Pages

Wednesday, December 4, 2019

Candles




“If we all do as our kindred have done
and refuse to fight for our lives and for our ordinances,
they will quickly destroy us from the earth.”

- 1 Maccabees (2:40)

“I am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty, land:
will
never be purged away; but with Blood.
I had as I now think: vainly flattered myself
that without very much bloodshed; it might be done.”

- John Brown


Listen,

in these cold nights,
voices ride the wind:

Ave Marias uttered
at a bedside altar
a murmured i love you between a couple
in a tent under a viaduct
the prayers of a child whispered
into the carpet of a Mosque
the war cries of Water Protectors
camped near a pipeline

meanwhile, the faces change,
but the story stays the same:

He shed much blood,
and spoke with great arrogance.
The people mourned deeply
in every community…
young women and young men
became faint…
Even the land
trembled for its inhabitants…

and police joke about brutalities over lunch
and troops gather at the border
to unleash tear gas on children seeking asylum
from unnatural disasters in Honduras
(where U.S. troops are still stationed,
while more wait in Afghanistan, Iraq, Russia, Japan, and all across the planet)
and bombers fly routinely over China's waters,
while Chinese children compete with computers
to make more computers
and wages everywhere drop
like bombs
and families around the world open empty cabinets
while perfectly good food sits on the shelves of stores
until it is thrown into dumpsters
and the dumpsters are locked.
and shiny shops spread through the city like boils
while rents soar
and more and more
residents move out (to where?)
and the unhoused gather on the corners
and outside our grocery stores
and places of worship

for the citadel became an ambush
against the sanctuary,
an evil adversary of the people
at all times.
On every side of the sanctuary they
shed innocent blood;
Because of them
the residents of the city fled;
she became a dwelling of strangers;
she became strange to her offspring,
and her children
forsook her.
Her sanctuary became
desolate like a desert;
her feasts
were turned into mourning,

and storefronts close,
and factories rust,
and leaded water runs through our taps,
and another shelter is shuttered in Uptown,
(the list of friends I pray for grows longer every day)

and Lew and Diana take their children
and teenage grandchildren,
and now their infant great granddaughter
into their small apartment

while violence spreads and closes in
around everyone I know

           Alas! Why was I born to see this,
           the ruin of my people, the ruin of the holy city,
           and to live there when it was given
           over to the enemy…
           Her temple has become like a person
           without honor…
           Her infants have been killed in her
           streets, her youths by the sword of the foe…
           All her adornment has been taken away;
           no longer free, she has become a slave.
           And see, our holy place, our beauty,
           and our glory have been laid waste…

And see how they destroy us
de-story us       file
and defile us         turn our visions into
his       / story            of our lives
caught in their net    /      worth

until the star of David represents Apartheid
and the stars and stripes look like babies in cages
and Lady Liberty seems to be shouting Heil Hitler!
and the Scales of Justice stand for currency exchange

           and in this world,
           what does a Menorah mean?
           or the million lit-up mangers?
           or the eagles on our currency

                      (the money that multiplies 
                      as it kills off the actual eagles)?

           Will Harriet Tubman tolerate
           her face being placed on a twenty-dollar bill
           (her likeness woven into the very sinew
           of Andrew Jackson’s on the other side)?

           And who will remember, this December,
           as they light the Chanukkah candles,
           the murder of Fred Hampton in the night
           and who will light one for Wounded Knee,
           and Standing Rock,
           and tell their children why,
           at the camp of the seven council fires,

                      The U.S. flag was flown inverted
                      because a nation is in peril
                      when it places its first people last
                      and values the deadness of oil
                      over the sacred waters of life? 

                      Who will tell the story
                      of the veterans who went there
                      to kneel at the feet of hundreds of nations

                                 And who can explain
                                 why the flag with a serpent is waved
                                 by Zapatistas in the mountains
                                 and the government that hunts them?

                      Or why the rebels in Chiapas
                      cover their faces with masks
                      and their bodies with rifles

           Or why John Brown ordered rifles
           to be shipped west in crates labeled “Bibles”

Or why, tonight, when we light these candles,
we think of these courageous and their deeds

That we may never forget
the battles they fought
when all other choices failed

And so they learned the proper use
of both prayers and weapons

                      so that one day
                      only prayers might still remain

For these, tonight, and every year,
we light and burn these flames:

One
           for John Brown

One
           for Harriet Tubman

One
           for Fred Hampton

One
           for Standing Rock

One
           for Palestine

One
           for the person without a warm place to go tonight

One
           for the children born in the cold

and One for us,

           that we may become worthy
           of this prayer

           for you,
           and me,

           and all of us
           who (re)dedicate ourselves
           to the land that gives us life

                      who light candles
                      in the darkest of times

                      and in the most dangerous
                      of places