We have not yet begun to fight

Before poet/mentor Roger White died in 1992, he asked that his many and varied friends send him anything they had written about him or his poetry.  I sent along a few things, including this essay, written not long after Operation Desert Storm in 1990.  The Association of Bahá’í studies sent me a surprise letter accepting the essay for publication not long after Roger’s death.  The blessed boy had submitted it as a final gift.  It seems appropriate to republish it here during my month of peace, and in honor of Roger.

“Support our Troops in the Middle East.”  The signs were everywhere.  We might not agree with the war, but we surely would give those brave men and women our heartfelt support.  I did.  They were sitting in the sand feeling nervous, lonely and homesick, and I was sitting at home full of fellow feeling.  How grateful we all were to know they were coming home!  No more nights glued to CNN, no more bad Iraqi jokes.  Even the yellow ribbons were tired and bedraggled.

One night soon after the war was ended I had a dream.  I could see assault forces on the border of Kuwait while overhead planes were as plentiful as locusts.  I stood in the middle of the war, untouched by the weapons and unable to help the wounded.  Bodies piled up around me as I desperately tried to reach the living.  A dying soldier held out his hand to me and said, “This is your heart.”

I hate being slapped upside the head by the obvious.  Homer knew it.  Krishna tried to explain it.  From the beginning, war has been used as metaphor to explain the greater inner struggle.  The Prophets and poets have all had hopes that we might understand this great inner battle, and they have given us explanation after explanation of how it all works.

One poet with great hope was Roger White, who expressed the inner battle in several different ways through the body of his poetry.  I would like to discuss two of his poems which gave my subconscious some ammunition in an efforts to educate me.

Pollux to Castor

Now having come this far shall we go on?

You, dear, not dead and I but half alive

And weary, who think it easier to pawn

Divinity for respite than to strive

Against you in a duel so finely drawn

With yours a subtler skill, mine stronger steel.

How shall I gather heart for further bout;

What paean sing to kindle pulse and nerve—

(Who with but sloe-eyed glance you quickly rout

And with one kiss enslave)?  Would my death serve?

Oh, one must die, beloved, have no doubt.

This stern and fixed decree grants no appeal.

God’s very sky the gift your death will win—

Prepare to die, my love, my foe, my twin.

This is a retelling of the story of Pollux and Castor in a traditional sonnet form.  In most versions of the myth, the twins are the sons of Zeus and Leda the Mortal.  One is immortal and the other mortal.  In a battle Castor is slain and Polllux, because of great love for his brother, refuses his immortality in order that he might go to the netherworld with him.  Out of pity Zeus grants that the two brothers should remain together alternately in the heavens and the netherworld.

Roger White has added this twist to the story: Pollux is Castor’s murderer, killing him to fulfill the stern and fixed decree that will win God’s very sky.  In doing so he has given the myth a broader scope, that of the duality of human beings and the eternal struggle between their higher and lower natures.

With Pollux drawn as the higher nature (noble thoughts, divine virtues of love, pity, mercy, justice, and so forth) and Castor as the lower (ignoble self, animal passions, worldly aspirations), we see that Castor has the more subtle skill and can enslave the higher self with but one kiss.  All who have fought this battle can see themselves here—the effort to be “good” and the ease with which we remain “not good.”  Living with this dual nature can seem unbearable and many times we may think “Ah! If I could put a knife into the heart of that part of myself—eliminate it altogether and live only with the better part of me.”  But in doing this Pollux loses his immortality, or so the story goes.  And the story as told here is that one MUST die.  Pollux, the higher nature, is allowed still to choose who will die—either Castor by his hand or Pollux by enslavement.

A central point in this story is the love, the passionate love, between the twins.  This was no hate-filled battle but one fought by decree, stern and fixed.  By putting the story in a sonnet form it is focused and given grace and structure.  The traditional form, theme, and story all set the background for the unexpected idea of a passionate connection between the two natures and their complicity in the murder on one and the salvation of both.

Pilgrimage

(Suggested by Selections from the Writings of ‘Abdu’l-Baha 275)

This, the perfect journey; this alone.

Although the spurious brother came

With petulant demand

He was substanceless in all that light.

The choices leading to this holy stone

I blessed in silence but could not name;

Outstretched a timid hand

But heard the banished sobbing in his night.

Turned to embrace him then.  To claim this home,

An angel spoke, enter whole or else remain

Eden’s orphan; understand

He blesses, too, though is not blessed with sight.

The quotation suggesting this poem says, in part; “Remember how Adam and the others once dwelt together in Eden.  No sooner, however did a quarrel break out between Adam and Satan than they were, one and all, banished from the Garden, and this was meant as a warning to the human race, a means of telling humankind that dissension—even with the Devil—is the way to bitter loss.”

Here again are two brothers, one spurious and making petulant demand on the other, who is making a pilgrimage.  Again we are shown the scene at the very last moment.  The pilgrim reaching out to touch the holy stone is stopped by the sobbing of the brother who has been banished from Eden by his very substancelessness.

There is no murder here, no collusion.  Here is an initial sense of rejection of that spurious brother, that lower nature which proves, in the end, not to be evil after all, only devoid of light.  Here is neither passionate love of all that the lower nature holds, nor the outright need to kill off that part of oneself.  Rather there is a calm acceptance of the lower nature as necessary for salvation: wholeness.

For centuries, pilgrimages have been made to shrines and holy places.  Muhammad institutionalized the pilgrimage, requiring that all true believers travel to Mecca once before they die.  Bahá’ís also make a pilgrimage to the holy places associated with their religion.

Bahá’u’lláh has stated that out of the whole world, God has chosen as “home” the human heart.  Understanding this holiest of places then becomes the true pilgrimage, of which the other is only an outward reflection and reminder,

The concept of Yin and Yang is reflected in this recognition, as Bahá’u’lláh has said that “the letters of negation, no matter how far they may be removed from the holy fragrances of Thy knowledge, and however forgetful they may become of the wondrous splendors of the dawning light of Thy beauty, which are shed from the heaven of Thy majesty, must needs exist in Thy realm, so that the words which affirm Thee may thereby be exalted.”  (Prayers and Meditations p 325)

Here there is no duality, merely a temporary separation for the purpose of our education.  The “stern and fixed decree” still holds, as the outward manifestations do not change merely because we view them from a different angle.  Now the murder by Pollux is transcended into sacrifice, as the brothers give up their separateness to enter whole into Eden.

In reading poetry there is a process of self-discovery that occurs, as the reader draws out from self the meaning each poem carries.  It is the same process of self-discovery that allows each of us to also draw meaning from current events and place them in the context of our true reality.  The poets have always done this but often to a small audience.

Now the outer wars and revolutions and famines and ecological disasters are daily reminders of our mortality, and, if we do not pay attention we may get more than “slapped upside the head” by our subconscious.  This world is indeed our heart, and “to claim this home” we must “enter whole or remain Eden’s orphan.”

Maybe it is time to bring out the metaphoric yellow ribbons and welcome some foot-sore soldiers home from the battlefields of our hearts.

The Girl Effect

Some simple things can help establish peace.  Universal education is one, and if there is a choice between educating the son or the daughter, we must educate the daughter, because she is the first educator of the next generation.

To Fight Poverty, Invest in Girls

By NANCY GIBBS Monday, Feb. 14, 2011 (from Time Magazine)

We know what the birth of a revolution looks like: A student stands before a tank. A fruit seller sets himself on fire. A line of monks link arms in a human chain. Crowds surge, soldiers fire, gusts of rage pull down the monuments of tyrants, and maybe, sometimes, justice rises from the flames.

But sometimes freedom and opportunity slip in through the back door, when a quieter subversion of the status quo unleashes change that is just as revolutionary. This is the tantalizing idea for activists concerned with poverty, with disease, with the rise of violent extremism: if you want to change the world, invest in girls.

In recent years, more development aid than ever before has been directed at women — but that doesn't mean it is reaching the girls who need it. Across much of the developing world, by the time she is 12, a girl is tending house, cooking, cleaning. She eats what's left after the men and boys have eaten; she is less likely to be vaccinated, to see a doctor, to attend school. "If only I can get educated, I will surely be the President," a teenager in rural Malawi tells a researcher, but the odds are against her: Why educate a daughter who will end up working for her in-laws rather than a son who will support you? In sub-Saharan Africa, fewer than 1 in 5 girls make it to secondary school. Nearly half are married by the time they are 18; 1 in 7 across the developing world marries before she is 15. Then she gets pregnant. The leading cause of death for girls 15 to 19 worldwide is not accident or violence or disease; it is complications from pregnancy. Girls under 15 are up to five times as likely to die while having children than are women in their 20s, and their babies are more likely to die as well.

There are countless reasons rescuing girls is the right thing to do. It's also the smart thing to do. Consider the virtuous circle: An extra year of primary school boosts girls' eventual wages by 10% to 20%. An extra year of secondary school adds 15% to 25%. Girls who stay in school for seven or more years typically marry four years later and have two fewer children than girls who drop out. Fewer dependents per worker allows for greater economic growth. And the World Food Programme has found that when girls and women earn income, they reinvest 90% of it in their families. They buy books, medicine, bed nets. For men, that figure is more like 30% to 40%. "Investment in girls' education may well be the highest-return investment available in the developing world," Larry Summers wrote when he was chief economist at the World Bank. Of such cycles are real revolutions born.

The benefits are so obvious, you have to wonder why we haven't paid attention. Less than 2¢ of every development dollar goes to girls — and that is a victory compared with a few years ago, when it was more like half a cent. Roughly 9 of 10 youth programs are aimed at boys. One reason for this is that when it comes to lifting up girls, we don't know as much about how to do it. We have to start by listening to girls, which much of the world is not culturally disposed to do. Development experts say the solutions need to be holistic, providing access to safe spaces, schools and health clinics with programs designed specifically for girls' needs. Success depends on infrastructure, on making fuel and water more available so girls don't have to spend as many as 15 hours a day fetching them. It requires enlisting whole communities — mothers, fathers, teachers, religious leaders — in helping girls realize their potential instead of seeing them as dispensable or, worse, as prey.

A more surprising army is being enlisted as well. A new initiative called Girl Up aims to mobilize 100,000 American girls to raise money and awareness to fight poverty, sexual violence and child marriage. "This generation of 12-to-18-year-olds are all givers," says executive director Elizabeth Gore, the force of nature behind the ingeniously simple Nothing but Nets campaign to fight malaria, about her new United Nations Foundation enterprise. "They gave after Katrina. They gave after the tsunami and Haiti. More than any earlier generation, they feel they know girls around the world."

And so the word goes out, by text, by tweet, on Facebook, that coming soon to a high school gym near you may be a Girl Up pep rally, where kids can learn what it feels like to carry a jerrican of water for a long distance, or how sending $5 to Malawi can stock a health clinic with girl-friendly materials or buy school supplies. Or how $5 to Ethiopia can make the difference in a girl's not being married when she's 10. And one at a time, a rising generation of American girls helps create the next generation of leaders, for the coming quiet revolutions.

Poet Michael Carter on Peace

Writing poetry.  It’s like trying to change the world by throwing rose petals into the Grand Canyon.  And yet some of us just can’t help ourselves.  Lotta people doing it these days: blue haired ladies, hip nurses, cool men, young people.  This poem was written by my nephew Michael Carter.  He is not only young and entirely beautiful, but a poet taking his words seriously.  I asked him for a poem on peace—this one is truly best if said aloud, with heart. 

Flowers don't grow here. This is where the thunder lives, amongst the confusion of lost souls calling out to broken dreams, in hopes that one can assist the other. Where the innocent are slain for the transgression of his brother. Where a sisters eyes rain sorrows melodies, but they are only heard by the arms of her mother. The land here is barren, victim of nutrient deficient soil. Toil as we may it is just too difficult to grow here. So we wait, and pray, that one day the sun will find a way to pierce through the cracks, and release it's rays from the reins and let them rain down on us washing away our pain as we fight to grow. Flowers, grow, flowers, grow, flowers, grow. Flowers don't grow here. You must have forgotten that our roots are rotten. Sickley and twisted. Suffocated by the weeds that reside here. Where a man learns that he had only become a man after mastering the ability to hide fear. So they die here. Long before they get the chance to live. Crushed beneath the feet of the weak. But maybe, just maybe, we can resuscitate them. I will provide the food if you can provide the light. Or perhaps you could just convince the sun to pierce through the cracks, and release it's rays from the reigns, and let them rain down on us washing away our pain ad we fight to grow. Flowers, grow flowers, grow, flowers, grow. flowers don't grow here. It rains so much it drows us. Water surrounds us. We can't breath. Try as we may we can't leave. We are stuck here. Poisoned by the poison they use to poison the fools. My boys are confused my sisters need an uplifting. It's time to stop asking for change and start gifting. Quit wishing, that, one day the sun will find a way to pierce through the cracks, and release it's rays from the reigns, and let them rain down on us, washing away our pain. We need to make our flowers grow Flowers, grow, flowers, grow, flowers, grow. Flowers CAN grow here; if we nourish them, give them what they need to survive. Teach them to thrive. Provide them with the building blocks, so if the building locks...... They can build their own. It doesn't matter that the soil is riddled with stone. This is the soil that they call home. We need to prepare them, instead of impair them, provide them with the little shove in the back they need so when the sun peers through the cracks, and releases it's rays from the reigns, and lets them rain down on us washing away their pain.... They can grow. Flowers grow, flowers grow, flowers, grow, flowers will grow here

War and Peace: Poet Alice Myerson

Original artwork by SK Dapoz

Alice Myerson planted herself in the boogie down bronx way back when the world was young and has watched the seasons change there ever since. She is a mother, a lover, a sister, a daughter, a friend, a nurse, a nurse practitioner, an hiv specialist, a human rights worker who quietly writes a poem or two, and sometimes even a story on the background of our turbulent, dynamic and ever fascinating world.

Tonka I:

With War

Car blasts thunder through

streets torn asunder, deluged

by razor edged glass.

Baghdad, Beirut, Palestine

swelter in an ashy tide.

Ghosts, donned in live wire,

rifle the fire, thirsty for

water, hidden in

cities, bereft of color,

without tree, without flower.

Disembodied bones

smolder in the molten stones

of rubbish and war.

Baghdad, Beirut, Palestine

splinter in a plague of shrines.

Draped in blood, soaked in

phlegm, an ambulance of gaunt

men run their death load

through rubble roads without the

luxury of fear or grief.

Kicking silent screams

into the mist, a boy spits

war and shakes his fist.

Jericho, Jerusalem,

Nazareth and Bethlehem.

Baghdad, Beirut, Palestine.

Baghdad, Beirut, Palestine.

Tonka 2:

Song For Spring

Discordant to spring,

deaf to its laughter and song,

they left us barren,

staggering in the belly

of an earth stunned by malice.

Breathless, we knelt down,

flooding the acrid soil

in a stream of tears.

The fish moon hung behind us;

our shoulders shook with fury.

We began to dig,

tearing away plastic weeds

florid with decay

until our knuckles bled and

we rested them on a moist

bed of moss wedged in

the roots of a silent tree.

We worked in the eye

of dawn, our fingertips soaked

soft in tiny pools of dew

until nature’s seeds

were born again and the wind

carried them through fields

that pulsed with the aromas

of the pungent air of spring.

asm

I like Ike

I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.               Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890 - 1969)

Peace as Art: Al Black speaks

Original artwork by S.K. Dapoz

Three Spring Questions

In the Deep South, spring waits at the garden gate.

Wisteria & trees intertwine

While exchanging winter grays & browns

For bright blouses of blossoms.

The air smells alive--

Fertile Earth is warm

As it crumbles between my fingers:

A handful of dust – ions in the making

Sprinklings from the birth of stars

Blood & bones of Cherokee – of European – of African

Struggling no longer, united in my hand--

Fertile earth to feed future generations

Is war inevitable?  Will peace come only in the clouds

Of chalk dust from Einstein’s equations?

Or does peace come with springtime

Entering at the gate?

(A. E. Black, 03/01/11)

Al Black is a native of Lafayette, IN, who now resides with his wife of 39 years in Chapin, SC.  He is an active Bahá’í, works as a recruiter for a medical school, blogs irregularly and writes poetry on a daily basis.  He also hosts a twice monthly live poetry/music venue in Columbia, SC called Mind Gravy.  Mind Gravy events showcases a featured poet, guest musician and open mic from the top creative talent in South Carolina and the surrounding states.  He may be found on Facebook or at albeemindgravy@gmail.com or at http://www.hoosierinthelandofcotton.wordpress.com

"Today, God fought for us"-- War in Art

I've always found this particular scene very moving, with the Non Nobis Domine being sung as the camera pans across bodies, blood, robbers, and Henry carrying a dead boy (Christian Bale, for those of you who are interested.)

Henry says in this clip, "God fought for us."  I think in a world hemmed in by small horizons, this was survival mode.  God had to fight for "us" as everything in the world seemed against us, from foe, flood, famine, fire and the frickin' plague to unexplainable phenomena that went bump in the night.  Our world is larger now.  The only "us" on this small planet is....us.  All of us.  Our horizon can encompass the entire globe and we can see God in every face on the planet.

"O peoples of the world! The Sun of Truth hath risen to illumine the whole earth, and to spiritualize the community of man. Laudable are the results and the fruits thereof, abundant the holy evidences deriving from this grace. This is mercy unalloyed and purest bounty; it is light for the world and all its peoples; it is harmony and fellowship, and love and solidarity; indeed it is compassion and unity, and the end of foreignness; it is the being at one, in complete dignity and freedom, with all on earth."  'Abdu'l-Baha