For My Young Friends Who Are Afraid
– William Stafford
There is a country to cross you will
find in the corner of your eye, in
the quick slip of your foot – air far
down, a snap that might have caught.
And maybe for you, for me, a high, passing
voice that finds its way by being
afraid. That country is there, for us,
carried as it is crossed. What you fear
will not go away: it will take you into
yourself and bless you and keep you.
That’s the world, and we all live there.
I did my best, it wasn’t much
I couldn’t feel, so I tried to touch
I’ve told the truth, I didn’t come to fool you
And even though it all went wrong
I’ll stand before the lord of song
With nothing on my tongue but hallelujah
– Leonard Cohen
…pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.
Another dark day for the Roman Catholic Church. I am praying for all those who carry the wounds and scars of abuse at the hands of clergy. I want to believe the light is finally getting in.
http://media-downloads.pacourts.us/InterimRedactedReportandResponses.pdf?cb=112148
“The historian knows how vulnerable is the whole texture of facts in which we spend our daily lives; it is always in danger of being perforated by single lies or torn to shreds by the organized lying of groups, nations, or classes, or denied and distorted, often carefully covered up by reams of falsehoods or simply allowed to fall into oblivion. Facts need testimony to be remembered and trustworthy witnesses to be established in order to find a secure dwelling place in the domain of human affairs.” – Hannah Arendt – Lying in Politics: Reflections on the Pentagon Papers
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1971/11/18/lying-in-politics-reflections-on-the-pentagon-pape/
Photo by Aaron Kittredge on Pexels.com
My complicated past is an anthology,
a long line painted on the plains.
I feel like literary history
about to startle the professors.
But it’s not true.
Days ahead, snow heaps up
in the mountains
like undelivered mail.
After driving all night
I guess what it’s like
to fly over them.
For the first time you see
how close things are together,
how the foothills push up
just past where you quit
driving. Urgencies
sputter in the exaltation
of chill air.
Your heart
begins to fall like snow
inside a paperweight.
Oh when in your long damn life,
I ask myself, when will
you seek not a truce,
but peace?
we went through fire and through water;
yet you have brought us out to a spacious place.
~ Psalm 66:12
Photo by Steve Johnson on Pexels.com
Edge of Atlantic 