Do not point your gun at a child
Do not point your gun at a child
Once you were a child too,
And your father must have carried you
On his shoulders, from where
You could look the grown-ups in the eyes.
Do not point your gun at a child
Who holds in her hand a bag of crisps—
Food her only weapon, her father’s shoulders
The only vantage point for this world
That burns in flames before her.
People have come to ask for dignity,
This girl must learn it is safe to ask
For a better life, do not point your gun at her.
Once you were a child too
And your father must have carried you
On his shoulders, from where
You could see the world you will live in:
Do not point your gun at this girl
Do not point your gun at her father,
Take off your helmet and look in their eyes
There is a love of life in them you can only see
If you do not point your gun at this girl,
Who is learning at a tender age that no man
Should kneel on the neck of another man,
That no one has the right to take another’s life.
June 1, 2020
Covid-19
Covid-19
Children are flowering
At the windows.
The blue butterfly
Gladdens the empty street.
Air and Music
Air and Music
Our lilac has bloomed.
All day long birds sing and call,
They are delicate and restless–
Letters hopping from word to word.
Words flee one language for another.
Poems arrive in the sleepless night.
Soon I will be fifty. I would have
Liked the world to be healthy.
I would have liked the chatter
Of friends in the garden,
Family to have flown in.
In my country peonies bloom.
May 15, 2020
Seamus Heaney on my first collection of poems
Crossing the Carpathians with you–for my mother
Crossing the Carpathians with you
for my mother
Mountains and us clothed
In soft white fog,
Suddenness of cliffs.
You and I carve walking sticks,
Bursts of sun dust
Thousands of yellow and violet flowers.
Red and white polka-dot
Mushrooms among trees,
Strong smell of ferns and cones.
Stones in pots on our backs
Warnings to black bears,
We gather forget-me-nots.
Distant curves
Of snow and peaks
In the white of the moon.
Shepherds’ rain fast and thin
We empty the boots of water,
A bear licks out pots.
I know what it means to go
Anywhere with you: you are
The moss on which I sleep.
From Lilies from America
Alba
Alba
For Alisa
Sculpting the marble block of time
This spring in the silent house,
Dreams of dear ones break the season
Into months filled with faces we wish
To hold in the palms of our hands–
Family and friends stranded other-where,
Memories of their laughter in our ears,
As Alba walks through the window.
*
But days crumble under the chisel.
Too much dust gathers while we await
Hope’s ministrations. Scattered, useless
Thoughts, a heavy sleepiness overtake us.
The robin in the cherry tree, cuckoo
Testing the bark, blue jay cawing by
The kitchen window; the dawn chorus
Is muted by the clamor in the head.
*
Alba walks over the sheets, blows
A kiss over the eyes that have not slept.
There is light in the corners, the spider blinks
In its net, the book spine is visible,
Here is a day rising from the block of time:
“Come,” says Alba, “see what you can find.”
My daughter sits on the threshold
Singing to the birds. She intones vowels,
Orioles send consonants back.
The hour fills with their song.
The House of Stone–for all the newlyweds in the time of Coronavirus
The House of Stone
In the village where I was born, we wish
A house of stone to shelter the heart of the marriage.
So here too, I wish you
Obstinate, strong love, unyielding and unending.
May you be in reach of each other when all seems lost,
May your tears and your smiles happen always face to face.
When you imagine that you have shared everything
May you know that you still have the rest of your lives
To do all of it again and again.
But now listen to the hurry of bells and
Look how petals of roses about the vineyard
Bring you the words, ‘husband’ and ‘wife’:
First words in your house of stone.
*This poem comes from my very first collection of poems, Crossing the Carpahians, and it was written for my friends Mark and Ella, on the occasion of their wedding in Adelaide. I still remember reading it in the vineyard at the ceremony.
Dr. Carmen Bugan--Poet, Scholar, Teacher 