Tag Archives: Children

NEW TRIBES

NEW TRIBES

From the old tribe of Isaac
and the old tribe of Ishmael

Israeli and Palestinian
couples and their children
come together by the sea and share

We are teaching the skills of listening
the skills of sharing and skills of hearing

The rules are simple
tell your truth as your truth only

Assume as you listen
that the person makes sense
If they do not seem to make sense
assume you need more information,

By the end of the weekend
the eight year olds are sleeping over
teenagers walk on the beach till dawn

A new tribe being formed

HI HO HI HO

HI HO HI HO

Work

I sometimes think about it, but not too hard

Like, shouldn’t there be a different word
for doing what we love or hate, for money

Like how I got to drive big trucks at eighteen
that I dreamed about at eight
and they paid me

Like playing cowboy and riding the range
where the deer and the antelope play
and getting paid

Building buildings bigger than Lego
and getting paid

Maybe work is about being serious
but I seriously question that too

I mean, what can be more joyous and serious
than a child adding one last block to his tower
or me, as I write this poem, and look up
to see it is 1:25 in the morning

HOPE FLOWERS

HOPE FLOWERS

In Bethlehem
a refugee with sadness but no hate decreed
another generation is what we need

And a school where
the children of the refugees of holocausts and
refugees of refugees can learn together
learn to look inward first

This is a most beautiful and special place
with such regard for dignity and respect
so successful in their message of love
so filled with fairness to each side

That Arafat’s Palestinians burn their busses
and Israelis torture teachers and riddle walls

While Caterpillars sent from across the sea
creep closer each day in their wonderful
mindless mechanical way
with levelling intent

To be met with Gandhi smiles
and your help, if you give it

www.hopeflowersschool.org

Hope Flowers School – Bethlehem

COLLATERAL DAMAGE

COLLATERAL DAMAGE

Collateral damage
is the disease of the day
and the greatest cause of dyin
is just gettin in the way

Yes people are dyin who have no say
people all dyin just from gettin in the way

In Palestine it’s Arafat
that they’re all aiming at

And the bombers of Allah
want Sharon to be gone

Refugee camps and ice cream shops
the bombin and the dying just never stops
and nobody’s factions own up to their actions
so it’s all reactions to reactions to reactions
with all the weapons piled on one side
and the other side reduced to suicide

Bush wants Hussein
Hussein wants the bomb
And half a million children die
who can’t spell embargo and don’t know why

Carpet bombers killing in wave after wave
while Bin Laden sits still safe in his cave
more Afghanis dead than in both towers
doesn’t impress the press or the powers

Children in uniform may be innocent too
killed in you don’t join, what would you do

Big business and the army
have screwed the world brown
but they’re not the ones dying
when the towers go down

Yes collateral damage
is the disease of the day
and the greatest cause of dyin
is still just gettin in the way

The feds had weapons that gave off sparks
And now Waco is full of Joan of Arcs
A crime that leads to Oklahoma City
and day care there was far from pretty

Yes an epidemic is under way, and a lot of
little children with nothing to say
dyin of the disease of just
gettin in the way

ON THE TRAMPOLINE

ON THE TRAMPOLINE

Alura and I jump till we’re tired
decide my leg is broken in two places
and rest looking up at yellow butterflies
and squirrels playing in the twinning tree
as fall winds rock it toward a winter’s sleep

The young nurse writes prescriptions
lays on healing hands
sprays medicine from an atomizer pen
a few sharp stick injections in the arm
and I am well again

A Poem Before Holland

A POEM BEFORE HOLLAND

I travel to Holland
on wings of a childhood story
silver skates and finger in a dike

To lands wrestled from an angry sea
a sea that dearly wants them back

Unceasing vigilance to keep the prize
a dark line drawn across their eyes

I see windmills chop the salt wet air
Art and flowers leaping up in faith
behind thin walls

Back to the little boy and the dike again
legal drugs and red lights in the rain

These are a fair and sturdy people
I like them now, and I like how

In a land where children must
so often act as men

They do not pass acts that treat
their men as children

THE PELICAN PROJECT

THE PELICAN PROJECT

In July 2000 New Dance Horizons in Regina
Saskatchewan put together a presentation for
“Dance and the Child International”

It consisted of dance, song and poetry
performed by about thirty young people
many from Canada’s “First Nations”

I had the privilege of coaching and guiding
them as they wrote their own poems

Following are some poems that I wrote
for samples of metaphor, and for the awe and
respect I felt for their talent and their courage

Also, I was totally star struck by the grace and
beauty of Robin, the director and dance
instructor who goes around quoting Neruda
and holds my disowned love of movement
so wrote poems for and about her as well