Watermark

Thanksgiving 2020

 

            thanksgiving 

                    so many 

                    empty chairs

 

****

Snapshot Poem 12 November 2020

 

Tuesday we woke 

to high lines 

of snow along 

the birch limbs 

out our bedroom 

window. 

 

Two days later

snow has congealed 

to slush balls 

that fall 

to the ground 

with thuds. 

 

Frost shadows 

rest across grass 

and asphalt. Sky 

changes mood 

from fog 

to blue. 

 

They are counting 

votes again 

in Arizona. 

They will 

count again 

elsewhere. 

 

The country’s 

mood changes 

from slush 

to thud 

to fog 

to blue. 

    

HALLOWEEN 2020

Anger

I am angry. 

I was taught that anger is a secondary emotion. What is primary?

Sadness, helplessness, fear. Grief. 

Rage.

I was a believer. I believed in the American Dream, as a goal, as a destination. I fought for it, in my way. Some on the street, in demonstrations, but mostly in the therapy room. In the group room, the conference room, the interview room. The classroom, the lecture room, at the dinner table and in staff meetings. In living rooms with family and friends. In the bedroom. 

I believed that others believed, even as we struggled. 

Now I doubt. Not the principles, but the citizens. My faith in my country, in its citizens, fades. I remember reading something like: fascism will arrive in America on a cross wrapped in a flag.* And so it seems. Those who claim the highest ground, seek the lowest. 

So I grieve, not only countless (uncounted) deaths, but the loss, the murder, of ideals. 

And I am tired. 

 

* An internet search tells me that this quote, ascribed to many, has never been clearly attributed. 

300,000

I follow these numbers with dread. Why do I follow them? It feels like a duty, an obligation. The only way I know to acknowledge these deaths, of people I have not met, people I have not loved. Funerals I will not attend, and mostly, funerals that will not occur for many months. 

Today the official COVID death toll in the United States is 225,ooo. Other estimates bring that number up to 300,000:

Now, in the most updated count to date, researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have found that nearly 300,000 more people in the United States died from late January to early October this year compared the average number of people who died in recent years. Just two-thirds of those deaths were counted as Covid-19 fatalities, highlighting how the official U.S. death count — now standing at about 220,000 — is not fully inclusive.

I am one of millions staying-at-home, otherwise masked, aware of my particular vulnerabilities. Aware of the vulnerabilities of many others in my life. We mask to protect each other, and hope others will mask to protect us. 

I am of a generation that was naive, patriotic, attached to nostalgia for what never was. Now we mourn the loss of what we thought was real, the American (United States of American) commitment to equality, possibility, responsibility, and community. We thought if we promised to be good, that would be good enough. Somehow we convinced ourselves that if we believed in equal opportunity, equal respect, equal value for all, it would make it true. 

Now we confront the actuality of our citizenship. Now we see (or try not to see) the suffering of our neighbors; suffering we benefit from, suffering we participate in, willingly or not. Now we see the bigotry in our families, in the generations before us, in our cousins and siblings, and in ourselves. We learn about The Talk, if we have refused to learn it before. 

And now we must talk to ourselves: stay home, because your neighbors will not, do not, sometimes cannot. Mask up, and recognize that some of your neighbors will not. Learn to value the lives of others, as you have learned to value your own. 

Struggle to forgive others for saying these beings, and those beings, and you – matter less. Or matter not at all. 

Struggle to forgive yourself, while still holding yourself, and your neighbors, accountable. 

I am struggling.

Talking to Myself

I know that we should all be writing as we live through, experience, this historical time. Historians will write these stories, and we don't know what those stories will say. As Bill Barr points out, history is written by the winners. 

We, those millions of us just trying to get through history, are not, are unlikely to be, the winners. Those of us who keep diaries, or journals, or write poems or emails or actual letters to those we care for, will provide, perhaps, an alternative to official histories. These private notes are important. They are the grist, the truth, of our era. 

Yet I resist my own, small, obligation. I pick up my mostly blank journal, and set it down again. I make notes in a poetry class, put them aside, and do not pick them up again. 

These small notes are my attempt to begin again. It seems that I can use my own art journal pages as writing prompts. When words stick in my brain, in my heart, sometimes images are able to leak out onto a page. And sometimes those images give me a direction for words. 

This is day five. 

220,000

 

I continue to be word-struck. What can be said?

The more accurate estimates, based on "excess deaths" over expected, based on previous years, is 300,000. Excess deaths, of what seem to be extra people. Old people, sick people. Black/brown people.

Those of us who count mostly, only, in big numbers, numbers that bury us in an avalanche of numerals. None of us is unique, is memorable, is worth the inconvenience of salvaging. 

  

 

#IAmAntifa

I did this for a Facebook challenge from Annabel Ascher:

"Please repost this with your own photo and bio, including your reasons for being anti-fascist. If enough people do it should change the narrative! Let's not let these people paint anti-fascism the way they are!"

Since I am a digital art journaler, I decided to do mine in my own way. Elements are from Little Butterfly Wings, Sahin Designs, Tangie Baxter, and Vicki Robinson. The Statue of Liberty images are from the web.

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Pandemic Art

I'm having a hard time with words these days, finding them, believing them, writing them. Instead I am making digital collages again. This is my Pandemic set: