green poets

Stats

Pastime  trenz pruca

Hometown  seattle, washington

job  photographer

interests  landscape, portrait, travel

Poem Titles

> Has Jesus Ever Protested?

> My Holy Teacher

> Father’s Hands

   

Has Jesus Ever Protested?

Oh, weariness and sighing

See Christ on the cross

Christians saying, “Kneel down, perfidious Jew!

“Be converted,

“Or die!”

I now know Jesus is our messiah

But what if I’d still rather die?

What if I want to remain a Jew?

What if Jesus feels

Like a Trojan horse

In my heart

In the Jewish community?

How good has Christianity been,

For the Jews?

Sure, it could change and is changing

But Jesus still seems goyische

Does he speak Yiddish?

He hangs out with the goyim

Maybe he’s on their side

Against us.

Has he approved of their burning us at the stake

Torturing, maiming, killing

Inquisitions, Crusades, expulsions,

Has Jesus ever protested?

Have we ever heard

A murmur against all this

Coming from the cross?

Jesus:

“No, not a murmur

“But groans of agony from my cross

“Every thing they did to you

“They did, to me

“Every torture of the Inquisition

“Every rape and murder done in the Crusades or in pogroms

“Every ‘witch’ tortured and killed

“As they did to you,

“So did they do to me,

“Just as Matthew’s Gospel says.

“Please try to forgive them.

“They are like Peter –

“First denying he ever knew me

“Only later accepting his own cross

“Give them time, faith, patience

“You may even have been just like them

“In past lifetimes.

“I believe in you

“I believe in them

“Lifetime after lifetime –

“It’s not for sissies, is it?!

“Make your heart my throne anyway

“Don’t let their darkness keep you in the dark

“In the end everything will be known and understood

“You can help love prevail.”

What can I say, but amen?

________________________________

My Holy Teacher

My holy Teacher

Whom no words could accurately describe

Angels and ministers of grace said, “Wait till May,”

So I drank my tears

Plodded through the mud

(It was springtime in New England,

And I felt very much made of clay, and in need of a master potter)

And in May, at a satsang*

Given by Your disciple, my Guru,

You came streaming out of a painted likeness of You

Radiating, shimmering gold

Yet we could discern Your face and form

You came to hover over me

Your love warmed me like a living sun

I made my first pranam** from the heart

Surrender to You – I long always for it

It is sweeter than honey

You came home with me

My illustrious guest

Who lit up the corners

Of my furnished apartment

I knew – finally –

I was not hallucinating

A group of around 500 people

Had seen You

I sang You songs

About Your golden heart

The heavenly sun that had caused

My Guru’s “lotuses,” or chakras, to bloom

So he too could radiate light.

I wanted to do Yoga more, more

So I could bloom like him!

You created the music of tiny bells

The vision and fragrance of jasmine flowers

A sense of coming from high in the Himalayas,

Where Shiva may be found.

Mother Shakti touched my neck where it joins my head

With her pure white lightning

But she moved very slowly and gently

The way You teach us we are to do our yoga asanas***

When I grew accustomed

To love and trust You

You disappeared for awhile

Only to be found again

This time inside my heart

It was unmistakably You

Welling up in me

Like the waters of salvation

The psalmist praises

Filling the inside of my body with Your light

Like mother-of-pearl lining a shell

Repeating the mantram, “Om namah Shivaya,”

So far beyond the condescending coverage of gurus in my country,

You taught me ways to remain in states of adoration and prayer for hours.

You teach me to meditate through all the seasons

Someday I hope to combine the polarities of Shiva and Shakti,

To be cleansed and purified in Shakti’s light

And go deep in meditation, like Shiva.

Because of You, I know

I will survive death

You think of our bodies as though they were tombs, dark and small

You live in worlds of shimmering light

Expanded like a butterfly out of his chrysalis

Enjoying spaciousness, breath and freedom

You are beyond time and space

I know You will guide me

Lifetime after lifetime

Until I know freedom, too

But in the meantime

I am Your child

Working backwards at times

Through layers of not-surrendering –

Defensiveness, fear, shame, guilt

All the samskaras**** from this and other lives

We children are supposed to offer You devotion, but

Do I deserve Your devotion?

I feel unworthy, and so ignorant

What a good thing

You have faith in me, and patience,

Forgiveness, and – “I love to teach,” You said!

•Philosophical discourse

•bowing down to kiss one’s guru’s lotus feet

•postures – stretching and breathing – done in hatha yoga

•habitual ways of thinking and feeling – or patterns – created in this life and inherited from other lives

________________________________

Father’s Hands

Narcissus bulbs at the market

Make flowers bloom in my mind:

I remember how my father was always coaxing things

Out of the earth,

How he hung out with Japanese nurserymen

Tried bonsai, topiary

Planted sweet peas out back

For my mother’s breakfast tray

 

My father’s hands

Steadied me as I learned to ride a bike

Patiently picked me up after each fall

Put me back in the seat again

Until I found my balance

 

His hands built a wooden jungle gym in our backyard

For us kids to climb on

And designed furniture for his factory hands to make.

He fashioned kites with them,

His hands were gentle enough

To handle tissue-thin paper,

Slender wooden frames and a torn-up sheet for a tail

In the same way, he guided his sailboat

Training himself

To feel the lines attached to the sails

And the rudder of the boat

So he could adjust them to the wind, the waves, and the currents

 

His hands guided horses, too

But so gently

He never used a whip or spurs

Or yanked on the reins

Again, he’d feel the line

Connecting him to another

And all it took was for him to lean forward

Make a little clicking sound

And rangy-looking horses in Western saddles

Would break into graceful canters

He could ride out all of the gaits

With ease and comfort

No bone-jarring, out-of-breath ride for him

 

Such gentle hands he had, my father

I didn’t realize how unusual he was

Until later

When I heard how other people’s fathers

Had been so hurtful, so violent

I asked him why-

He said his father hadn't been violent with him, either

 

And so my own hands

Which look like his

Can sense acupuncture points

Coax soreness out of muscles

Are tender, loving

And I almost have him with me

Though I know I really have him

Not in the flesh,

But in God's love, in my heart.

________________________________

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