Poets’ Cookout July
2115
In
spite of rain in the morning and the continued threat of afternoon rain, poets
met outdoors in the Courtyard of St. Mark’s, New Britain to enjoy a cookout and
learn about reading poetry theologically from Wendy Lyons and Liz Massey who
had taken a summer course at Yale.
Poetry was heard from poets of Grace and St. Peter’s, Woodbridge; Holy
Trinity, Enfield; St. Mark’s, New Canaan; St. Paul’s, Plainfield; St. John’s,
East Hartford; Old St. Andrew’s, Bloomfield; and St. Mark’s, New Britain.
Merrill
Gonzales introduced us to the evening’s reading with a haiku of evening lights.
Kathy
Carle read a portion of her trilogy entitled INNOCENT which, by focusing on a
burnt piece of wood from a church burning, tells part of the story of the
genocide in Rwanda. The Christ
figure formed becomes integral to the plea to “Take it to America, let them
see, let them hear.”
The
Rev. Jim Bradley sent us a poem written for the Life Profession of Shane and
Elizabeth founding a new Episcopal order called The Companions of St. Mary the
Apostle (for Mary Magdalene) at Holy Cross, West Park, N. Y.
Barbara
Campbell, riveted to the horror of the shootings in the church at Charleston,
S. C., relives working for the church “the year after the Governor stood in the
schoolhouse door” at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa. What rings loud and clear is the line
from the Confession that we be forgiven for “the evil done on our behalf.” Keep in mind the events described
happened when Joe Namath had just received his first professional football
contract and was being driven around campus in a limousine, when Bear Bryant
was the football coach, and when the only air conditioned dorm on campus was
for male athletes.
Read, ponder and do keep writing poetry,
Barbara A. Campbell
Connecticut's Diocesan Poet
Haiku
by Merrill Gonzales
St. Paul’s, Plainfield
evening
delight
fireflies competing with
the garden LED's
*******************
INNOCENT
by Kathy Carle
St. Mark’s, New
Britain
In the Craftsman’s cellar workshop
neatly laid out are the bits, burrs, buffers he uses
to smooth, sand, debride a stump or branch
he chances upon in his walks,
and in one corner “Innocent Observance,”
a huge section of bark from a singular tree,
at the heart of it a figure with a history of disaster.
Come late to church, a young man named Innocent
was
in time to watch helplessly
as his church, 650
women
and children locked
inside,
was burned
to the ground. Those who tried to
escape were hacked to death by Hutus.
A small tree next to the church had been charred.
Innocent pulled it up by its roots and fled to the hillside.
Shocked into insensibility,
he neither ate nor drank for two days.
When he regained himself, in his hands was a Christ
carved from the wood of the tree.
A traveler
returning
brought this directly to
the Craftsman.
She
told how Innocent had given it to her:
“I can’t have it here; each time I hold it
I hear the screams unbearably.
Take it to America,
let them see,
let them hear.”
The Craftsman mounted the Christ
on his large vee of bark in the shape of Africa
ascending , swirling like a whirlwind of fire.
The Christ nestles in the rift at its heart.
The twinning of two woods – dark char figure against the lighter inner bark of this other tree – tells of fire as destroyer and creator.
Human
in agony,
pain
twisting the
length
of his face, He stretches his arms upward
and outward, both in supplication and in blessing.
Forgive them, for they know not what they do.
**************************
PROFESSION
by James
G. Bradley
7-21-15
Not just an
occupation,
though that is the usual definition.
Oh, no, more than that, much more.
“Profession” as a
verb, not a noun,
is wondrous indeed.
To avow, to declare, to promise--
“profession” leads into all sorts
of nonsense and wonderment and joy.
To actually 'say
so' about
what your lives will
be and consist of
and contain.
To 'profess' opens up
the possibility
of a future you speak into being.
A future that wouldn't have happened
otherwise, until you spoke it.
Few people in the
world
make such a 'profession'--
speak a future and a life
into being like that.
And today you two do.
Astonishing,
memorable, inspiring,
full of being and hope and wonderment.
Like that.
Thank you for going to the edge
of what you can know and see
and then stepping off.
And I know, as you
step off into what
is not known, not knowable,
you will be caught by loving arms
or learn how to fly.
***********************
50 Years of Reflection
and then Charleston
Barbara A. Campbell
Connecticut’s Diocesan Poet
July 2015
I arrived
the year after
“the Governor stood in the schoolhouse door”,
painted
line on the sidewalk still visible.
National Guard had prevailed.
Blacks did enter that door
and
registered for classes
at the
University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa.
I stood
in that same Field House
when the
symphony came to play,
rising for the office of governor
when he
entered to join the audience.
I sat as quickly as possible.
The game in the balcony continued,
“There’s
one.”
“No,
he’s OK. He’s faculty at
Stillman.”
And so on to identify
the 5 or
6 Blacks in the audience
of 1000
or so.
I ate
for the
first time
French
fried sweet potatoes
in the restaurant
while the Imperial Wizard
of the Ku Klux Klan
was dining there.
I entered
the State owned Green Front store,
a door
for Whites,
another
door for Blacks,
and paid for my bottle of wine
at the one cash register.
I noticed
a car
always parked across the street
a man sitting in it,
watching my apartment.
I called
the Tuscaloosa Police
who came
and told me
“If you want to buy a gun,
we’ll teach you how to use it.”
I drove
my car full of college students,
White and Black,
to a conference
at Sewanee, the University of the South,
with a
list of restaurants
where a
mixed group
could
safely eat.
I watched
the
Crimson Tide Homecoming Parade.
Tuscaloosa High School Band marched.
I asked,
“There’s
a band at Druid City High School.
Why aren’t they marching?”
I was told,
“Barbara, you don’t understand.”
And then I remembered
the
fraternity float
with the
brothers
as 9
Supreme Court Justices
in
blackface.
I encouraged
university students to tutor Blacks
in
reading
so they
could register to vote.
Those students,
sons and
daughters of plantation owners,
plantation owners
who would stop paying tuition
if they knew
what their sons and daughters were
doing.
Each evening as we entered the University building,
a man
was just leaning against the tree,
watching.
Klan or
White Citizen’s Council,
we never knew.
The University withdrew permission
for use
of the University building
for
tutoring purposes.
So we
moved to Canterbury Chapel.
My seminary classmates
marched
in Birmingham,
were
arrested,
put in
jail.
Students came to me.
“Bishop
Carpenter is doing nothing
to get them out of jail.
Barbara, what are you going to do?”
“I’ll go visit them.”
And I was stopped.
“You
have Connecticut plates on your car, “
the Chaplain said.
A trip to Tuscaloosa City Hall
got me
Heart of Dixie plates.
A student put them on my car for me.
“Now I’ll go.”
And again the Chaplain stopped me.
“I
forbid you...No, I can’t forbid you.
You can’t go on working time –
only on your day off.”
Saturday was 5 days away.
I learned
I could
make a person to person phone call
to a
prisoner in the Birmingham Jail.
Steve was glad to hear from me.
They were being well taken care of.
Would be released,
by Saturday, my day off.
I watched
as the
Chaplain’s Black maid
worked
all morning in his house,
and after lunch,
walked
with his wife to teach
at the
nursery school the church ran;
the Chaplain proudly proclaiming,
“I pay
Mattie out of two different budgets,
so I
don’t have to pay Social Security
though
she for us works fulltime.”
I was invited
to spend
Thanksgiving
with
Bishop Carpenter and his family.
I watched
his
Black maid
walk
behind our chairs at the dinner table
serving
us vegetables
from the
sterling silver dish
as the
bishop carved, very nicely,
the
turkey
and a
Smithfield ham.
After she finished doing the dishes,
the
bishop drove her home in his Rolls Royce.
There was no bus transportation
in
Birmingham.
This month
all
those doors
within
me
were
opened again.
Wednesday Night Bible study.
The stranger welcomed in.
“They were so nice to me.”
Nine counts of murder,
three of
attempted murder.
“We forgive.”
Confederate battle flag
comes
down.
You don’t understand.
And then Obama’s eulogy –
If we knew the AME
we’d know
AME doesn’t make a distinction
between pastoring and public service.
You don’t understand.
We knew exactly what we were doing
as we
did it.
Why else would there be
one cash
register,
or a
score card
at symphony,
or a
university
distancing itself
from reading?
What if
we
stopped distinguishing
between
sacred and secular,
between
ours and the other,
stopped
believing
in
whatever binary you want to set up.
What if
we
accepted
our
actions show the truth.
What if
our
actions,
not our words,
say,
“All are loved.”
