I paid for a speeding ticket today and took this shot in front of the courthouse.  I then got into the car and heard a very disturbing account of the famous lynching in Marion, Indiana and the photograph that was taken of it.  The photograph later inspired the following poem, a book and a song most famously sung by Billie Holiday.

The story drew me in because I happen to be using the book, Strange Fruit, to create some of my book flowers.  I didn’t even really know what it was about – it was just an old vintage book falling apart that I picked up at a bookstore and thought it could be upcycled.  The story made me cringe and when I got home to write this, I looked at this photo and it made me feel so many mixed things – about the U.S., inequality, the dream, the opportunities, the opinions, human nature – all the grays of it, and all at once.

Red, white and blue.  A piece of cloth with so much meaning sewn into it over the years.  To me, it looks like a faraway unreachable dream high above a cold steel “tree” in this photo.  There’s also a graspable rope with which we are responsible for.  What will we do with it?  Will we hang ourselves or bring the dream of what we all want closer?

"I like to see a man proud of the place in which he lives. I like to see a man live so that his place will be proud of him." ~Abraham Lincoln

Strange Fruit by Abel Meeropol

Southern trees bear strange fruit,

Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,

Black body swinging in the Southern breeze,

Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

Pastoral scene of the gallant South,

The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,

Scent of magnolia sweet and fresh,

Then the sudden smell of burning flesh!

Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,

For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,

For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,

Here is a strange and bitter crop.

Strange Fruit by Billie Holiday

Card Game by A.D. Hope

Club, diamond, heart and spade,
Under these the game is played.
Warfare, wealth, love and death
Dominate our every breath.

Players are not free to choose
Suit assigned nor hand refuse
Dealt them, careless of their skill
Shuffled blindly, well or ill.

Wealth I had no talent for;
Lacked all aptitude for war;
Death at most might set me free;
Hearts were always trumps for me.

"Life consists not in holding good cards but in playing those you hold well." ~Josh Billings

I was feeling romantic and poetic listening to the rain. It’s very cold here. Winter turned it’s black horse around and crept back in for one last kiss.

Flashy Whites by Rhoda Lazo
Your smile is brighter than a flash of budding blooms
Fragile petals quivering in the cold rain of an early Spring
Stubbornly proud it screams, “I am here. What now?”

It slows the steps of many passing by
Taken in with the scent of resilient joy.
I’ve witnessed it bring stupefied silence, even to those with noisy heads.

On dark days, the light of it spreads across the whole city
Like a shock of colour in the cheeks of those that are surprised.
A bolt of sudden beauty I endure all Winter for.

This is one of my favorite poems of all time and I read it whenever I feel dark and sad.

Darkness by Lord Byron

I had a dream, which was not all a dream.
The bright sun was extinguished, and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space,
Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;
Morn came and went -and came, and brought no day,
And men forgot their passions in the dread
Of this their desolation; and all hearts
Were chilled into a selfish prayer for light;
And they did live by watchfires -and the thrones,
The palaces of crowned kings -the huts,
The habitations of all things which dwell,
Were burnt for beacons; cities were consumed,
And men were gathered round their blazing homes
To look once more into each other’s face;
Happy were those which dwelt within the eye
Of the volcanoes, and their mountain-torch;
A fearful hope was all the world contained;
Forests were set on fire -but hour by hour
They fell and faded -and the crackling trunks
Extinguished with a crash -and all was black.
The brows of men by the despairing light
Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits
The flashes fell upon them: some lay down
And hid their eyes and wept; and some did rest
Their chins upon their clenched hands, and smiled;
And others hurried to and fro, and fed
Their funeral piles with fuel, and looked up
With mad disquietude on the dull sky,
The pall of a past world; and then again
With curses cast them down upon the dust,
And gnashed their teeth and howled; the wild birds shrieked,
And, terrified, did flutter on the ground,
And flap their useless wings; the wildest brutes
Came tame and tremulous; and vipers crawled
And twined themselves among the multitude,
Hissing, but stingless -they were slain for food;
And War, which for a moment was no more,
Did glut himself again; -a meal was bought
With blood, and each sate sullenly apart
Gorging himself in gloom: no love was left;
All earth was but one thought -and that was death,
Immediate and inglorious; and the pang
Of famine fed upon all entrails -men
Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh;
The meagre by the meagre were devoured,
Even dogs assailed their masters, all save one,
And he was faithful to a corse, and kept
The birds and beasts and famished men at bay,
Till hunger clung them, or the drooping dead
Lured their lank jaws; himself sought out no food,
But with a piteous and perpetual moan,
And a quick desolate cry, licking the hand
Which answered not with a caress -he died.
The crowd was famished by degrees; but two
Of an enormous city did survive,
And they were enemies: they met beside
The dying embers of an altar-place
Where had been heaped a mass of holy things
For an unholy usage: they raked up,
And shivering scraped with their cold skeleton hands
The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath
Blew for a little life, and made a flame
Which was a mockery; then they lifted up
Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld
Each other’s aspects -saw, and shrieked, and died -
Even of their mutual hideousness they died,
Unknowing who he was upon whose brow
Famine had written Fiend. The world was void,
The populous and the powerful was a lump,
Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless -
A lump of death -a chaos of hard clay.
The rivers, lakes, and ocean all stood still,
And nothing stirred within their silent depths;
Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea,
And their masts fell down piecemeal; as they dropped
They slept on the abyss without a surge -
The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave,
The Moon, their mistress, had expired before;
The winds were withered in the stagnant air,
And the clouds perished! Darkness had no need
Of aid from them -She was the Universe!

And this is something I wrote just now to honor this time and space that makes me human:

When Darkness Comes by Rhoda Lazo

On dark heavy days, when I feel the weight of humanity,
I wear it.
I don’t like to turn towards the light and pretend that darkness doesn’t exist.
If it wasn’t for the dark, we wouldn’t know light.  And so,
I hold it.
As if it were a baby that has no mother or father,
Crying to be carried and loved.
I welcome it.
And it embraces me to choking tears, enveloping my world until morning.
But while it is here revealing all that I need to feel,
I make it mine.
Because it is and everyone’s too.

"The soul would have no rainbows if the eyes had no tears." ~Native American proverb

Today’s post is an ode to my hands, as they are right now, the things they have done and have yet to do.  And they are also an ode to my love’s hands who held my face 20 years ago when he kissed me for the very first time. I wrote this poem just before we reconnected last year.  I found it today as I was preparing for the Pecha Kucha talk I’m doing next week on Little and LOUD International which explains the rest of the photos of my day (I also made dinner which was more than roasted seeds!).  My talk is about following your passion, the universe supporting your commitment, trust in timing and having fun connecting the dots when looking back.  When I found the poem, like a never-ending mirror effect, everything about the day, my talk, my life thus far came together to mirror each other.

This poem was in one of my journals and the page directly after the poem was an entry written in the skies en route to SE Asia where I traveled last year for Little and LOUD.  It was the day after the weekend we fell in love again.  I remember crying on the plane while I was writing my journal entry because I was getting farther and farther away from my love and his beautiful strong hands that have grown and been strengthened by life in the 20 years we were not together.  He is by far my favorite story the lines of my hands can tell.

i'm grateful for the possibilites at the end of my fingertips

Burst out all that is you
like an ice-caged bird, shivering for the sun.

Be feverish with all the colors of those who shine.

Make paint ground from their translucent white-ash bones
when they have died, surrendering to the flash fires
that are borne when a life led reaching is touched.

Mix it with droplets from a glassy blue gray mercury sea,
Opal tears shed in gratitude for the vastness of the sky.

Wait.
Concentrate on each ticking second stroking time.

Watch.
Tend to the sleeping children of your eyes.

For colors you have never imagined will bloom…

Then you shall make your mark
Like the burns of an arsonist in love with silver.

And you shall not sleep because there is no need when the sorrows have fled.
And you shall continue using your bare hands, fingers raw with determined living
Like climbers meeting God in the smallest crevices and laughing while looking down.

For we are here, together.
And we are not yet done
With the painting.

A present for Amanda on her birthday:

A charcoal drawing of beloved Ernie

And a Poem:

Amanda’s Songs

She sings:
Puttering about the house
Arranging flowers
Embracing animals
Kissing her beloved
Creating peace
Through serenades of simplicity

Reaching for notes above the cupboard
She sings songs of love
Of a life overflowing
Ever grateful for blessings
Nooks and crannies
Hold lullabies of graces

Her songs are woven into the home
And if you lay your head on a pillow
Melodies whisper into your ear –
Inviting you to dance whilst you dream

All the times we sat in the car…
I couldn’t bare the unsaid things.

Little girls patiently waiting in dreamy clouds of hope
Grow up to be women sitting on a throne of anger,
Silently demanding justice in words.
Value is placed in letters gathered and exclaimed.
Perfectly punctuated words – “my daddy”, “beloved daughter”
are proudly worn jewelry, never pawned.

An “I love you” is there for all the world to see
but it can also be a flourish of cold metal hanging around your throat.

If I only understood your language then
(which wasn’t gambling and hustling as I assumed),
I would have known all the things I know now.
I would have put meaning in seconds.
I would have bet all my money on a fast horse named Slipping Time
And we would have won.

To remember you without hurt,
I gather up all the rubble of our cold wars and shine them into jewels.

Hugged in the silence of that car, I imagine:
Feeling all the care that is carried by one tiny ant crawling on the dashboard.
Seeing the power of an aging tree growing strong despite city smog – even as it blurs by.
Gushing pride bounce like sunshine from mirrors (reflecting objects closer than they appear).
Surrounding car horns and air chopping helicopters overhead are the blown kisses and goodbye waves you meant to give each time you left.
The wind in my face are good night kisses.
And each quiet time with you is an entire cherished novel written just for me.

stepping into bed with you last night
was like dipping my feet (once again)
into wet cement-
that familiar cold rock heaviness that is somehow also hollow
a cavernous divide that echoes loud quietness
between two poets that have no words for each other
it was a chasm too daunting to cross alone

in fear, i say: this is why i miss my empty bed halfway across the world
it knows and cradles me in a way that no one can
each fold caressing fleshy indents no one else notices

the irony is when i return to the bed that is as far away from you as possible,
i will probably think of you
and in my sleepy longing reach out
and be met with a comfortable emptiness that doesn’t understand
the way your fingertips know just where to go

At the pit of my heart is the feeling of impending doom.
I woke up to it burrowing and here it still is, a panting, sweaty fly.

It’s beautiful outside… A summer day in the middle of winter.
This is the bud of the hurt.
I can’t be in it. It’s too beautiful to be in it. Sunlight burns.

I washed off the grasping filth of an indoor gaping hole… Shiny and new I look in the mirror.
This is the root of the earth.
Hurling at 107,278.87 km/hr towards our deaths and we look it but don’t act like it.

I write and it is not enough to touch… Winter words have cold hands.
This is the heart of our matter.
We are standing surefooted on a moving world bubbling underneath.