Digging Down, Way Down

source

You ask for a song in praise, and so I look up

to the sky over the mud cylinder I have

dug myself into, and find gratitude for damp earth

and light, for the expansion of ribs when I inhale.

 

I touch the sides.  They weep, but my eyes are dry.  We

take turns, it seems, as we learn each other’s rhythms,

Earth and I.  We row our boats along the root rivers of trees,

drink at dark pockets of nutrient-restoring compost, and spit.

 

I am grateful to see this life within the abused soil, grateful

to be part of it when alive, before I am burned and buried,

before I am bound to stay six feet down and to join it wholly

and absolutely.  Now I know Earth breathes and wants me.

  My blog poems are rough drafts.

Please respect my copyright.

If you quote, credit this page.

© 2019 Susan L. Chast

Samhain ~ Halloween ~ Hallowmass ~ The Night of the Dead

 A poem from years ago:

source

Now that the young trick-or-treaters are gone,

white candles flicker in the dark silence.

The border between life and death is thin

tonight.  Cats of years past visit til dawn.

The littlest, Red, comes first and then Wicca,

Pierette and Miracle ~ all stay awhile.

While they purr, I sense people who have left

this plane walking in and out of my mind.

I hold each for a long minute, and more

for my dear friend Nancy who would enjoy

watching a film ~ Cat People, maybe, or

Bell, Book and Candle ~ if she were here.

The films play one after another as

we reminisce about decades past

gathering with women in bonfire light, 

drumming, dancing, blessing, and howling

Those revelers scattered over this world

and the next one.  Some returned to childhood

faiths, and some like me became convinced

of Christianity.  Jesus shows up.

I myself am Jewish, he reminds me.

I’m willing to be Christian, but I’m still

wary of paganism ~ though nothing

indigenous is foreign to me. 

My eyes are closed now, and I’m contained in,

enveloped by environment: the warm

and shadowed room and the scent of sage grass

the sure knowledge of trees and homes outside.

I pray to be open to the cross and

the resurrection in Jesus’s presence,

certain we need both faith and good works,

that this isn’t debatable.   Certain.

This thin time is full of earth, air, water

and fire.  Certain I am called to teaching

and word-smithing, but not debate ~ only

witness and testify and remember.

Don’t lie.  To thine own self be true.  I smile. 

Sometimes Jesus sounds so much like Shakespeare

that I recall the King James Bible dates from

exactly the same years.  I love the sound.

And now it’s time to awaken, blow out

the candles, and come home from traditions

present because I made room for them in

my life, made room for Light and for Darkness.

In this thin time, we embrace a wealth of

accumulated experience, we

remind ourselves to increase positives

and decrease negatives.  We hug the earth.

For Sanaa's prompt Poets United: Midweek Motif ~ A Million Years Howl When Voices Whisper Among The Trees 

 My blog poems are rough drafts.

Please respect my copyright.

If you quote, credit this page.

© 2019 Susan L. Chast

At the Edge of Creativity

 

Having fallen off the edge of creativity,

I find it’s closer to ground than I thought—

not a place I climbed to above the crowd,

but a place I reached down to beneath it—

a place where life’s crumbs form trails to follow

and also cobwebs easily destroyed

as I had planned to be. I meant to leap,

but earth was close, and angel or devil

insists I try again. Creativity

is close enough to touch, and my weak arm

reaches for it with a will of its own.

I close my eyes against what happens next.

Something beyond me wants more time;

Why is an answer I have yet to find.

  My blog poems are rough drafts.

   Please respect my copyright. 

 If you quote, credit this page.

     © 2021 Susan L. Chast

Flat Line

 

source

What is the line between life and death—

a line not obscured by death in life,

seemingly alive, but hiding

with dead things at hand:

this paper (the death of a tree)

this plastic pen (the death of land and sea)

a usefulness, a profit, life killed (though

well-used, excess can help others live).

 

What is the line between life and death

for those who’ve left everything—escaped—

not me who simply jettisons excess cargo—

What is the line?  The one before the thought

“I’m awake; I’m alive; let me keep moving.”

The line before “As long as I have breath . . . “

 

 My blog poems are rough drafts.

   Please respect my copyright. 

 If you quote, credit this page.

     © 2021 Susan L. Chast

Body, World ~ Awe, Terror

 

 Human Body 101 
National Geographic, 5:10
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_body

This amazing body.  Alive.  Awesome as a whole

and in its systems and all the little pieces that add up

to functioning as a whole world: a body-world

exquisitely designed to move among body-worlds,

to form and dissolve relationships as we move

along our own short life-spans. Wow. Amazing

to grow big from something quite small, each

like an acorn growing into an oak, as a blossom

becoming an acorn.  And then tree, body-world,

and other life forms communicate.  Brains blow

my mind, existing to hear and learn sensually,

experientially, musically, and mystically within

each body-world, partnering with each heart. 

I’m in awe, prizing how heart and brain enliven

and direct my body-world, this complete world

that thrives and functions like planet-earth, each 

part of it in necessary relationship, working as if 

both random and pre-ordained.  I type in amazement

at damaged synapses that allow action against body-worlds,

to act against pieces of it.  I type awed and terrified.

 

 My blog poems are rough drafts.

   Please respect my copyright. 

 If you quote, credit this page.

     © 2021 Susan L. Chast

Waking in the Spirit of September

 

Marc Chagall, 1912, Still-life (Nature morte), oil on canvas

As my feet hit the floor, I say Hello Earth,

let me stay attached to you today. Hello God,

let me stay aware of what I am, and alert

to the agency you give me.  Let me hold

the intention to use the gift in giving.

 

I recall the story of Abraham and Isaac and

say, Let me help you do it again, God.

Let us prevent the sacrifice of children,

so they, too, breathe and touch the earth

each morning, and grow into their gift. 

 

Dear Earth, let me greet children with apples,

challah, and honey where they wake among

trees and buildings, where they see life wild

and tame.  Let me teach and learn with them

to recognize self and society and their gifts.

 

Our work here is to see the agency of life, and value

those living over those unborn and dead, to use tears

as libations in earth friendly places that welcome

children.  Let them wake and breathe.  Let our every

breath radiate the possibility of well-being.

 My blog poems are rough drafts.

   Please respect my copyright. 

 If you quote, credit this page.

     © 2021 Susan L. Chast