This night
in cold moonlight
earth rises up
clouds float down
ghosts walk the margin.
Old ones sing
now shall be then
older ones still sing
then shall be once
to wolf and coyote.
In this season of north winds
sun’s heat barren
spirits rise up
dreams descend
man lies interspersed.
Women sing
we are bearers
men sing
we are sowers.
First appeared in Dipity, Vol. 3, April 2023
There was a time when I
would steal away for an hour
and sit in the corner of my favorite
coffee shop, watching people.
There would always be students,
fidgeting in a hurry to be
somewhere for which they are late
but dare not face uncaffeinated.
There was an older man,
his white and gray hair an absurd
version of the Friars of old,
the man would always
have a book and a journal.
I thought that curious, a professor
perhaps, but I dared not interrupt him.
Now, as you have guessed, it is I
sitting in a coffee shop writing
in my journal, by hair silver
and white, bald on top
and I wonder if anyone
is reluctant to interrupt me.
I wasn’t born a woman,
I cannot bear a child,
I cannot carry a fetus nine months
I cannot feel the morning sickness,
I cannot nurse a child once born,
I cannot cease to be who I am
because I had a child,
I cannot be raped and made pregnant,
I cannot be subject incest
making me pregnant,
I cannot go through the pains of labor,
I cannot have an emergency c-section,
But as a man
I can sit in judgment on women
I can try and control their bodies,
I can try and eliminate their choices,
I can do all of those things
but I refuse for I was born
of a woman, and I honor
her right to choose what is best
for her as I reserve the right
to choose what is best for me.
It is 1952, April, and I
am handed to the woman.
I am wrapped in a thin blanket,
the tall man is standing beside her.
I do not recall this, but this
is how it must have happened,
she finally a mother, he
a father despite infertility.
I do not recall her, the woman
who perhaps never held me
once I exited her body, who
hid me for nine months.
I mourn her now, knowing
she acted out of love, with hope
for me, but only the headstone
is her touch on my hand.
First appeared in Constellations: A Journal of Poetry and Fiction, Volume 12, Fall 2022
Going through files of photos
I occasionally see a younger man
who is someone I should know.
He doesn’t appear often, and I
am fairly certain I was never
the photographer when
those photos were taken.
He is rather short, often seems
to wear a hat, is otherwise
rather nondescript.
Still, I would like to talk
to him, as I suspect we would
agree on a broad range of things.
If you see him, ask him
to contact me, for the mirror
only shows him far older.
I tell him I am thinking of becoming
a rabbi, someone just like him,
a man who saw so many through
all manner of crises, joyous events.
He sits back in his unsteady chair,
one he refuses to replace, this one
finally broken in, he says with that
gentle smile that melts anger, anxiety.
You would do well at it, I know, he says,
and I will gladly write you a recommendation
but think about this carefully, it is
not the life you might imagine it to be.
But before you decide, he adds,
reaching among a stack of books,
read these, handing me two volumes
that I did not imagine would change my life.
And somewhere, I have my own copies
of Alan Watt’s “Beat Zen, Square Zen and Zen”
and “The Book:On the Taboo Against
Knowing Who You Are?”, and I then knew.
If you ask why I am a Buddhist
I will tell you there are a myriad
of possible reasons, choose one,
or take this one, it fits nicely.
I am in college, pulling my grades
up to mediocre, thoughts of medicine
gone, law only faint on a distant horizon
a master’s degree away.
I visit my childhood rabbi, a man
who has been my guide through much.
I peer into his office, his door removed,
and he bids me to come in and sit.
I do, slowly, carefully negotiating
around stacks of books piled
on every possible flat surface,
the walls covered in bookcases
straining to hold their loads, I
knowing a too loud sound, a jostle
and the avalanche would be
impossible to stop, disastrous.
I would love to work for the Postal Service. I don’t want my own route, and I certainly do not have the right temperment for working at the counter. The health insurance is good, and the retirement would be something to look forward to. But I want one job in particular. I want to the the man who sits all day with the micrometer and measures the mail to see if it is over a 1/4 of an inch thick, so he can send it back for additonal postage.
The pelican has remarkable patience. It doesn’t hurt that he knows how this will play out. It’s pretty much the same, day after day. That’s life on the jetty. Once the crusty old man is done fishing, once he packs up his cart to leave, he will dump his remaining bait fish on the jetty. Or, as the pelican prefers to think of it, the buffet table.
I saw the sun
rise this morning
over Mt. Hood, the
glow that announced
to the horizon its approach.
There should be
in the life of every man,
every woman, that moment
when seeing dawn
lift, peel back the shroud
from Mt. Hood causes the sudden
intake of just that much extra breath.
Publshed in As Above, So Below, Issue 9, August 2022
https://issuu.com/bethanyrivers77/docs/as_above_so_below_issue_9
an old writer and his words 