Soapbox: The Way I see Things

Sunday Sit-Down #13: All The World

All the world is a very narrow bridge*

between the world as I know it
and the one too many others live

between power of identity
and the insistent tug of justice

between guilt for sins of fathers and mothers
and the compelling urge to act, to do

between apologies for who I am, what I represent
and the abiding sense of right and wrong

between my moral compass
and true north, shifting beneath my feet

between the self I am
and the one this world needs me to be

the important part is not to be afraid

*Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav

Poetry Month Day 10: The Work is Great

Today, I had the privilege of working again with other leaders from my Just Schools Cohort. Together, we’re working across districts to advance equity and justice in schools. This team of professionals…they’re amazing. And even on days where I feel discouraged about my own work, and my own progress, they are there to remind me that building a more just society is HARD. That we have a LOT of work to do. But that we can – and MUST – do it together. They inspire me.

It brings to mind a line from Pirkei Avot, a collection of Jewish teachings. Rabbi Tarfon said: “You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it.” This Golden Shovel poem is my tribute to the incredible efforts of my colleagues.

When you stand at the base of a mountain, you
can’t ever see the top. Your feet are
just plunking down one after the other, not
knowing when-how-if they’ll arrive. They just know they’re obligated
by faith to
get you to a place where the work is complete
and whole and holy. The
temptation to be solitary in your work
is great, but
you know this journey is neither
easy nor short. So you are
going to need others with you,
others who know the only way to be free
is to
be strong, be strong, that our strength never allows us to desist
from the lifedream of reaching that mountain top, or from
the struggle of climbing it.

Poetry Month Day 9: Humor, Badly Timed

Humor.
It’s all timing and audience.

The feeling of having a joke
that is absolutely
hysterical
but having to one to tell it to
well that’s rough.

I mean, I know
what I’m saying is
WILDLY inappropriate.
Maybe even dark.
It’s also
really
freakin’
FUNNY.

And I can’t even laugh as loud as I would if I heard that joke myself because who laughs out loud at a time like this anyway, I mean board meetings and Yom Kippur services and brother’s funerals are all NOT laughing matters and how dare I laugh right now but I can’t escape the humor of some things so I swallow it down and half hope my face conceals the laughter below and half hope that someone will ask me why I’m almost smiling and half hope they’re a person who’d get it if I told them.

But just know.
if you see an certain expression on my face,
you don’t actually want to know what I’m thinking.
but if you’re the sort who would,
you asked for it.
Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Poetry Month Day 8: On Cockroaches

When you get down to it,
We really should like
Cockroaches
More than we do.
They are evolution’s rock stars,
Shining beacons of
Persistence and carrying on
And all that jazz.

I should offer nothing but respect
But
The very thought of them scuttling
(I can’t picture them doing anything but scuttling)
On floors
Over counters
In
My
PANTRY
Is enough to send me
Past the heebies
Into the full-on jeebies

And
I know this says something about me
And my lack of humanity, that
It is a metaphor for
Tolerance and compassion

And
Call me a monster
If you will
But
There is satisfaction
In a well-timed
Crack and
Squish.

Poetry Month Day 7: A Little Mischief

Today, I took the poem I wrote yesterday, printed up a copy, and pasted it up on the wall right next to the chocolate stash that was my inspiration. I had FUN with it. So…tomorrow, and maybe the next day (or the next), I’m going to put up poems in random spots for my colleagues to read. Squee! I’m pretty excited about this one.

Tomorrow’s project?

Need a haiku? Take a haiku. Like with those little bitty tags that you see at coffee shops and supermarkets and on telephone poles?

YEAH. Now I just have to write some. Here goes.

school during covid
is a little bit just like
swimming through jell-o

hand sanitizer
seventeen times every day
pass the lotion please

even though we can’t
hug them as before, we can
still carry them home

the sun’s finally
here so we can eat outside
just pray for no bees

the weeks of winter
are so much slower than spring:
the countdown begins

you say what you will
of tech wonders or marvels
I’m so over Zoom.

there is no tired
like teacher tired, on a
Friday in April

those darn red badges
at the corners of Seesaw
haunt me in my dreams

I brought my school bag
home for efficiency’s sake
what a nice doorstop

the teacher’s lounge treats
have truly suffered this year
how I miss cupcakes

if I have to tell
you again to stay six feet
I think I might burst

I’m drawing boundaries
not working a bit at home
but first, this email

I found a poem
carried it along with me-
sometimes we need that

COMING SOON to a bulletin board near you!

Poetry Month Day 6: On the Natural (Dis)Order

You could say this poem is a continuation of my reflections for the Slice of Life challenge about the need for a strong, steady chocolate stash in a school. I stand by what I wrote, even if my observations this week speak to the contrary.

Clearly
there is a problem
in our world:
there is some kind of
imbalance
within our universe
that is causing it to
behave badly
(like a puppy in a roomful
of long-laced shoes
or a nub stuck
all the way in a pencil sharpener
so that things get to a point
but not really)

because

how
on
earth
is it
that the natural order of things
has gotten so upside-down

that one can go
into the copy room
look at the dregs of the
chocolate stash,
at the poor unfortunate souls
left behind from
The Great Choosing
and
find…
THIS!?

Since when are SNICKERS considered the most inferior
of the chocolate world? I may have to rethink my life.

Sunday Sit-Down #12: The Floodgates Open

Each Sunday, I’m working my way through my experiences with race. I’ll share stories and memories from throughout my life. I know I’ll encounter moments of growth that I wish I could relive. I’ll also have to think back on choices that I wish I could remake. Given that April is also poetry month, I’m also stacking that challenge right on top. As I often say when beginning anything tricky or ambitious, “We’ll see what happens.”

Pump primed, slate cleaned
My education could begin:

My first introduction was
CHIEF
That proud symbol of school pride
And heritage
That everyone has to have
On the sweatshirts we buy
And maybe this is weird while I’m asking
But if he’s so dignified
What’s with the war paint
And whooping and hollering
And the Boy Scout Manual dance
And tomahawk chops
And the clapping along to
“This is the Indian’s song?”
Eh. I could take him or leave him.

On campus I learned the other-ness of being a Jew:
I quickly developed a sixth sense for detecting
evangelical swagger.
The “I-care-about-you’s”
and the “Jesus-will-save-you’s”
and the “Do-you-do-any-reading-of-the-Word’s”
all had a certain look to them
(just as they recognized
the curly hair,
the Semitic complexion,
the tell-tale nose).
It’s why Hillel became my place,
where Yiddish was a form of currency,
Jewish geography threading a familiar, comfortable cloth.
I was among people who GOT me
without introduction or explanation or apology.

But just as I needed the like-me,
I needed the not-like-me
Anyone who would allow me to join:

The Zeta house, where my sisters
Were Christian
And Jewish
And Muslim
And Buddhist
And every color
And our national organization called us
“The United Nations Chapter”
except, I think, they didn’t mean it so kindly,
which is partly why I don’t donate to them now,
but I digress

The Asian-American Association
At the house on campus
And their meetings,
Vibrant and inspired and contentious
And wow are there layers
Upon layers

Salongo
At the res hall,
Spades tourneys and movie nights and step shows
And t-shirts emblazoned
“It’s a Black thing, you wouldn’t understand”
but I saw a shirt that read you MUST understand – shouldn’t we say that?
There are things you must understand. And…there are things you can’t.
Let it not stop you from learning or doing.

Poetry Month Day 3: On Birthdays

Birthdays
should be marked
by cake and ice cream,
Instagram posts and Facebook wishes
Or texts, the kind with hearts
And balloons
And silly memes

but
this time
next time
every time

I’d settle
for
anything
that fills the absence.

I draft and scribble out poems in my head:

a catalog of today’s distractions

our conversation in the sun today

the four times I cried
(frustration, grief, happiness, gratitude)

how I wonder if other people
get to talk to those
long-gone, or not-so-long-gone,
or if I am lucky
or just weird

how dumb it is to depend on words anyway –
the arrogance of insisting
life can always be willed
into poem.

Poetry Month Day 2: Now it Makes Sense

The last days
have felt
like my shoes were on
the wrong feet,
like the stuck wheel
on a shopping cart
or the rattle at the front end
of the car
that has to mean something,
if I could figure out what

I can’t for the life
of me
understand
why words won’t come,
why they feel so heavy and slow,
why they sink
beyond my grasp
why I resist
taking the time to
sit in my
own self
to figure out why

And then
I check the calendar:
tomorrow
Jess would have been twenty

And I know
I’ll have to
write of her
tomorrow

And I know
tomorrow
I will
stop
sit
sink

And I know
my entire self
will brace
against the pain
against the keen muscle memory
of grief
my breath will catch
to feel it sharp, sharper
without knowing how
or when
or if
it may subside.

Poetry Month Day 1: Untitled

is what you call a poem
when you sit down to write
and the words flutter
every which-way
despite your
pleas to
land

is when you have just wrestled
metaphor to within
inches of its life,
nailing it down
tying it
to a
chair*

is for words wriggling too fast
when you try to capture
them, but they keep on
squirming away,
writhing out
of your
hands

so you just shrug your shoulders
and you dust yourself off
and call it a poem
and set it free
and away
you can
go

*a reference to BIlly Collins’s poem, Introduction to Poetry