What poems and do-gooders have in common

I see an uptick on “unsubscribe” requests on how-matters.org when I write or share about one thing in particular. No, it’s not structural racism in the international aid and philanthropy sector, nor when I lambast celebrities.

It’s poetry. And it always breaks my heart a little.

Poetry holds paradox, that tricky line between intention and ambiguity. It requires patience, because a poem doesn’t always reveal itself readily. Poems can manage to connect a person’s heart and their head.

Since I first “came out” as a poet on this blog in 2011, incredible things have happened. I was invited to the opening of the Peace Bridge in Derry, Northern Ireland. I’ve been asked by my family to share my poems as we buried my grandfathers. I’ve had gigs at a major humanitarian response organization and an aid and advocacy organization, both of whom have faced major scandals since I left. (Please don’t draw a false correlation – ha!) I’ve taken risks – both financially and spiritually. I’ve led the rebranding of a 30-year-old organization and I co-edited a book. I’ve loved. I’ve lost. I’ve inhabited parts of my life – including the joy and the pain – through the witness that poetry provides.

Peace, and death, and love, and grief, and hope, and social change are all things that require us to hold paradox. So during this National Poetry Month in the U.S. and the month of the Split This Rock Festival in D.C., I ask you do-gooders: why wouldn’t poetry fit in to our work and our lives?

Poems are not perfect, nor are they adequate to solving the world’s problems. 

Poems don’t fit with a sense of urgency. They ask us to slow down, even sacrifice more visible results. 

Poems aren’t afraid of discomfort. Emotions and feelings – even conflict – are ever-present in the subjective choice and sacred assemblage of words. 

Poems aren’t proposals or reports or memos or emails. Their worship the written word appears in ways to which we’re not accustomed. 

Poems are complex. They break down thinking based in either/or, good/bad, right/wrong, with us/against us.

Poems can share power, because the viewpoint or experience of the poet and every audience member shape, but never standardize, the poem’s interpretation.

Poems are like us, do-gooders. Or perhaps rather, we should become more like them.

So here’s a small collection of some of my recent poems to to celebrate this month, even if it means more people “unsubscribe.”

***

The Barking

Tech and Tatars
fill the day,
along with questions that may be
forever unanswered.
But here we are,
marching along as
history is made
today.
And here we were,
marching along as
history was made
then.
I lose my body, too easily,
forever seeking invisibility, safety.
We knew it was wrong,
the witnesses
of personal atrocity.
But also, we must have loved
along the way.
Contradictions of humanity
forever walking inside us now.

Listening for Echoes

Early morning extroverts
murmur…
“Have you read…?”
as the caffeine and the
positioning appears,
will the questions
be less about tribal identification
and the flurry of connective thoughts,
and more about curiosity?
Openness.
Listening as
Super Power!
Not invisibility or flight,
but the desire to
discern the owl’s call
in unlit canopies.
Did you hear her when
the blue glow arrived?
Do you know…?
How, why do you know?
Humility is not about playing small,
It is about…what do you think?
Don’t seek to improve,
seek to understand,
seek to trust,
you first.
You first,
Find your place
in the reverb.

Acquisition (Among the Gems)

Why do we humans so much want to possess? Is it the need for security? Do we mistakenly think the “having” will fight the march of change, of generations, of mortality?
That fundamental fear – the capitalists built upon it. From the first inkling of, “Oh I should keep this for me,” did we create its root?
Is greed natural? Or is it born of fear?
“Mine,” the baby says as it grabs the toy from its mate.
Our need to be separate, distinct may be our child’s instinct. But the elders can tell us what is to be learned – that all is “ours.”
There is pain behind anyone who would see that as absurd. Something has kept them small, has kept them as a child without the toy.
And everything we take just leaves us distinct, yes, but also alone.
Since we dug in the dirt, and “discovered” the cave, only to find what shines.
We want what shines.
We all do. But more and more, we want what lives.
Taking, stealing, amassing, acquiring, accumulating – it kills. Possessing, just like security, is ultimately a falsehood.
The shine remains,
even if we do not.

Not a War Zone

No need for “excuse me,”
Let the digestive gases fly.
You can say whatever you want,
the global political economy is
built for you.
Anywhere you are dropped,
along a roadside market in Salima,
catching buses in Padua,
there is nothing beyond you, your element
welcomed, revered,
used to worship.
But this world is not
a church erected.
The walls you want to build,
cannot keep up with those being torn
down, all around,
by everyone – not you.
You see, we know how to live
in war zones.

Letter to Someday

From where are you drawing breath?
Do you burst like I do?
Or carry sweetness and grace?
When we meet,
how long will it take
for me to answer these questions?
Or will there be no need?
What parts of me will you
tweak and bend?
Will we tumble and row?
Or caress and cajole?
How will our safety come?
Please be crazy for me,
about me, over me, around me.
Never without affection and adoration,
even among inevitable doubt.
Let’s create something
to cherish together,
even if it’s just each other.
Let’s fill our hearts up to the rim,
and then let if overflow,
to all around who can bear it,
and add even more.
Because we won’t be afraid,
mostly,
and whatever fear we have
will give us fuel
to reach higher to divinity.
We’ll freely share the load
from time to time,
but always.
We’ll be each other’s great adventure,
our shared delusion,
sustained.