Ain’t I a woman? and The Real Good poems

At our creative writing group today we were asked to bring in poems and there was a surprising mixture but really enjoyable.  Here are two, hope you enjoy them.
 A poem from Sojourner Truth's most famous speech (Ain't I A Woman? by Sojourner Truth Delivered in 1851 at the Women's Convention in Akron, Ohio), adapted into poetic form by Erlene Stetson.  Sojourner Truth was born a black female slave in 1797 and yet her words are so powerful it takes you by surprise.

Ain’t I a woman?

That man over there say
     a woman needs to be helped into carriages
and lifted over ditches
     and to have the best place everywhere.
Nobody ever helped me into carriages
   or over mud puddles
      or gives me a best place. . .

And ain't I a woman?
     Look at me
Look at my arm!
     I have plowed and planted
and gathered into barns
     and no man could head me. . .
And ain't I a woman?
   I could work as much
and eat as much as a man--
   when I could get to it--
and bear the lash as well
   and ain't I a woman?
I have born 13 children
     and seen most all sold into slavery
and when I cried out a mother's grief
     none but Jesus heard me. . .
and ain't I a woman?
     that little man in black there say
a woman can't have as much rights as a man
     cause Christ wasn't a woman
Where did your Christ come from?
     From God and a woman!
Man had nothing to do with him!
     If the first woman God ever made
was strong enough to turn the world
     upside down, all alone
together women ought to be able to turn it
     rightside up again.

The second poem below was just a feel good one that had heads nodding all around the room.
   
The Real Good
John Boyle O'Reilly 
         
 "What is the real good?"
I ask in a musing mood.

"Order," said the law court;
"Knowledge," said the school;
"Truth," said the wise man;
"Pleasure," said the fool;
"Love," said the maiden;
"Beauty," said the page;
"Freedom," said the dreamer;
"Home," said the sage;
"Fame," said the soldier;
"Equity," said the seer.
Spake my heart fully sad:
"The answer is not here."

Then within my bosom,
Softly this I heard:
"Each heart holds the secret:
'Kindness' is the word."

Irish temper in Greece

Found a huge pile of faxes sent by me from Greece when we lived there - here's a typical entry - let me know if this is scraping the bottom of the barrel and better left unspoken.

“My son is on his sixth week of a teacher’s strike and can scarcely believe his luck.  He’s convinced it is divine intervention.  He was on his way to school and had not done any of his homework and was beseeching God for help.  Can you imagine his reaction when he arrived to find the school gates chained with a sign saying the teachers were all on strike!  Six weeks later he is keeping his prayers going and is looking really smug and happy with himself.  I get the impression he is hoping this strike will last at least a year or perhaps even a life time. 

Having an Irish temper really works in Greece.  My English neighbour is periodically bullied by our high pitched shouting Greek neighbour who instructs him where to put our plants on the shared stairwell.   Over here she’ll tell him with loud protests and then make him move it again the next week.  I grew weary of it all and her blatant unreasonableness.  So one morning as I left the flat and she started lecturing him on plant positioning I told her roughly in Greek “Ase me!”  (rough translation –“leave me alone”)  That was it, end of story – no more lectures.  That is the weird thing about losing your temper here in Greece, it works so well.  It is as if there was a constant need to draw a line in the sand and say step over that and I’ll head butt you.  If you don’t then your private space is gradually eroded day by day.  Survival skills are always useful in every culture but I do worry that as a person I am developing the worst, rather than the best in me?”

Did you survive school unscarred?

From an old fax sent to home from Rhodes, Greece.  Apologies to any mistakes in my grammar – how I ended up teaching English with my spelling I never really understood.


Only lost my temper once today, while teaching.  One boy could not understand the difference between gradable and ungradable adjectives.  I explained quite clearly, I thought, “If I say you are a very stupid boy, or not very handsome, or a little foolish, these are all gradable.  But, if I call your English incomprehensible, unspeakable, ghastly there is no need to grade these words so they are ungradable.”  It was a lovely opportunity to insult him.  What a dastardly teacher I am.  Speaking of teachers, Daniel had a run in with his teacher in primary school here in Greece.  She called me in to see her as Daniel had snatched his book back from her last week.  In punishment she had decided to ignore him completely in the class for three days, even when he put his hand up.  Now, she wanted to talk to me because Daniel did not seem at all bothered about being ignored.  He hadn’t even told me!  Anyway, she said she’d been very upset all weekend and wanted Daniel to apologise.  I spoke to him and he was devastated he’d hurt her feelings and cried in his bedroom.  He apologised and she kissed him.  Imagine a teacher not speaking, sulking for three days.  It is almost as bad as using the English language to insult annoying students.   My question is how do any of us survive school unscarred?

What Am I?

Starting the adventure full of fire
Seeing so much to do, veins pumping
Brain fizzing with possibilities
Then middle-aged asking where the years have gone
Ironing and folding, washing and tidying away all mess
Cooking and buying, stuff that will need more cleaning and work
A cycle of endeavour that no one really appreciates
Perhaps they’d notice if it were not done
But ordering in is easily done and disorder becomes the norm
So what is this all for?
A treadmill that began when tiny bodies arrived dependent and helpless

An ocean of love demanded that all their needs be met
A moment’s hesitation could cost their life
The roads, the knives, the scalding cups
And not just this
A sudden urge to give to them something of worth
From all life’s experiences, books, films, religions, great thinkers, science, philosophy
Cherry pick and feed them the morsels of the best
And not just this
Knowing that it is deeds not words that they really learn from
Fighting to be a better example
An inward struggle not to be selfish, mean spirited, fearful, despondent, negative and far from the light
Knowing that all the while that along with the morsels of goodness
They are also consuming great drafts of polluted us
Choking on the grit of our failings

Then dawns the day for which you struggled, worked and prayed
An independent soul steps out towards the light
Sometimes you see echoes of yourself, a gesture, a laugh
But it is just a faint shadow because they are so much better and brighter than you dreamed possible
And from that place in the sun they can look back and see the darkness of us
Our failings, faults and fumblings
Suddenly feeble, lost with no parent’s authority to clothe ourselves
Watching the ceaseless tasks we fill our days with
Wondering why we chose this
And you want to tell them it was all because of love
Every day the joy of those you love
Laughing, living, being
Out of that, a routine was born and even now when all stand before me independent
Strong and capable
I continue as before
What am I to do?
For so long this was the pattern of my life
Don’t judge me
I must find a new path but am just a little lost

You see you no longer need me and that need has fuelled the last quarter century of my life
Now I clean and iron and cook and wonder what am I?
No longer what I was, but not sure what lies ahead
Fearful, lacking confidence, older, forgetful and trying to find myself anew
Stumbling forward hoping to find direction

Trying to let go and trust
Suddenly, looking inward and within
Scrambling to find self worth to cling to
It’s difficult with all this flab
But somewhere in this half century of life’s battlefield
I have learned to be grateful for this ocean of love and am
Willing myself to end the adventure full of fire with so much to do.

What a love story - in the real sense of the word

Loved this true story from Youtube - they just blow me away with their sweetness and words.  Hope you enjoy it.

Thanks

I must learn gratitude
must learn to thank God
to really really thank God
for all that life has brought
the laughter, the tears, the gains
and the losses
for all the emotions
for all the experiences
They breath life into each day
fill each moment with potentialities
and even in my darkest hours
they speak of love and hope
I know too why we must not judge each other
for no one knows one's own end
everything that has not been
achieved can in an instant be gained
Even if that second is the very last
granted on this earth
Likewise all that you think you are
can be undone in a second's mindlessness
So judge no one
look to your own field
make every endeavour
for none of us know
when this race ends
We are on different tracks
and on different terrain
Sometimes the slopes are steep on our path
while others are coasting downhill
Envy saps our precious energy
keep our eyes on the finishing line
look up, look up, there's money bid for you yet.

Pain - a path of Grace or a damaged zone?

There are times when emotions must be allowed to run where they will.  By refusing to allow them free reign it just creates a dangerous build up of hurtful feelings behind a weak dam of self will.  Rather if they are allowed to trickle where they will, one does enter forbidden regions dark and loathsome but eventually sunshine shores are discovered around unexpected corners.  The damage that is done by clinging to emotions is that long after the event, flooding has wrought havoc through previously healthy regions.  The resulting clean up inside, can take the rest of one’s life and even then not be successful.  The preoccupation with damage control will not sanction the healthy regrowth of natural emotional undergrowth.

To see a future, some hope, some way out is so important and yet during a stage of grief there is no such light.  Tears come and go yet strangely little relief.  The relief that does come is usually mostly self- pity or some other self indulgence and as such is leading nowhere good.

Time will usher you from one form of grief to another and the progress is personal, not to be forced, not to be slowed.  Those you love can sometimes act as a bridge over deep chasms that would slow progress or vice-a-versa lose you much ground.  These are acceptable risks, life without love is much too pointless and these advances and setbacks should be accepted with as much grace as possible.  It is strange that in moments of pain, loss, anger, and resentment it is then that one’s resources of what I can only call grace are at their peak.  Grace, those moments when a transcending emotion takes hold and lifts one above normal human limits into a different plane altogether.  From this plane one gets a glimpse of the purpose of all these degrees of pain, a vision of the path that is the river of your life and a sense of rightness amidst all that has seemed so wrong.