Poets' Cookout 2015

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.”