OH! STAND TOGETHER! THE GREATEST CONSENSUS IS TO LOVE

OH! STAND TOGETHER! THE GREATEST CONSENSUS IS TO LOVE I think of O’Toole and Mandela the amazing roles they played with their very lives here in our planetary drama as if I am watching Loren Eiseley’s “The Judgement of the Birds” —their choosing love and singing together, even in the face of darkness—I ask them to stand with puny little me now, as I try to overcome my own surprising dread of Christmas gathering and pageantry this year, trying to overcome grief and, yes, transform mourning, so as not to shade the light from those I love so much. I think of “writing my way home” I think of “poetry therapy” I think of “saved by a poem” I think of the words of Chekhov: “We shall find peace. We shall hear the angels, we shall see the sky sparkling with diamonds.” --Barbara Smith Stoff December 16, 20

UNICORN RISING

UNICORN RISING

grazing on green violets in spring

we hear with gentle hearts

the soft sounds

of new music

from green gold reeds

as the sun warms a new Dayrose

on slender vines

strong enough to weave new clothes

for the Emperor

born from the breath of the Unicorn.

--Barbara Smith Stoff

CAMP CEDAR GLEN

CAMP CEDAR GLEN

The children find me here on the rock—
four girls and one boy, they climb up,
and spread out their towels to sunbathe.
Jenny, April, Autumn, Holly, and Sean.
April says everyone else has gone to chapel.
I tell them Indians used to sit here…
that this is a sacred place.

O Great Rock, balanced here
between setting moon and rising sun,
tell me your name!

I am Grandfather Rock,
grandfather to modern poets too,
young bards who come to dream their dream
in the woods…you hear that jazzbird?
He’s tapping out the base pattern.
jazzbeat on wood
bird chorus swells up
bless you my children
I bequeath you my stone savings
base pattern bones earth bones
marrow of the mother Mother Marrow Mother Mary
Great Goddess come dance on the bones of our good mother
O mother love how can we dance on your bones?
Make us know that we are free
in the trees in the greening

Youngbird flutters joyous wings to waning moon
achieves air and sails into birdsong
turns on homing wind and calls, Jazzbird!
finds his throat liquid warbling riverhood
manheart splits through throatcry, Prometheus!
You old fire lover man lover,
earth water fire earth water fire,
you brought air too, didn’t you
Prometheus?

Wind blow gently on liquid heartfire,
Motherbones dance to the base pattern,
Jazzbird, God, blow gently on heartfire.

The children have left, having found and taken
what they needed from this place
quickly and surely as children do.
I am alone on the rock in the trees
in the blue circle of Time,
Grandfather Rock, Open Sky,
Golden Sun, Silver Moon, Myriad Birdcall.
I bow. I offer thanks, and promise to come here again.
--Barbara Smith Stoff

O HENRY’S LAST LEAF

O HENRY’S LAST LEAF

In this classroom.
I wish to compete!
I wish to compete
with what is going on
out there!
Last night…
In color
and in black and white,
you watched
and you listened
as television reassembled
beatings and rapes and…
and murders.

This morning
I want to read to you
a simple story. O Henry,
O! teach us to listen.
Teach us to hear
this small quiet voice.

In this room
there are no guns.
There are no cries
of pain and horror
to snare your attention…
only this small quiet voice
that says, look,
there is this much good
…in one old man…
who is drunk…
most of the time.
(So the teacher said
one last leaf for O Henry)
And I believe…
the students…
Listened.

--Barbara Smith Stoff

TRANSFORMATION

TRANSFORMATION

At birthing time

one is asked to be a bearer of life—

seeing beyond the shrouds

which cloud clear vision—

carrying seed and symbol

toward and toward…

the birth of the Dayrose

whose power knows

and distills golden fragrance

from mudsludge and dungeon breath—

rendering the pure essence

of all seeing

now then here being

now then here being…

made to live

as long as God lives.

--Barbara Smith Stoff

POETRY IS THE RICH CONSERVE

POETRY IS THE RICH CONSERVE

Ultimately the voice in the whirlwind says
I am this love
which drips like honey through earthly caverns
…to the high altar…
poetry is the rich conserve—
the talisman for transit
through all comings and goings
moment to moment
aeon to aeon
music from the great organ
always othering to itself
but yet comes home.

--Barbara Smith Stoff

HIGH WITNESS

Meister Eckhart

"The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me; my eye and God's eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowing, one love."


HIGH WITNESS

as we are camped out here

on this more often and indeed very darkling plain

Djwhal Khul tell us to be the high witness

we have our electronic campfire

we sit facing the television

we move through the ceremonies of Kennedy funerals

through the ceremonies upon the death of a princess

we bear high witness

we bear high witness to war after war

there is Desert Storm

the Towers fall

oil explodes in oceans

earthquakes come

tornadoes come

and then the fires



Netanyahu speaks to Congress

Obama speaks to Parliament



in 1939, a ten year old boy writes

of the terrible scar of war

and pleads for leaders to sit down together

sit down together and talk things out

work together

this scar is a terrible thing

these wars…



long deceased now,

that ten year old yet watches

still keeps watch for these children



we sit facing the screen

we watch and listen

all the world speaks now

cries out in pictures



the grandson of a Kenyan cook in the British Army

stands before the British Parliament

as President of the United States

and says “It will be years before

these revolutions will reach

their conclusions”…

and says, “We have a say in how this story ends.”

he quotes Churchill: “…wherever the bird of freedom

chirps in the human heart…”

there is the eye that sees

--Barbara Smith Stoff