"The Seeds of Aleppo": A Prayer for the Syrian People

Thinking of the people of Aleppo. Sad and angry to see renewed Russian and Syrian government bombing of Aleppo. Devastating images of children being rescued from rubble. What of those who are not rescued from beneath caved-in, bombed buildings? The assault on the Syrian people not only continues but intensifies.

In such times, a poem can seem to me of little worth.

And yet, a poem is a prayer. A prayer may be all that I can give to the Syrian people just now.

Here's my poem written for the people of Syria, "The Seeds of Aleppo." An offering as a prayer for the well being of the Syrian people.

Art by Sarah Van Sanden

The poem refers to the news last year that due to the Syrian war, it was requested to open the Svalbard (Norway) global seed vault so that Syria could in essence make the first withdrawal from the seed vault, thus underlining the gravity of the crisis in Syria.

A collaboration with artist Sarah Van Sanden, the poem appears as a broadside which you can see in better resolution and download free here. It's part of a series of art-poem responses to the Syrian crisis, and you can view the other artists' beautiful broadsides here. Thank you to Broadsided Press' Elizabeth Bradfield for publishing the broadside series.

Here's the poem without art:

The Seeds of Aleppo

The bazaar has burned,
The gathering of seeds dispersed

Sent to Morocco and Mexico;
with escort, to Turkey.

Seeds who escape,
Seeds who flee.

And far in the Svalbard archipelago,
Blue light over glacier,

Swirls of snow. Abrupt
triangle, armed guard

into vault.
Vault of seeds.

For asteroid impact,
nuclear glow.

Now, though, first
withdrawal of deposit:

Syria’s seeds petition
to return to desert

peas and beans,
packets of light.

Each sample temporary,
a memory to grow.

Each seed repeats,
Of course, if we could return,

Then of course,
We would go.

"Legacy Tattoo" Poem in Catamaran Literary Reader

In this poem written in Monterey, I watch the rough rocks, look at surfers, and consider research suggesting we once were aquatic mammals.

Thanks to editor Zack Rogow for publishing the poem in the beautifully produced Catamaran Literary Reader. (If you've never seen it, it's filled with colorful paintings by original artists on every page!)

Read "Legacy Tattoo" in the magazine here

Legacy Tattoo

The waters have washed you ashore.
The flood, the rising.
(The continents asked for more.)

Cast adrift, floating.
Now you’ve found land again.

Legacy tattoo: it hit, scratched
you when it made you.

You bear the scar at the base
of your spine, where lies
the shadow of the moon.

We choose our tattoos,
our tattoos choose
to alter us before we can begin.

Sea green-blue ink waves in skin.

≈ ≈ ≈

Let’s begin again.
Something carries over,
once we lived in oceans,
aquatic ancestor.

You remember, right?
It’s what’s brought you here
by my side to the edge of the sea

Where we gather kelp in our hands.
Okay, right, help me?
Somehow we are drawn
to the brink where water clinks land.

Look, out there: a man
stands on the wave

in black seal suit
aloft sea foam curl

≈ ≈ ≈

Yes, I was a dolphin too,
you were a manatee
Keep gathering, please

kelp in our mouths
keep gathering

Cast your gaze out
stare across sharp rocks
to the man who is paused
if only briefly on water

and then descends
and then he is swallowed
and then the sea
takes him in unceasingly

as all of us, as we—

(as for me, I float
on time)

the salt chest rises,
the salt chest falls,
the salt chest hollows,
the salt chest swells—

and the wave caroms
as the crest, sudden
lurch, throws
the salt searcher in

Read the poem in Catamaran Literary Reader

back up

please back all
this up
in the stars

it’s all passing so
quickly like sun
motes

and these little
gaps
in our irises

once will widen
and silver

across our
photos

negatives

of another
day

Amazon Basin Freshwater Connectivity : What Dams Mean for Animals and People

Poetry magazine asked Jan. 2016 issue contributors to tell them what we have been reading. I wrote this for them. Read this post on Poetry Magazine's website here

I’ve been reading the World Wildlife Fund’s April 2015 scientific report, “State of the Amazon: Freshwater Connectivity and Ecosystem Health.” First of all, it’s amazing to learn that, in rivers with flood pulses that raise water levels, Amazonian fish don’t stay in the river channel. When rainfall and seasonal pulses flood adjacent riparian areas, fish roam into these areas, avoiding predators, seeking resources unavailable in the river, including plant detritus and seeds in nutrient-rich water. They also find nesting and egg-laying areas. Scientists call this “lateral connectivity.” In addition to fish that boost survival rates as they migrate to floodplain resources, other creatures depend on floodplains: pink-nosed and other dolphins, giant turtles, caimans, and otters. Terrestrial animals use riparian areas as migration corridors, including jaguars, tapirs, and peccaries.

However, due to an unprecedented rise in development in the Amazon in the last 5-10 years—primarily dam construction, and also mining, cattle ranching, and agriculture—these freshwater ecosystems are being altered, and with them, the aquatic animals’ abilities to travel between rivers and surrounding riparian areas. In the Upper Xingu River Basin (Brazil) alone, there are 10,000 small dams, 1 every 4 miles. The created water reservoirs change water quality—temperature and sediment level upstream and downstream, and alter water discharge levels (which correlates with decreased rainfall). Where river sediment grains are larger, as the giant Amazon river turtle and yellow-spotted side-neck turtle nest, their eggs’ survival rates have decreased.

In Brazil’s share of the Amazon Basin alone, there are 138 operational, 16 under-construction, and 221 planned large dams—each of which involves removing from their river land tens of thousands of indigenous and traditional river peoples.

In June 2016, when I go to the Tapajos River basin, I will observe this up close. I will post updates here!

As for poetry, I recently finished reading Multitudinous Heart: Selected Poems by Carlos Drummond de Andrade, translated by Richard Zenith.

Read my post on Poetry Magazine's website here

"Dance, Dance, While the Hive Collapses" Poem in Poetry Magazine

I am thrilled to be part of Poetry Magazine's Jan. 2016 issue on Ecojustice.

My poem "Dance, Dance, While the Hive Collapses" begins:

Oh my, oh my, I lose myself
I study atlases and cirrus paths
in search of traces of it, of you

of that thing, of that song
I keep pressing my ear to the current
of air to hear ...

I hear it and it disappears
It was all I wanted to do in this life
to sense that phantom tap

on my nerves, to allow myself
to be hit by it, attacked, aroused
until, as if someone else, I arise

I dance my part in paradise
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Read the full poem here

"The Bear" by leana Mălăncioiu

I happened on this poem on the site of Southword Editions, a publishing branch of the Munster Literature Centre in Ireland. They have a quite sturdy selection of translated poetry from throughout Europe. The following poem is by Romanian poet leana Mălăncioiu, translated by Irish poet Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, from the book After the Raising of Lazarus.


The Bear

In the high mountain grass, my body curled like the snakes
Crept out to warm themselves in the sun and stiff with pain
I wait for the bear to arrive, to stoop beside me,
To stay there awhile, sniffing me in silence, again.

Seeing that I am still alive and that I want him to heal me
To begin the soft trampling from shoulder to feet
So I feel him gliding over my ribs and kneeling without wanting to
And getting down on the grass when he knows it’s hurting me,

Climbing up again gently along the spine as far as the neck
Hearing my vertebrae crackling under his wild right paw
And I can’t cry out in fear since while he’s passing over me
To heal me, if I screamed he might put out his claws,

Let me rid myself of this female husk of a snake curled in the sun,
Let the bear find the earth shifting as he makes me straight,
Gently, under his weight, trembling as he bends,
Let me coil myself again groaning quietly and wait.

Then let the cure come, let me go through the trampled grass
And feel for once my body hot from his heavy tread
While the bear moves off slowly as if he were still
Stepping not on the earth, but on a woman’s shoulders instead.

by Ileana Mălăncioiu

English translation by Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin

from "Book of Hours" by Kevin Young

The light here leaves you
lonely, fading

as does the dusk
that takes too long

to arrive. By morning
the mountain moving

a bit closer to the sun.

This valley belongs
to no one—

except birds who name
themselves by their songs

in the dawn.
What good

are wishes, if they aren't
used up

The lamp of your arms.

The brightest
blue beneath the clouds—

We guess
at what's next

unlike the mountain

who knows it
in the bones, a music

too high
to scale.

* * *

The burnt,
blurred world

where does it end—

The wind
kicks up the scent

from the stables
where horseshoes hold

not just luck, but
beyond. But

weight. But a body

that itself burns,
begs to run.

The gondola quits just
past the clouds.

The telephone poles
tall crosses in the road.

Let us go
each, into the valley—

turn ourselves
& our hairshirts

inside out, let the world
itch—for once—

* * *

Black like an eye

bruised night brightens
by morning, yellow

then grey—
a memory.

What the light was like.

All day the heat a heavy,
colored coat.

I want to lie
down like the lamb—

down & down
till gone—

shorn of its wool.
The cool

of setting & rising
in this valley,

the canyon between us
shoulders our echoes.

Moan, & make way.

* * *

The sun's small fury
feeds me.

Wind dying down.

We delay, & dither
then are lifted

into it, brightness
all about—

O setting.
O the music

as we soar
is small, yet sating.

What you want—

Nobody, or nothing
fills our short journeying.

Above even the birds,
winging heavenward,

the world is hard
to leave behind

or land against—
must end.

I mean to make it.

Turning slow beneath
our feet,

finding sun, seen
from above,

this world looks
like us—mostly

salt, dark water.

* * *

It's death there
is no cure for

life the long
disease.

If we're lucky.

Otherwise, short
trip beyond.

And below.

Noon,
growing shadow.

I chase the quiet
round the house.

Soon the sound—

wind wills
its way against

the panes. Welcome
the rain.

Welcome
the moon's squinting

into space.
The trees

bow like priests.

The storm lifts
up the leaves.

Why not sing.

Source: Poetry (November 2007)

"Sleeping Trees" by Fady Joudah

Between what should and what should not be
Everything is liable to explode. Many times
I was told who has no land has no sea. My father
Learned to fly in a dream. This is the story
Of a sycamore tree he used to climb
When he was young to watch the rain.

Sometimes it rained so hard it hurt. Like being
Beaten with sticks. Then the mud would run red.

My brother believed bad dreams could kill
A man in his sleep, he insisted
We wake my father from his muffled screams
On the night of the day he took us to see his village.
No longer his village he found his tree amputated.
Between one falling and the next

There’s a weightless state. There was a woman
Who loved me. Asked me how to say tree
In Arabic. I didn’t tell her. She was sad. I didn’t understand.
When she left. I saw a man in my sleep three times. A man I knew
Could turn anyone into one-half reptile.
I was immune. I thought I was. I was terrified of being

The only one left. When we woke my father
He was running away from soldiers. Now
He doesn’t remember that night. He laughs
About another sleep, he raised his arms to strike a king
And tried not to stop. He flew
But mother woke him and held him for an hour,

Or half an hour, or as long as it takes a migration inward.
Maybe if I had just said it.
Shejerah, she would’ve remembered me longer. Maybe
I don’t know much about dreams
But my mother taught me the law of omen. The dead
Know about the dying and sometimes
Catch them in sleep like the sycamore tree
My father used to climb

When he was young to watch the rain stream,
And he would gently swing.

Fady Joudah, “Sleeping Trees” from The Earth in the Attic. Copyright © 2008 by Fady Joudah. Reprinted by permission of Yale University Press.

Source: The Earth in the Attic (Yale University Press, 2008)

"My Job is Joy: Beatitude in B Flat / A Sharp" in Taos Journal of Poetry and Art

My poem "My Job is Joy: Beatitude in B Flat / A Sharp," which appears in the Taos Journal of Poetry and Art, begins:

In life, I thought my job to follow
the to do list, complete
items with maximum
efficiency. Log tasks.
Enter numbers. Earn bucks...

Geesh, that doesn't sound fun.

The poem pivots its way toward this realization:

Let us be lessoned how it is, finally,
to be without membrane: that bliss
those who worship—through hands pressed,
eyes upturned, with implorations—sought:

that joining
in the palms
of the infinite, who has
no hand.

Let all quarrels be lessened.
From the hovering cloud perspective:
those who seemed my nemeses
were but sucklers of my evolution.
Sudden inrush of forgiving.

God, they held me to their breast!
For them, a gratitude. Forgiveness.
In opposition, there can be no opposition.
(Why not earlier? Then:
forgiveness even of this.)

Let all rifts, upheld with victim
and the wronger, be as none.
Let me in this life begin this practice.

Let the goddess of chaos
descend, eager
vulture await on highest branch,
to tear all temporary form apart.
Let us be sundered from one another.

Let me be mere particulate, rattle,
become the stuff of matter:
cells, molecules. Immanent,
the spirit that moves in every
thing. At once tiny and grand.
Nanophoton, yet expansive.
Husked from identity.

Entered into the wide open that,
in those dreams, I always trekked
toward, repeated motif.
Let me be released from any motive
but pure being, humble, that pulse.

Thank the blessed circumstance
of shift. Pivot
into it.

Thanks to editor Veronica Golos for including the poem in the Taos journal.
Read the whole poem here

2 Poems in Drunken Boat: Orangutans in Sumatra, and an Oakland Lully, Lullay Carol

2 poems appear in the Union folio of Drunken Boat (thanks to editors Alvin Pang and Ravi Shankar).

One explores how palm oil plantations are affecting orangutans in Sumatra, and how Singapore palm oil companies are meshed with U.S. consumers' drive for palm oil as a transfats alternative. Read "Sita and the Orangutans Sumatra Sutra" here

The second poem I wrote in Oakland just before the holidays when the whole world seemed both stilled and streaming. Read "Lully Lullay" here

You may read both poems here

You can also Listen to the audio

1 Poem - "Legacy Tattoo"

If you ever want to check out a truly gorgeously made magazine, the Catamaran Literary Reader is it! Sumptuously produced, it features beautiful paintings on almost every spread, many of them local to Santa Cruz, where the magazine originates. The Spring 2015 issue features Rebecca Faust and Melissa Stein. Thanks to Zack Rogow for including my work in the Fall/Winter 2014 issue, a poem entitled "Legacy Tattoo."

Back story: the title originates from a time I spent with my sister a couple years ago. I visited her where she was living in Mynot, North Dakota. That spring in 2012, the ice pack up in Canada had held off melting until past its usual time, and then, suddenly in April, the ice melted with a vengeance. The waters thundered down from Canada and flooded the banks of the Souris River (yes, it means mouse in French). My sister had bought a house down in this area, and it was flooded to the point that it was uninhabitable. When I visited her, she was in a temporary rental.

One day, I went out running by myself, down to the Souris River. Even 500 feet from the river's banks, all was swept-over gravel, as if smoothed by once had been the river's rough and wild hand. It was still a vast, silent empty. The few businesses were closed, detritus of lumber and branches stacked to the side and in the front, clearly speaking to the nonoperational quality of what lay within.

One shuttered business, in a two-story wooden house with a porch, bore the sign, "Legacy Tattoo," in red letters on a white background, the lettering like that of a saloon. It was too evocative, that old tattoo parlor shuttered with the high plains eerie light hitting it. It got me moody, intrigued, and reflective on our legacies--ancestral and creaturely--and how they imprint us.

Read the poem here

2 Poems - "Sita and the Orangutans Sumatra Sutra" and "Lully Lullay"

Thanks to Alvin Pang and Ravi Shankar for publishing a couple poems in Drunken Boat, a special issue on the theme of Union, including poets from Singapore and the United States. I took the occasion to consider orangutans in Sumatra in "Sita and the Orangutans Sumatra Sutra."

I also included a poem "Lully Lullay," written Dec. 24, 2014, a jazzy livestream of upsetting headlines and songclips (Joni Mitchell and mournful Xmas tunes) and my neighborhood happenings including migrant birds' journeys, all against the background of the culture winding down to a standstill on the day before the holiday.

Read and Listen to the Poems Here

Ross Gay on Gratitude, Ancestors, Compost & Peace Knee Deep in Terra Firma

Ross Gay is a poet who digs gardens. That is, he really digs soil, gets knee deep in compost, nuzzles insects and aphids. He finds in the muck and unabashed fecund mix--love and the endings and origins of everything we need. Social justice swims in his gardens.

Check out this excerpt from his long poem "Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude," which appears in the beautiful online journal Waxwing.

Thank you the ancestor who loved you
before she knew you
by smuggling seeds into her braid for the long
journey, who loved you
before he knew you by putting
a walnut tree in the ground, who loved you
before she knew you by not slaughtering
the land; thank you
who did not bulldoze the ancient grove
of dates and olives,
who sailed his keys into the ocean
and walked softly home; who did not fire, who did not
plunge the head into the toilet, who said stop,
don’t do that; who lifted some broken
someone up; who volunteered
the way a plant birthed of the reseeding plant
is called a volunteer, like the plum tree
that marched beside the raised bed
in my garden, like the arugula that marched
itself between the blueberries,
nary a bayonette, nary an army, nary a nation,
which usage of the word volunteer
familiar to gardeners the wide world
made my pal shout “Oh!” and dance
and plunge his knuckles
into the lush soil before gobbling two strawberries
and digging a song from his guitar
made of wood from a tree someone planted, thank you

--Ross Gay excerpted from his long poem "Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude"

Photos are from the Bloomington Community Orchard, where Ross volunteers, site of inspiration for much of his poetry

Read Ross Gay's whole poem here

2 Poems in Poetry Magazine

I am thrilled that two of my poems appear in the Nov. 2013 issue of Poetry magazine.

One poem is based on my experiences in Rio de Janeiro in June 2010, in a community (some would say favela) called Chacara do Ceu. Roughly translated, it means "little ranch in heaven."

Read "Samba in the Sky" here.

The second poem, "Medusa on Sansome and Pine," is set in San Franciso's Financial District, and features a conflict of perspectives about what it means to be successful.

Read "Medusa on Sansome and Pine" here.

Thanks to Don Share, Lindsay Garbutt, and Fred Sasaki at the Poetry Foundation.

Audio of My Poems on From the Fishouse Website

To hear me reading my poems, as well as commenting on the creative process, you can visit the website of From the Fishouse. Thanks to Camille Dungy and Matt O'Donnell! Go to my From the Fishouse poetry page here. Listen to me reading my poems.

Poetry Mixtape Video: "The Nearness of You" in SF's Bangout Reading Series

On March 23, 2012, I read at the Amnesia Bar as part of SF's Bangout Reading Series. Thanks to curators Kevin Boone and Amick Boone! The theme we prepared new work on: "Mixtape." I read & sang my poem, "The Nearness of You," which mixes statistics on species extinction from scholar Juliet Schor's wonderful book Plenitude, with my singing Lady Gaga's "The Edge of Glory," with my original ode to the beautiful and endangered Owl Butterfly, which I had the honor of seeing face to face in the rainforest of Ecuador in 2009. A mixtape indeed! Watch the video here.

Poetry Animation, Part 2, "Ocean" in SubZERO Festival

In June 2012, artist Michele Guieu and I collaborated on the themes of species extinction and biodiversity. Michele is an amazing animator and painter. Our poetry animation was shown on a giant brick wall, the side of a building in downtown San Jose, as part of the SubZERO festival. Here is the second part of the poem, video "Ocean." Watch the poem video here.

Poetry Animation, Part 3, "Coil of Dirt" in SubZERO Festival

In June 2012, artist Michele Guieu and I collaborated on the themes of species extinction and biodiversity. Michele is an amazing animator and painter. Our poetry animation was shown on a giant brick wall, the side of a building in downtown San Jose, as part of the SubZERO festival. Here is the third part of the poem, video "Coil of Dirt." Watch the poem video here.

Poetry Animation, Part 4, "Cosmos" in SubZERO Festival

In June 2012, artist Michele Guieu and I collaborated on the themes of species extinction and biodiversity. Michele is an amazing animator and painter. Our poetry animation was shown on a giant brick wall, the side of a building in downtown San Jose, as part of the SubZERO festival. Here is the fourth part of the poem, video "Cosmos." Watch the video here.

Poetry Animation, Part 5, "Epilogue," in SubZERO Festival

In June 2012, artist Michele Guieu and I collaborated on the themes of species extinction and biodiversity. Michele is an amazing animator and painter. Our poetry animation was shown on a giant brick wall, the side of a building in downtown San Jose, as part of the SubZERO festival. Here is the fifth and last part of the poem collaboration, video "Epilogue." This last video shows off Michele's amazing skills in drawing. Here we see an amazing bestiary of animals both real and from Michele's imagination. Watch the video here.