Walking in the landscape of sorrow. Let me lay down beside the stony road and rest for a moment. I have never been wise but wisdom is called for. I have never been graceful but grace is called for. I have never been whole but wholeness is called for. Let me rest for a moment before I gather the stones.
The New Year
We note the turn of a calendar page. Our celebration is small and personal. But somewhere in the building the sounds of a joyful party spirals up with loud, young voices. At midnight, there are fireworks around the city we can hear. We go to the windows but we cannot see. Even the stars are hiding between the clouds. Big secret celebrations. Still, our music is Sinatra and Basie and our kiss — enough celebration for the turn of a page and the promise of what’s next. The real big secret.
Notes from the Insomniac’s Diary as she obsessively adjusts her pillows:
From the Insomniac’s Diary as she obsessively adjusts her pillows: The half moon gives a wink. Aww, dear metaphor in my sky, will I be able to overcome this fatigue and wink back with humor and joy as I welcome sleep? Only the dawn has the answer. Stay tuned!
From the Insomniac’s Diary: The ghosts of memory and regret are stomping around in the dark before dawn. Laughing as they scare away sleep and I toss pillows while calling sleep to please return.
From the Insomniac’s Diary: Sometimes between the night and the morning, even in the middle of the city, there are moments of the deepest dark silence. No car wheels or sirens. And then, the invisible wind swirls by with a whoosh. Wings flap outside the window. Is that “woo” the call of an owl? We can remember that, even in the middle of the city, the hidden wild sings to us.
By Morning and the “giving in”: Quiet is a gift. Living on cloud shores and navigating by street lights. We are sailing. May all our waters be warmed by the light of our love and our uncharted routes be mapped by our courage.
Fireworks
These are dark days. And I think there are more to come. The founders of our country had the radical idea that “all men are created equal” and that we had the right to pursue happiness. We had to fight to expand the “all men” to “all people of all genders, colors, and orientations” and (at least, in theory,) we did. But that - thanks to the right-wing, white suprematist Republicans - is rapidly eroding. I am reminded of Abigail Adams admonition to her husband John:
“I long to hear that you have declared an independancy—and by the way in the new Code of Laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make I desire you would Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could. If perticuliar care and attention is not paid to the Ladies we are determined to foment a Rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice, or Representation.” (March 31, 1776)
Yup. Abigail was onto something: “we are determined to foment a Rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice, or Representation.”
So. I think I’ll skip this year’s “happy” 4th.
Dear Senator Hawley
About January 6, 2021. The timeline. Among all the other evidence, pay attention to 1/6 timeline of events that day and many days before. DT and his cronies. Guilty.
“The sacred obligation to defend this peaceful transfer of power has been honored by every American president — except one,” Ms. Cheney noted. “As Americans, we all have a duty to ensure that what happened on January 6 never happens again.”
Dear Senator Hawley,
As your constituent, I am seriously asking you whether you will be found guilty of treason and sedition? Your infamous fist-pump to the Proud Boys and Oath Keeper insurrectionists on January 6 indicated you were “in on it.” Did you help them decide they would come at 10 am - well before Trump’s rally - to bludgeon the police guarding your colleagues as they prepared to certify the election? As these domestic terrorists planned their breach of the capital to overthrow the legal and rightful election of the next President - Joe Biden, were you texting them? As the crowds Trump incited to bolster them came to break windows, doors, and guards heads, were you guiding them through the halls of Congress to upend the proceedings? Did you approve of the hunt to “hang Mike Pence”? I am seriously asking you these questions. And I want answers as a Missouri voter.
During the proceedings, your Congressional colleague Representative Liz Cheney said, “Tonight I say this to my Republican colleagues who are defending the indefensible: There will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain.”
Indeed, Senator Hawley. Your dishonor is on display.
Sincerely,
Roseann Weiss
For my Funny Valentine
Our Old Love dances in the kitchen between the pots and the pans. It sings to the hum of the heater turned up and down. Our Old Love sweetens the coffee with low fat milk in the morning when it’s just too dark. It seeps into the laundry in the gentle cycle. It shuffles the newspapers across the bed and kicks off the blankets. Our Old Love floats through the wide spaces between with extended arms. It appears on the shelves beside the covers of a thousand jumbled books like a forever thing. Happy Valentine’s Day my dear love Harper. It’s a forever thing.
New Moon Rising
An incantation for the first of February: The new moon rose and promises the light. It is a new year named for the tiger. May we roar with one magnificent voice. May our love be fierce and our hearts be strong against the gathering storms of hate.
Murder
The crows have abandoned my alley and sills. Moving in their murder to distant trees. Only the sound of crashing trash trucks and car wheels on wet streets. Sound of lonely on a gloomy day.
More Than a Day | Every Day
December 1 is DAY WITH(OUT) ART. [See https://visualaids.org/projects/day-without-art] This photograph is “Maria and Adriana, 1991” by Brian Weil. It has layers of meaning for me. When you walk into our home, it is on the wall facing our door. It was gifted to me by some very dear friends on my 40th birthday. It is a double-portrait of Maria who is dying from HIV/AIDS and her daughter Adriana. I was told that this may have been the last moments they saw each other. One of the friends who gifted me this work died from AIDS several years later. He collected Brian’s work. Brian Weil (1954-1996) understood the power of images and stories - and of art and activism. This is a gift that reminds me of that power every day.
On the Cusp of a Full Moon
Random, disjointed thoughts on an August night:
Sitting on the fire escape. The night breeze finally blowing in. I always feel like I’m sitting inside the tree that climbs our three stories with me. I pull a deep green leaf to hold in my hand. I stick it on my heart. I breath deep the cooling air.
Tonight, my friend who lives on a farm tells about her hen who is so fierce she scares the cats and the dogs. Tonight, the hen we dubbed Artemis, strutted into my friend’s den as she was writing - in all her iridescent glory - a fierce feathered muse.
The night’s firmament is mottled, gray, and smoky. Starless. The hazy, waxing moon is hanging in the south eastern sky like a luminous egg. Perhaps Artemis in all her mother fierceness threw it high up there to shine on me on my fire escape hidden in a tree. What will hatch from an egg moon, I wonder.
Thoughts as disjointed as the bones under the rocks of an archaeological site. Waiting to be reconnected. Or never.
Open Windows
The street songs come with the spring: One of the fleeting joys of living on a city street. The sounds of young poets practicing out loud their raps and spoken word poems as they walk by. Original or not, they own the words - drifting three floors up - strong, clear voices and then fading away, trailing south or north. I strain to hear more, to hear the refrain.
A Prayer | An Incantation | A Mantra
May our anger fuel us, our sorrow humanize us, our love motivate us. May we use our arts to define and mend us. May our scars remind us. May we find joy and beauty in our very existence. May we support one another with empathy and kindness. May we consecrate ourselves to change and justice. May we walk through this fire together and come out whole on the other side.
[May this be so.]
The Cusp of a New Year
I pace. Window to window. This is the last full moon of the year. This Moon has many names. Wolf Moon, Ice Moon, Cold Moon, Moon after Yule, Long Night Moon, Datta Jayanti Moon, Unduvap Poya, and Chang’e Moon. This night, I call her Hidden Moon. Hidden by the lights of industry. Hidden beneath the cold cloudy firmament. She is concealed. Still I know she shines. As we do. Waiting for the new year to bring new light in the middle of a long cold time.
“We twa hae paidl'd i' the burn
Frae morning sun till dine
But seas between us braid hae roar'd
Sin days of auld lang syne//
And surely ye'll be your pint-stowp
And surely I'll be mine
And we'll tak a cup o' kindness yet
For auld lang syne” (Robert Burns, 1788)
Holidays
Holidays of religion or state remind us to step out of the mundane. Whatever ways we celebrate, we remind ourselves of the very wonder and awe of simply being alive. “A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices / For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn / Fall on your knees; O hear the Angel voices!” Look around you and in you. May your world be full of wonder, awe, and love.
Monday. Monday.
Monday. Monday. Today we begin. What I do.
Monday/ begin:
verb (used without object), be·gan [bih-gan], be·gun [bih-guhn], be·gin·ning [bih-gin-ing].
to proceed to perform the first or earliest part of some action; commence; start:
‘The story begins when she pours the coffee.’
to come into existence; arise; originate:
‘The custom began during those late-night writing sessions.’
verb (used with object), be·gan, be·gun, be·gin·ning.
to proceed to perform the first or earliest part of (some action):
‘Begin the work today.’
to originate; be the originator of:
‘We began to form new collaborations centered on art as a powerful agent for change.’
to succeed to the slightest extent in (followed by an infinitive):
‘The money won't even begin to cover the complexities of working with others.’
To begin again. And again. A new story that never ends.
The Incorrigible Disturber of the Peace
James Baldwin called the artist “the incorrigible disturber of the peace” in his 1962 essay THE CREATIVE PROCESS:
“The artist is distinguished from all other responsible actors in society — the politicians, legislators, educators, and scientists — by the fact that he is his own test tube, his own laboratory, working according to very rigorous rules, however unstated these may be, and cannot allow any consideration to supersede his responsibility to reveal all that he can possibly discover concerning the mystery of the human being. Society must accept some things as real; but he must always know that visible reality hides a deeper one, and that all our action and achievement rest on things unseen. A society must assume that it is stable, but the artist must know, and he must let us know, that there is nothing stable under heaven. One cannot possibly build a school, teach a child, or drive a car without taking some things for granted. The artist cannot and must not take anything for granted, but must drive to the heart of every answer and expose the question the answer hides.”
Landscapes in the time of COVID
The tree. The flowering tree no longer has flowers. The tree towers above a three story red brick building. It’s leaves are pointed and shiny dark green.
The sun. I face east as the sun is in the west. Still it shines reflecting incongruous gold.
The chair. I sit against the red brick wall on rusted pink metal. Breathing the hot damp air.
Today. Another day. Today.
Notes from the Insomniac’s Diary in the Time of COVID
A small note of solidarity to my Sisters of the Night as I see you here at 2:15 a.m. Those ones who know no good comes from still being awake ‘cause we have so much stuff to do in the morning. Those who hear the 2 a.m. birds in the alley singing some crazy jazz. Those who are concentrating on poetry and recipes and just can’t make sleep be a visitor. Especially now that sleep needs to stand six feet away and wear a mask. Those who revel in the silence. Those who hear the last truck lumbering down the street. Those who close their eyes to block out these words. Yes. Small quiet notes like the alley bird at 2 a.m. telling us about our hearts in a language sleepers do not understand.
On the eve of International Women’s Day 2020. I ask: What will it take, my brothers?
If I smile like you command me to do as I walk down the street not minding your business. If I say nothing when you take my wisdom as you own. If I wear my hair that way. If I lose ten pounds. If I bend my back to be shorter than you. If I carry the baby inside my own body you have abandoned. If I pretend you didn’t lie. If I don’t protest when you put your name on the words I wrote. If I don’t call it rape. If I let you take credit for the idea. If I don’t call myself a feminist. If I am sick but hide it from you to not inconvenience you. If I try not to be assertive. If I do your work but not make your money. If I have no ambition other than to be your girl. If I only vote for your candidates. If I am not smarter than you. If I’m a good sport. If I stop running for President. If I hide my breasts. If I show my breasts. If I ignore your ignorance. If I act like one of the boys. If I would just lower my voice. If I only take care of you. If I sit quietly in the back. If I just laugh at your jokes because you were just joking. If I do your laundry. If I understand it’s all my fault. If I would just shut the f#%k up.
For International Women’s Day and every day: I say No. No, women will not shut up. We will never shut up. Our voices are high and loud. Our voices are shrill and beautiful. Our voices are the thunder before the storm.