Rachel Barenblat's Blog, page 193

We find God in the helpers

In the face of tragedy, like today's bombings at the Boston Marathon -- a marathon in which the final mile was dedicated to Newtown victims, which somehow makes this all seem even more painful -- how can we respond?

When something awful happens, I think of the passage from Reverend Kate Braestrup which I shared last fall in a sermon for Shabbat Nachamu. God, she says, is not in the disaster; God is not in the car accident; God is not in the bombing. We find God in the love expressed by those who rush to respond: the helping hands, the caring hearts, the first responders who risk their lives to assist those in need.

Reverend Braestrup shares that theology with the venerable Fred Rogers, may his memory be a blessing. (He was a Presbyterian minister, though I didn't know that when I watched his television show as a kid.) I've seen a lot of people sharing a quote from Mr. Rogers today, about how his mama taught him to respond to scary things by looking for the helpers.

Look for the helpers. We find God in those who respond.

God is in the 1200 people who have opened up their homes to stranded runners and travelers in and around Boston today.

In the first responders -- police, EMTs, firefighters, and others -- who rushed not away from the explosions but into them, to help those who were wounded, putting their own lives on the line to aid others.

In those who, according to NBCN, completed the marathon and immediately went to give blood so that the injured could be healed.

In the restaurants (among them Oleana and El Pelon Taqueria) opening their doors, offering a warm meal and a safe place-to-wait to those in need tonight.

In everyone who is caring for those who are wounded and those who are grieving, and those for whom this has been triggering, and those who are afraid.

My prayers are with those who are wounded, those who are grieving, and those who are afraid: in Boston tonight, and in Baghdad, Nasiriyah, and Kirkuk tonight, and everywhere else in the world where people know sorrow and pain. I can't make sense of the loss of life. All I know how to do is hope for healing, and thank the first responders, and find God's presence in the acts of the helpers -- and in every broken heart.

Daily April poem: address book

LEDGER

An iphone can't be a palimpsest.

And the old one I used to use,

the one with a crack in the crystal

has lost its second life as a toddler toy --

won't hold a charge anymore

to power zebra or water sounds.

The pale blue onionskin paper

of my mother's red-bound datebook

still crinkles between my fingertips

but who will feel nostalgia

for smudged old screens

once the data has been transferred

to its afterlife

in a shape

we can't yet imagine?

 

 

This poem was written to the "address book" prompt at 30/30 poetry.

I haven't had a paper address book in years, nor a paper datebook, though I remember
the way they used to get written-on and overwritten, outdated data scrawled-over,
marginalia sprouting like mushrooms after a rain.

Daily April poem: cobbled out of a day's errands

MAKE A POEM OUT OF THAT

If you can't make a poem out of that,

she said, I'll be disappointed --

but I've forgotten what

the raw materials were: our visit

to the Ghanaian cobbler

with racks of dusty shoe polish tins?

The international market

with the forlorn plastic Santa

in the window, boxes of fufu

and Goya tinned mackerel on the shelves?

Maybe it was the blackboards, chalked

with the names of spring beers.

Cartoon stars soaring and twirling.

The little boy, jumping with glee.

 

 

This poem wasn't written to any particular prompt. Instead it arose out of an afternoon's errands in Pittsfield.

Daily April poem: a trio of tankas

TANKA TRIO AT FORTY-ONE MONTHS

1.

He watches Dora,

Talks back to the screen with glee

Calls her his new friend

Someday he'll know she's not real --

My heart will break a little.

2.

The blanket sleeper

Adorned with smiling snowmen

Lies limp, discarded.

This house feels too quiet without

His three-year-old energy.

3.

Careen down the slide

Clutching Bear beneath one arm.

Galoshes touch earth.

Someday you'll sail into air

And land in your own grown life.

 

 

This was written for the Day Eleven challenge at NaPoWriMo, which invited each of us to write a tanka. This is another syllabic form; the classic American tanka contains lines of 5 / 7 / 5/ 7 / 7 syllables, and often the last couplet takes the poem in a new direction or casts new light on the first part of the poem. I worked again with the recurring theme of parenting our three-year-old, and this is what emerged.

 

Shabbat in the modern world

The challah is hidden beneath the animal-print cloth, a challah cover made from a potential nursery fabric reject. The wine, juice, and candles are obvious. What's perhaps less obvious is why there's a laptop open on the table: so we can Skype with my parents in Texas while we say the blessings over candles, wine, challah, and the kiddo.

I close the priestly blessing with the line asking God to bring our son peace, and he still tears off a corner of challah and says solemnly "and the last thing we bless is, I ask God to give you a piece," and hands me some more bread. I know he won't do it forever (he's already outgrown some of his early malapropisms) but I so love that he does it now.

And I love that the miracle of Skype allows me to share that with my parents week after week.

Shabbat shalom to all!

Daily April poem: what gets in the way

WHAT GETS IN THE WAY

Whatever gets in the way of the work

might be the roasting pan from last night's chicken

aswirl now with suds and schmaltz.

Might be the yellow pansies nodding bravely

in the window box outside the coffee shop.

The bitter dregs of coffee in a big white cup.

It might be the half-remembered dream

of ice floes, furlined coat, the little bird

vibrating like a beating heart in my hand.

It might be the little boy on Thomas sheets

who's thrown every single stuffed animal out of bed

and is waiting for me to intuit that he's alone.

What gets in the way of the work is this cold wind

whipping past my leather jacket to kiss my neck.

The daffodil-bright sign at the VFW.

And I'm blessed to gather this armful of images

and stitch them together with blue thread, because

whatever gets in the way of the work is the work

and whatever gets in the way of this day

is this day that the Lord has made:

let us rejoice and write poems in it.

 

 

 

This daily April poem wasn't written to any particular prompt. I stared for a while at my empty text window, waiting for an idea, and what came to me was the mantra I learned from my teacher Jason Shinder, of blessed memory: "Whatever gets in the way of the work, is the work." (I've written about that many times before.) That's what gave rise to this poem.

Daily April poem: noir-inspired

NEW IN TOWN

A bright morning

on a hillside

that doesn't keep

a single secret.

The wind dances

the leafless trees

side to side.

They hum aloud.

The repeated thud:

a hapless robin

who doesn't know

to avoid windows.

Here and there

tiny green shoots

mark the spots

where crocuses begin.

An ant investigates

the venetian blinds.

Ladybugs stroll silently

along the sill.

Spring's the dame

who winks merrily

short skirt fluttering

over long legs.

And we, punchdrunk

on her proximity

fall over ourselves

to invite her in.

 

 

Tuesday's prompt at NaPoWriMo invited us to write poems inspired by noir.
I narrowly resisted the urge to attempt something about Veronica Mars,
and instead wound up with a short poem about the leggy lady who's got
everyone's heart aflutter around these parts. The opening stanza is a riff off of Garrison Keilor's Guy Noir bit on Prairie Home Companion.

Daily April poem: ottava rima

WETLAND ASHREI

Pass old cornstalks, the sukkah's sad debris.

The wetland's dull, dead stalks washed out by snow

but some stems gleam with red. What vibrancy,

the gold-as-tinsel fronds of the willow.

Grey pussywillows' pearls, woodsy jewelry

against this backdrop where no leaves yet grow.

Happy are we who make Your house our home!

Birdsong fills this robin's-egg-blue dome.

 

 

Monday's prompt at NaPoWriMo invited us to experiment with ottava rima, an Italian verse form which usually appears, in English, as eight-line stanzas in iambic pentameter with an a/b/a/b/a/b/c/c rhyme scheme. I wrote mine on a short afternoon break from work before Hebrew school on Monday. I stepped outside the synagogue and sat with my laptop in the small gazebo, and the poem arose out of what I observed in the small wetland behind the shul.

The penultimate line is a reference to the ashrei prayer, which begins "Happy are they who dwell in Your house." (I first blogged about that prayer here in 2004, and did so again in 2007.) Traditionally Jews daven the ashrei three times a day, one of those times being mincha, the short afternoon prayer service. (Writing this poem became my mincha for Monday.)

Daily April poem: declarative sentences capped with a question

MORNING WITH THREE-YEAR-OLD

Our son stands in the doorway in bear pyjamas.

A soft blue teddy peeks from under his arm.

His cheeks are scaly with the night's dried snot.

He clambers into our bed and squirms onto my pillow.

This smile, sweet as strawberries, is just for me.

He cups my face with his grubby palm.

I brush his hair back from his forehead.

Small feet probe my ribs, testing boundaries.

Soon he is poking my mouth, covering my eyes.

Deep breath: I roll to sitting, I enfold in my robe.

We pad down the stairs holding hands.

Unzip the blanket sleeper, yank the nighttime diaper.

Our struggle for dominance evokes the Nature Channel.

I manage to aim his feet into sweatpants and socks.

I yield and relinquish my hopes of a clean shirt.

Finally I reach the Promised Land.

The refrigerator hums its quiet song.

Clean pots weigh down the dish drainer.

I stand in the middle of the floor, waiting.

Does a watched coffee pot refuse to boil?

 

 

Sunday's NaPoWriMo prompt invited us to write poems in which each line is a short declarative sentence, and the final line is a question. In response to that prompt, I wrote this poem on Sunday morning, sipping coffee while our son watched cartoons. I have two versions of it: one where the poem is all one long stanza, and another where the poem is broken into 5-line stanzas. I think I like this version better, but I'm still not sure.

There's a way in which this is a sequel to the Toddler House poems I was writing a while back -- and a way in which those were the next chapter of the weekly mother poems I wrote during my first year of motherhood.

I spent some of last week proofreading the digital galleys of Waiting to Unfold, due out from Phoenicia Publishing in a few weeks. I'm so grateful now to have those poems -- and to have a publisher who's excited about bringing them into the world. Anyway: stay tuned for more intel on that collection!

Daily April poem: valley

PROJECTS

Tiny trebuchet, sized

for dolls or possibly hobbits,

chucked eggs halfway down the hill.

We counterpoised our second try

with free weights, strong enough

to loft pumpkins.

For a finale we pondered

air cannons to send buckets of paint

soaring into the valley

strangers waking to find
their houses garbed in unfamiliar

technicolor dreamcoats, but

by then we were building

round Mongolian dwellings

out of sticks and string instead.

What the neighbors thought

as gers sprouted like slow mushrooms

atop our hill, we'll never know

as they'll never know

how lucky they are we got bored

and let their house stay blue.

 

 

This was written to the 30/30 prompt "valley."

We never really intended to build the air cannon, but it made for fun conversations. (And yes, this is the kind of thing our circle of friends does for fun when we get together -- we make things. For a few years, there were trebuchets.)

Ger is the Mongolian word for what most of us know as a yurt. Starting in 2004, we built one in our backyard every winter with friends for many years. Last year we got one from Mongolia, which has replaced the various iterations we built. (For more on that: Loving the ger, May 2012.)