the World Wide Web
to retell the
story.
Her second teacher, Agostino Tassi
taught her perspective
and chiaroscuro
and raped her.
The Papal archives hold the records
of the seven month trial
that convicted him
and demeaned Artemesia
as a lascivious woman
subjected her secret places
to the eyes of Nuns
to verify her violated
maidenhead.
On the web
you can see her painting of this time
Judith Beheading Holofernes.
Tonight on MNBC
I watched
journalists blown about
by Hurricane Isabel
while the newscrawl
at the bottom of the screen
reported more attacks in Iraq.
Three US soldiers shot
two killed by a mine.
Our patrol fired
upon a wedding
when guest celebrated
by shooting into the air.
In panic our GIs killed
a fourteen year old boy
going to buy cigarettes.
My e-mail yesterday
informed me that Isabel
most likely
would shut down NASA’s
Earth Observatory website
that eye watching
our diverse disasters
from
space.
Martha and Ralph
visited the Bristlecone Pines
in the White Mountains
last week
four thousand five hundred years old
in their twisted glory.
They brought me
a round canister
with an instruction booklet
a tiny plastic greenhouse
five seeds guaranteed to become seedlings
and a bag of soil.
Tomorrow
I’ll wet this
medium
for propagation
plant the seeds in the soil
chill them for a few weeks
behind the fruitcakes and pesto
in
the fridge.
Then next Spring
I’ll
tend the tiny trees.
In a few years
I’ll find a site
in the White Mountains
with just the right soil
and aspect.
I’ll plant
the young Bristlecone Pines
late in the Fall
and look forward
to their mature years.
Ernie Lowe September 19,2003
The film, Artemesia, was directed by Agnes Merlet
NEW FILM DISTORTS HISTORY TO CREATE A FICTIONALIZED AND SENSATIONALIZED
"TRUTH"!
Testimony of the trial of
Agostino Tazzi for the rape of Artemesia Gentileschi
A website dedicated to the
life and work of Artemesia Gentileschi
The latest book on Artemisia
is Susan Vreeland's "The Passion of Artemisia", an historically
accurate novel based on her life.
Garrard, Mary D. 1989.
Artemisia Gentileschi - The Image of The Female Hero in Italian Baroque
Art. Princeton University Press.
Garrard, Mary D. 1993. Artemisia Gentileschi. Rizzoli Art Series.
Websites about Artemisia Gentileschi
The Bristlecone Genuine Tree
Seed Germination Kit www.jonsteen.com
Great Basin National Park
Bristlecone Pines
Great Basin bristlecone pines (Pinus longaeva), among the oldest trees
in the world, occur near treeline in three groves in Great Basin
National Park. These trees are remarkable for their great age and their
ability to survive adverse growing conditions.
A 4,600-year-old Great Basin bristlecone pine in the White Mountains of
California is the oldest known living tree. A bristlecone pine near
Wheeler Peak was dated to be more than 4,900 years old in 1964.
Unfortunately, before the area became a national park, the tree was cut
down and sectioned to get an accurate reading of its growth rings.
a site encoded
A flock of black
and white cranes
seeking a resting place
on its way to Africa
has stopped in a marsh
on the
Persian gulf
a site encoded
over centuries of visits
by their ancestors.
The cranes can find no food
in this ancient refuge
now covered with oil
from pipelines rocketed open
by the
resistance/terrorists/fanatics
who dream they dive
into their God
through devastation.
The cranes are completely black now,
no longer able to rise
into the air,
to soar on the updrafts
that give them freedom.
As I write,
seeking a resting
place
on my way into a peaceful future
I hear Erroll Garner’s
Somewhere Over the Rainbow
a
place where cranes
complete their migrations
a place where
unhungry children
love to see the cranes
land to rest
and cheer when they rise
into the sky again.
December 28, 2003
2004
Songs of the Full Moon
First, the children
from Map Ta Phut school
danced ancient flowing patterns
with gentle sea winds
from the Bay of Siam
cooling the warm
air.
Then Leo started the singing
his song an almost Pinoy romance
from an island
among thousands of islands.
But listen!
Wang Shi Ping climbed to the stage
her full clear voice
like a hawk soaring
on the currents of the air
rose high above us
dove
deep into our hearts.
I said,
“You must have had a great teacher!”
“No, no one taught me.
I lived with my grandparents in Hebei,
far out in the country.
I listened to the radio
and then I would go out in the fields
and sing to the sky.
I learned to sing
by loving the music,
the Beijing opera
letting its beautiful sound
live in my throat.”
Now as I remember that free sound
the dawn’s first bird
has awakened outside my window
singing the new day
into life.
Ernie Lowe
March 8, 2004
Rayong, Thailand
Moon just a few nights from
full.
I'd like to see its reflection
broken into the
thousand flashing lights
of a mountain river
leaping at the bottom
of a deep marble canyon.
I open my eyes
and find an old Japanese fishnet float
a clear glass
ball
cast up on our shore
four decades ago.
Ernie Lowe
May 30, 2004
how it links you
“On Monday, scores of
schoolchildren killed in the siege were laid to rest in an overflowing
cemetery amid wrenching grief in the town of Beslan, in the southern
republic of North Ossetia . . . Officially, 335 people - half of them
children - are confirmed dead.” www.aljazeera.net September 6,
2004
You need music
sweet deep music
to carry your heart
through the pain.
This afternoon
that was
Phillip Glass Violin Concerto.
His fourth quartet
or Schubert’s c minor quintet
would also carry you
through these fierce fires.
Then, if you choose,
you go to embrace
the souls of dead children
swirling madly
above their bodies
seared by the explosions the Chezens set
crushed by the gymnasium roof
collapsed upon them.
You carry the music to them
like sweet cool water
taking in their terrified pain
so piercing harmonies and rhythms
can guide them through their surprise
at being ripped from life so early.
You go to the mother
the one the terrorists forced
to choose which of her children
to rescue
which to leave behind.
You pour healing music
into the shrieking heart
of the girl abandoned
by her mother
into the breaking heart
of the mother
tears of forced betrayal
flowing down their faces,
the mother and the child.
Then you carry
this pain and rage and love
to the fleeing
terrorists
on the waves of music.
You tear through the scar tissue
around their hearts
insisting each one must feel
the sharp daggers of their attack.
Each one must feel
the agony of these parents and children
perhaps a scratching echo
of the pain they first felt in Chechnya
when their children and parents
also died in flames.
You too are human,
you sing to them
far below your bitter hatred
far below the numbed feelings
of your loss.
Let this music take you home.
Walk through the flames
that burn away
all that has led you to
monstrous acts
all that is not
your deep true self.
Listen to the music I carry.
Listen to how it links you
deep into the hearts
of your victims.
You do all of this
neither believing nor unbelieving
that your compassion
your music
goes beyond
your skin’s surface.
September 5, 2004
I planted violets and lavender
for you
Spanish lavender,
French lavender,
English lavender
Your birthday’s too early
for the violets
to be in bloom
but I’ll show you
the new plant
just under the Silk Tassle.
Our years together
have been
rich with flowers
beautiful rocks and songs
poems and stories
silence
and
quiet conversations.
I bring only little gifts
this year.
Looked tonight
for another Aladdin’s lamp
so you could
wish
for income that doesn’t
dry up.
But all I can give you
is my intention
and a rain check
for a bouquet of
sweet violets come Spring.
Happy birthday,
my true heart.
December 6 2004
The rains of darkness
The seed of the poem:
Madonna and child
an abstract African carving
modern Europe echoing back
from the bush artist
whose great grandfather
gave Picasso a new vision.
Madonna and child
child’s premature passion
not hands nailed to a cross
but simply shrapnel
from a car bomb
driven through his brain.
Madonna and child
the great surprise within her
as the magi bring their gifts
tiny tokens of homage
given into the infinite chasm
of her heart.
Madonna and child
the Goddess
suckling the puzzle
of the unnamable
who will walk the Earth
clad in flesh tender
to the Roman soldiers’
whips and thorns.
Madonna and child
a whore in Thailand
sends her baby back
to her parents
who sold her to the brothel.
Oh please, Mama!
Let her become
what I could have been.
Madonna and child
Vivaldi’s Gloria Mass
celebrates the rhythmic joy
of this paradoxical birth
God living in the skin of a man
who will be crucified
every day of our lives.
Seedlings are sprouting
all up and down this steep slope
above a manmade lake.
In the Spring
we’ll be picking flowers
and eating carrots, peas and spinach
sprung from the seed
that drinks the rains
of darkness.
on the Winter Solstice 2004
back
to
Ernest Lowe's poetry home page
my warm breath
Were there poems
written in the sand
that scratches my mind’s eye?
Or has the sand been
for these many days and nights
nothing but ripples
shaped by the cold winds
not my warm breath.
My mind urges my heart
to despair
insisting my life’s trajectory
has been a firefly’s
brief tracking of light
down through the dark time
of our descent.
My heart
dives into the darkness
to rest
to heal
to sprout new seeds
for the Spring’s awakening.
January 23, 2005
Gruesse Gott Gisela
The other day Grace and I visited Ed Setchko, a friend we’ve known
since the 60s. In his first real job after seminar, as chaplin of
University of Washington, he provide a forum for Robert Oppenheimer to
speak when the university cancelled his presentation because of the
McCarthyite waves of accusation. In the sixties he traveled to the
South to be a freedom rider and political prisoner. He also studied
cybernetics to understand the transforming force of information
technology in our society. On Berkeley’s holy hill he taught his
divinity students that we are a whole system called God and took them
out to witness for justice.
In the 70s he was called to visit the death camps to deepen his
feeling/understanding of who we are. Flipped out in a psychotic break
as he saw that he had in him the capacity to have been a guard prodding
the prisoners to the gas chambers and mass graves. Came back committed
to healing through a ministry in Europe, working with survivors and
Nazis and seminarians.
Then after several years and visits with survivors in Israel, his
calling changed. His assignment was to work with the peacemakers, the
Israelis and Palestinians who refused to accept the repetitive legacy
of Cain and Abel, even when they’d lost their children to this ancient
myth of fratricide.
More recently his heart attacked him and he’s had a stroke. He mourns
that his mind doesn’t work as he wishes, but he speaks without words
how the universe flows through our veins.
When we spoke of politics we remembered how a few years ago he felt our
job was to simply increase the forces of entropy so the system could
turn. He worried the other day about the depth of entropy seeming to
rule the world now.
I said, Ed, there are more of us now than ever. We’re linked, acting, creating, and immersed in compassion as our “methodology.
He asked Grace and me to sign the guest book and there, before our
line, were Augie and Pat, so I called them today. Ed had brought them
into our lives a decade ago. They’re working through their church to
help the tsunami survivors in Sri Lanka. Augie is a sailor so he’s
interested in helping the fishermen get new boats that don’t deforest
the hills. I remembered John Todd’s successful design of a lightweight,
speedy fishing boat for Guyana, build of wood composite material.
E-mailed the references and name of the designer and the web site for
Ocean Arks International.
Augie wants his church to help the restoration of small businesses in
Sri Lanka. I sent him the name of the head of the chamber of small and
medium enterprises with whom I worked in Sri Lanka. (Grace and I and
our daughter and our husband sent Nihal cash to support the relief
centers his network has set up.)
Augie’s church sent a member to visit Sri Lanka and she came back with
the simple news that the women in the camps need cotton underwear,
something too humble for anyone else to notice. So the church is
working on filling that need.
We’re linked, acting, creating, and immersed in compassion as our
“methodology. More of us than ever before! Our detachment/commitment
gives us a freedom of movement much more powerful than the dinosaurs
who dream of empires and dominance. And we know how to plant seeds!
Your friend,
Ernie
February 6, 2005
Sprouting into the Sangha
Deep layers of debris
from villages shattered
by tsunami waves
fragments of vehicles
blown up in Iraqi markets
molecules of plastic penetrating
the oceans’ creatures
the salt of dried tears
crusted atop all this disintegration
pressing down upon
my poets silent heart.
In a burnt out tea shop
my compassion lays
bent upon itself
no longer embracing
the dead, the dying,
and the wounded
unable to go on
holding the guilt and fear
of the killers
with utter clarity.
My heart attempts
to remind my mind
we are not alone
in this aweful gift of healing.
Even the seeds
I’ve planted this dark winter
are sprouting
into the Sangha.
But I only hear
the panting of hungry dogs.
February 9, 2005
Dolphins swim
on the New Yorker’s cover
through the towers of Manhattan.
Exxon-Mobil
buys a double truck
and the book’s back page
to greenwash its role . . .
“We’re all for reducing emissions.”
Its in the three-part mini-series
The Climate of Change.
“May you live in interesting times,”
the Chinese curse invokes.
April 30, 2005
Bitter radicchio
No appetite for writing poems
though the salads I make
each night
are full flavored with
celantro flowers, tarragon,
lemon thyme, bitter radicchio,
and tender leaves of kale
lubricated with virgin olive oil,
lemon juice,
and balasamic vinegar.
No time for the rhythms of poems
though I customize my news stream
to feed me stories of climate change,
organic farming, China perilous growth,
and the extinction of species,
perhaps even our own.
For months I’ve drilled a dry hole
when I pick up my pen
can’t even find my poetry book
with its redwood
rising in relief
from its embossed leather cover.
I reached a point
where I could no longer
dwell each night
with the killers and their victims
and the circles
of their brothers and sisters.
Too many
too fast
in so many corners
of my world.
My great grandfather’s healing touch
ninety years ago
his hands upon the withers of horses
in southern Kansas
near the Oklahoma corner
his touch seized up
by the excessive use of force
which inevitably leads to
collateral damage. .
The ice is melting
the seas are rising
my salty tears
sprinkle the waves.
May 23, 2005
The gift ungiven
The gift is ungiven
held close to the source
as though atmospheric pressure
is enough to prevent its flowing out
into the willing universe
The gift may be
an image of a cupped flower,
four light purple petals
with dark spots
at their meeting place.
I am sick with AIDS
my husband brought home
from a whore who caught it
from a truck driver
who screwed his way
across China.
The gift may be
the intersection of creative ideas
and political power
an abstract ground
littered with piercing glass shards
and sharp rocks.
June 3, 2005
An iris for your birthday
Your Little House on the Prairie
was dog-eared
from so many readings.
Perhaps this childhood dedication
is the seed for your bungalow
on Congress Street.
You’re so different
from your nomadic Mom and Dad.
You and your dear Ralph
will craft a home unique
in its colors and textures.
Sweet peas will no doubt scent the air.
Japanese maples
you’ve so artfully pruned
through the years
will take root in the earth.
You’ll make special spaces
for Rosie and Katie
to shake their dog’s ears.
Well, maybe not so different after all.
Happy Birthday
Martha my dear.
June 8, 2005
Just toss it
For the day I’ve given up
the frustrating quest
for next month’s rent
and focused myself
on linking ideas, cases, and resources
that somehow, I hope,
will serve the common good.
It all cascaded forth
from a newspaper column
on the disappearance of repairmen
in this era
of the throwaway economy.
“We've come to accept the idea
that there is no point fixing something
when it breaks.
just toss it
and buy a new one.”
In Winter
I wear my Dad’s Stetson
had it since 1973
when he died.
In Summer
I wear a light blue striped shirt,
bought it at a garage sale
on Mercer Island in 1978.
Grace sewed new buttons on it
and sometimes she wears it too.
From 1949 to 1998
I kept wearing a coat
we’d bought at Sears
rough wool
red plaid
lumberman’s jacket.
Walter,
one of my great inspirations,
never traded in a car
when he bought a new one.
Put it in storage
to create his retirement fund.
As each model became an heirloom,
he’d watch the price go up
far above what he’d paid for it.
Today my work
reported his vision of companies
delivering functions, not things
and introduced it
to China’s planners.
I found a bunch of new potatoes
as I dug today’s scraps
into the compost pile.
July 16, 2005
here's what I hear in the middle of the night.
it may just be a lie.
for a young man seeking the truth
I’m telling a lie,
sure,
don’t believe a word I say.
How can I say anything real
how can I be anything real
when they’re all lying to me?
I lie when I smile
I like when I snarl
I lie when I look into the mirror.
Drunk or sober or high
I lie
and if an angel came to be
on wings of grace
I’d only hear her lying
as she fanned me
with her Hollywood wings.
Do you know what I mean?
I mean,
do you know what I mean?
Do you believe me?
Can you fucking understand
that I’m trying to say
the only thing I know is true?
September 14, 2005
Winter Solstice 2005
The time of the Dark,
in the damp soil
where the fallen leaves and roots rot,
beetles and microbes and worms
recall nutrients out of corruption,
the dark soil where the seeds germinate,
sending tender shoots toward the light.
The sun’s warmth is low on the horizon,
hardly reaching the uneven rows of my garden
most hours of the day.
But sugar snap pea vines have survived the frosts
so far
arugala, kale, and radishes
reach our table,
herbed with lemon thyme and celantro.
The time of the Dark
but at day’s end
sunsets have lit the clouds
all around to the east,
shining along their rippling base
in a subtle succession from yellow to salmon
to deep red.
In the Hudson Valley last week
I met a newly elected supervisor,
a mayor, in fact, of a town
21 years old and a savvy green pol already.
Dems took the county legislature too.
In Bolivia the people elect Morales
an Indian, to be President.
A socialist fighting off the heavy weight
of my country’s greedy beneviolence.
A seed in the soil.
A friend of Chavez and Lula, and Castro.
In Hong Kong
Korean farmers break into the deadly deliberations
of the World Trade Organization
and to the north, Chinese farmers protest
the seizure of their land
by the government,
protest again and again.
Can the bullets of the police and army
stop the seeds from sprouting?
The time of the Dark.
The humus, the worms, the fruitful decay
the seeds waiting for the sun
to warm the soil again,
just warm enough for their release.
Ernie Lowe, December 21, 2005
the shape changing creative will
Shadows slant down the road
in a park named for a poet
turning Rosa into a shape changing elephant
You’d caress her throat
at just the right spot
and her long ears would lay flat
signaling dog’s special pleasure.
You’ll never know
the cutting edge
of my gaze into darkness,
you child of light
you dreamer of hope
looming on the horizon.
You show me new flowers
blooming before winter has hit its stride.
You sing the chirp of the tree frog
in Jeannine’s morning glory vine.
You’ll never know despair
flowing forth from bone’s marrow
mind’s deepest coils,
you child of blackberries in winter
you dreamer of braided bread
rising on the spirit’s horizon.
You show me salmon sunsets
circling around behind my head
the underbellies of clouds
rippling this day’s last light
in every direction.
You chant the mantra of geese
honking as they land
on this hidden lake
gliding across its surface
to one more nomadic home.
You know the driving force of life restoring
the shape changing creative will
to make new life
in the backwash of hurricanes
tsunamis
and volcanoes.
I am thou and thou art that
the spring lotus flower still blooming
just past the turn of the Winter Solstice.
December 24, 2005
The ages of my years
So many ages
I find surrounding me,
reflecting deep Moroccan colors and patterns
and the beauty of Grace’s young face
in 1958.
If I just look deep into memory’s vaults
I hear the sounds of Mahler and Juliette Greco,
I see the hardwood floors
I sanded for our first home.
I smell the cabbage in the hallway
of that first winter’s apartment home,
I taste the Linzer Torte
baked by the mother
of our Hungarian friend,
out on a not too distant farm
that seemed like some sort of paradise.
There’s a Thai Buddha,
Byzantine mosaic behind him,
and a string of elephants in bas relief,
each holding the tail
of the next in line.
So many ages of my life,
here around me,
reflecting dreams and visions,
friends I yearned to know deeper
than my sorry mind’s concept of love.
I smell the curry spices browning in the olive oil,
look into the eyes of a young woman
I recognize as myself,
hear the slow movement of Mozart’s K 488.
Five and four and three decades ago
are present in this early morning interval
when sleep’s quiet zone
has not yet opened to me.
I’ll cancel tomorrow appointments and travels
along flood damaged interstates.
I’ll remember the ambience
and sparkling presence without names
of the hundreds of souls
into whose eyes I’ve gazed,
capturing and freeing our shared moments.
I’ll listen to Schubert’s opus 100 trio,
that hyper-lyrical sound track
to my travels in 1958
through first generation suburban ghettos.
I’ll pray,
though that’s not exactly a skill I possess.
I’ll reach my heart out to Diana,
her doctors say
she’s starting to die in her lungs,
I’ll wrap my soul around drug dealers,
terrorists,
and heads of state,
and I’ll go on believing
In our deepest human nature.
‘