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I Heard In the Midst of Noises
I heard in the midst of noises,
In the midst of children’s cries,
How the heart is full of secrets,
And the heard is full of lies;
And out of the sea of voices,
Out of the earth like an ear,
Thoughts underground, like a river;
Blood, like a migrating star.
I fear the bitter harvest,
My fellow good man, my past,
Feel gods among my sorrows
And beasts upon my path;
The sun is dying in the sky,
The moon has come to dust,
And in the Milky Way the mind
Is dipped, the heart is lost.
A holocaust of children
Whose hunger goes unheard,
Martyred in millions,
Murdered, massacred!
Like raindrops in the desert
Our tears do them no good;
The shadow of the planet
Longs through their latitude.
I know that in a flower lies
Some violence and some bliss,
That love’s half-blind, half-naked eye,
Hides teeth behind each kiss
And passions all go up in smoke,
Grief grafted leaf to vine:
O I have touched the snake that spoke
And bruised the grape to wine!!
-Edward P. Fisher, Africa 1970
If I Could Send A Grief To God
If I could send a grief to God,
A wing to mend, wrapt in a leaf;
Heart-broken halves, unspoken fears,
The cares that waste away the years...
From nowhere in the upper air
Trespassers of the light escape
Beyond all words, death’s whispered shape,
Held breaths go mouthing cloud-bound prayers—
The Shadow of some hidden hand
Makes motherless this no man’s land
Corrupts the world with shameless lies,
Gives homelessness its nameless eyes,
And wages a genocidal war
Against innocent and poor
The lonely, scorned and orphaned child--
Life without hope, debased, defiled.
Our destiny made manifest:
The gentle races dispossessed,
And self-destruction’s marketplace
Lends suffering a human face.
Be it forever here resolved:
Return with mercy, work and love,
And justice in the bargain prove;
Let us yet learn how to forgive!
If I could send a grief to God:
Psalm on the wind, beyond a yawn;
Dawn in the garden gone to seed,
Last song of lost love wished upon.....
Below my lattice spills the moon,
Shadowy strangers fill my room;
To fall so fear, so fast asleep
Without a star, so dark, so deep.....
God sends me sight and sounds by day
And dreams by night to light my way
Through darkness, while the whole world sleeps;
I pray Godspeed and keep you safe
-Edward P. Fisher, Fall 1979
A hurricane passes
A hurricane passes, far to the south
An abstraction, perhaps,
seen as an orange wisp of the will
on the weather channel
Felix, the cat?
But bodies, forests are flailed
Inundated
Those with little land, born to debt
Buried in the unexpected landslide
Tillable soil turned to gravel
We will help, cry the people in the North!
One or two journey to the region
To scrabble with their bare hands
Others write checks, and pray where they stand
While their leather-gloved government holds firm to the steel wires
That hold their victims in the abject position
As if Splayed out in a field,
Limbs tied to posts driven into the Earth
Where sun and rain can wear down the flesh
And the will to resist
A hurricane passes, far to the south
Will the once virgin forest pacify the beast?
Or will the desperate charcoal makers be buried
Under their bare-hilled patrimony?
A hurricane passes, Lord, please declare the
Year of Jubilee
Let the slaves go free! Let loggers become tree planters.
-Stephen Bartlett
Untitled, A Fasting Poem
Ugly
Draws the face of
Hunger, driven down by
Debt, ridden under banners of
Banker
Nations'
Mandating, "All
Debts due must show stamped, 'Paid!'"
Ridden under banners flying,
"System's
"Built On
Trust" -- baptized myth
Of the obese -- Ugly
Draws the face, all of which dates man --
Mandates!
"Tis more
Blessed to give
Than to receive," mandates
The "turn-around" trust. Notice that,
"To give,"
Comes first,
Predicating,
"Forgive" (in case debtors
"Gave" for a return -- convenient
Memories?)
"Forgive
Debtors," earns grace
For criditors; grace empowers
Giving -- "the playing field leveled" --
Street talk!
Means what
Bankers ... church folk
Call, Reconciliation" --
"A mutual exchange of values;"
Dates man.
Beauty
Draws the face of
Creditors forgiving
Debts, droping human hunger out:
Mandate!
-Rev. Roger W. Verley, HR
Cast in the Cinquain form; invented by Adelaide Crapsey, of upstate
NY, died in her late 30's, daughter of an Episcopal clergyman defrocked
for his liberal views; only poetic form invented by an American who
thought the Cinquain best represented the pattern of everyday American
speech; comprises 5 lines of 2,4,6,8,2 syllables, either stressed or
unstressed.
A Life on Hold
I am Anger.
The sun beats hot, too hot to play.
So I sit in a hut
Each and every day.
I have little food.
My tummy goes brum, brum, brum.
If I weren’t so hungry, I’d laugh at that
Grumble and rumble to the beat of a drum.
A Rolling Fast in the USA
I hope will attract attention
To the strife of my day.
Please remember me.
I have no house, no mouse, no fox or box.
At night I dream of a place somewhere
For children to live beyond the nightmare.
For a chance to grow and some day read
A tale about a monkey in a tree
Who learns that it’s better to give than to receive.
-Ann Piasecki, Directing Communications,
JPIC Office of the Wheaton Franciscans
 - October 2007: Rev. David Duncombe in front of the U.S. Capitol
Blossom
In those Senate rooms,
high ceilinged, guilded,
where legislative aides
met Jubilee teams,
I saw something flower.
Words launched each talk
and minds grasped facts,
crafting outlines
of staggering global debt and
life-sapping poverty
which our U.S. wealth and
our congressional votes
could erase.
Then, in time,
when quiet fell
to this ground of words, well sown,
something different grew.
Softly,
in voice slurred by
one month’s starvation
and swelled by
long-lived commitment
David spoke
of hunger,
and compassion.
The whole room dropped then
from mind
into heart and gut,
joining them,
joining every thing and one.
As this happened,
division first suggested
by power suits and
job bravado
became meaningless,
safe space assumed
between our well-fed selves
and those distant hungry
now impossible to maintain.
The yogis say that
when mind and body join,
then spirit can fly in.
We all sat in that place, then,
shown us by Jesus,
shown us by shamans,
witness to faith in the
humble power of the lotus blossom
to send shoots through dark water,
connecting mud to light.
-Betsy Duncombe, October 2007
I Watched the News Today...
I watched the news today
and wondered if God had gone to play
I watched the bully win
and asked God if he was out or in
I heard my neighbors scream
and wondered if God turned mean
I read about the starving child
and wondered why war waged wild
I saw a man die of AIDS
and asked God if he had gone away
Then on my knees I fell and wept
and God whispered into my depths…
I hear the hungry children weep
Go and feed them; be my feet
I know the bullied girls and boys
Go seek justice; be my voice
I see the sick across the land
Go and help them; be my hands
I listen to the poor one’s prayers
Go and answer; be my ears
Then to my feet I rose again,
rolled up my sleeves, dirtied my hands
-Annette L. Garber
Untitled
I fasted today
Wasn’t really a plan
Got out of bed late
Body stiff and sore
Ran off to catch the bus
Left the food on the table
My mother nags me:
“You’re too skinny”
My grandmother always asks
“Have you eaten today?”
As if at 20-years-old
I still can’t feed myself
It’s the problem of the suburbs
People that have never gone hungry
Can’t possibly understand
Even when they see pictures
Of an African boy’s ribcage
Poking out of his pockmarked flesh
Until you’ve felt the pangs
You just don’t get it
Hunger cuts like a blunt knife
There’s nothing worse on earth—
So stab me before you starve me
Fill my gut with food—or with lead
But don’t ask if I have eaten.
Matt Lewis
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