photograph of flower & bee by Abe Green

 

THE OPEN ROAD

peace, love, happiness & understanding

December 5, 2024

 

Jill Littlewood sent this:

 

Gate A-4

 

Wandering around the Albuquerque Airport Terminal, after learning
my flight had been delayed four hours, I heard an announcement:
“If anyone in the vicinity of Gate A-4 understands any Arabic, please
come to the gate immediately.”

Well—one pauses these days. Gate A-4 was my own gate. I went there.

An older woman in full traditional Palestinian embroidered dress, just
like my grandma wore, was crumpled to the floor, wailing. “Help,”
said the flight agent. “Talk to her. What is her problem? We
told her the flight was going to be late and she did this.”

I stooped to put my arm around the woman and spoke haltingly.
“Shu-dow-a, Shu-bid-uck Habibti? Stani schway, Min fadlick, Shu-bit-
se-wee?” The minute she heard any words she knew, however poorly
used, she stopped crying. She thought the flight had been cancelled
entirely. She needed to be in El Paso for major medical treatment the
next day. I said, “No, we’re fine, you’ll get there, just later, who is
picking you up? Let’s call him.”

We called her son, I spoke with him in English. I told him I would
stay with his mother till we got on the plane and ride next to
her. She talked to him. Then we called her other sons just
for the fun of it. Then we called my dad and he and she spoke for a while
in Arabic and found out of course they had ten shared friends. Then I
thought just for the heck of it why not call some Palestinian poets I know
and let them chat with her? This all took up two hours.

She was laughing a lot by then. Telling of her life, patting my knee,
answering questions. She had pulled a sack of homemade mamool
cookies—little powdered sugar crumbly mounds stuffed with dates and
nuts—from her bag—and was offering them to all the women at the gate.
To my amazement, not a single woman declined one. It was like a
sacrament. The traveler from Argentina, the mom from California, the
lovely woman from Laredo—we were all covered with the same powdered
sugar. And smiling. There is no better cookie.

And then the airline broke out free apple juice from huge coolers and two
little girls from our flight ran around serving it and they
were covered with powdered sugar, too. And I noticed my new best friend—
by now we were holding hands—had a potted plant poking out of her bag,
some medicinal thing, with green furry leaves. Such an old country tradi-
tion. Always carry a plant. Always stay rooted to somewhere.

And I looked around that gate of late and weary ones and I thought, This
is the world I want to live in. The shared world. Not a single person in that
gate—once the crying of confusion stopped—seemed apprehensive about
any other person. They took the cookies. I wanted to hug all those other women, too.

This can still happen anywhere. Not everything is lost.

 

—Naomi Shihab Nye

*

 

Miracles

 

Why, who makes much of a miracle?

As to me I know of nothing else but miracles,

Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,

Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,

Or wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge of the water,

Or stand under trees in the woods,

Or talk by day with any one I love, or sleep in the bed at night with any one I love,

Or sit at table at dinner with the rest,

Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car,

Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive of a summer forenoon,

Or animals feeding in the fields,

Or birds, or the wonderfulness of insects in the air,

Or the wonderfulness of the sundown, or of stars shining so quiet and bright,

Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon in spring;

These with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles,

The whole referring, yet each distinct and in its place.

To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,

Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,

Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the same,

Every foot of the interior swarms with the same.

To me the sea is a continual miracle,

The fishes that swim—the rocks—the motion of the waves—the ships with men in them,

What stranger miracles are there?

 

—Walt Whitman

*

 

On November 23rd, I gave a reading of my version of Dostoevsky’s short story, “The Dream of a Ridiculous Man” at Taborspace in Portland. You can find the text in Issue #63 of “peace, love, happiness & understanding,” (December 23, 2021), on the Open Road website (https://openroadpdx.com/event/peace-love-happiness-understanding-12-23-21/). In the story, a guy dreams that he goes to a planet where there is no hatred, or violence or fear. When he wakes up, he wants to tell everyone that we can all live together in love.

When I first read that story, long ago, I realized that I too am a ridiculous man. To prove it, here’s a brief excerpt from my journal entry from yesterday:

 

isn’t there enough suffering in the world, without having wars?….

why do we have wars?

they’re not helping anything

war is the opposite of culture that nurtures

the culture of war produces suffering and death

how much money does the united states spend on the military and on weapons every year?

i don’t know

a lot

even a little would be too much

we should be helping each other

not hurting each other

isn’t this obvious?

we should be loving

not hating

loving everyone

all people and plants and animals and rivers and clouds and dirt

that’s what i want to promote:

love for every being and for every good thing

no thank you to hatred and violence and fear

 

—Johnny Stallings

*

Remember?

 

Remember that day

When the war ended

And you climbed from your trenches

And we oozed from our bunkers

Leaving guns and grenades

Bullets and bayonets behind?

 

Remember how we sang in the streets

Danced in the fountains

Crazy with Joy?

Remember how clouds lifted, hearts rose

Vengeance, bitterness, hatred and rage

Fell away like graveclothes?

 

Remember how we stood

Tall and happy

In the morning light

Eyeing the world

And one another

With new eyes?

 

Remember

How in that ecstasy

We forgot

If ours was a blue state or red

Liberal cause or conservative stand?

 

Remember

How easily we remembered

Who we were

From where we had come

Why we were here

Where we were going

And what we should do?

 

I will never forget that day

When the war ended

And trust sprouted and spread

Like a sea of green grass

Across every divide, covering every division

Uniting all into one state of grace

Indivisible, at peace

Under heaven.

 

—Will Hornyak, from This Altar of Earth and Sky

*

 

Canary in the Mind

 

If you descend to sorrow, take a little singer

to carry through the dark some color of he sun.

Tunneling through trouble, guard your little light,

shield your little singer for the good of everyone.

If your singer falters, if your mind grows dim,

If your breath grows shallow, if your days are grim,

feed your little singer seeds of hope again.

In the cave of grief, with every breath begin.

 

—“Canary in the Mind” is reprinted from As the Sky Begins to Change (Red Hen Press, 2024) by permission of Kim Stafford

*

 

Repeat the Sounding Joy

 

The camellias know

as do creatures

moving in piled

leaf litter, chaff.

 

Under yet unfallen snow

branches threatened by ice

plodders do their work,

distracted we laugh.

 

The hills remember

as do streams

fish swim on up

wriggling into our dreams.

 

Rumble underfoot

in the sky, repeat the story

throughout this land

sunrise brings glory

 

If we notice

as we stand.

 

—Elizabeth Domike

*

 

I’ve been listening each night to two owls who must have decided to stay in the neighborhood for the winter. Owls don’t migrate but they do move around some and often return or remain in a familiar woods. When they Who Hoot, I think of the squirrels and little rodents who are also trying to stay alive in the cold. But i do love their voices and am glad to have enough woodsy life to have them make a home here too. They make many of us beings pay attention. Here’s a poem by Mary Oliver: 

 

Snowy Night

 

Last night, an owl

in the blue dark

tossed an indeterminate number

of carefully shaped sounds into

the world, in which,

a quarter of a mile away, I happened

to be standing.

I couldn’t tell

which one it was –

the barred or the great-horned

ship of the air –

it was that distant. But, anyway,

aren’t there moments

that are better than knowing something,

and sweeter? Snow was falling,

so much like stars

filling the dark trees

that one could easily imagine

its reason for being was nothing more

than prettiness. I suppose

if this were someone else’s story

they would have insisted on knowing

whatever is knowable – would have hurried

over the fields

to name it – the owl, I mean.

But it’s mine, this poem of the night,

and I just stood there, listening and holding out

my hands to the soft glitter

falling through the air. I love this world,

but not for its answers.

And I wish good luck to the owl,

whatever its name –

and I wish great welcome to the snow,

whatever its severe and comfortless

and beautiful meaning.   

 

—Mary Oliver

 

—Katie Radditz

*

 

November 5, 2024. A day of reckoning. What was I ever going to do from this point on??? This is what I have been examining all month long, and this is what I have concluded: There are three realms in my life (and in others’).

First is my personal realm. That includes family, friends, nature, activities and situations I can manage, maintain, help, change. I made a list of those:

1. I can donate blood (done! donation #175 since I was 18)
2. I can complete my training as a hospice volunteer in the Gorge (done! Waiting for assignment.)
3. I can volunteer to walk dogs at the Hood River Adopt A Dog shelter. (Not done. We went a leap beyond and adopted a dog!) (She’s a work in progress. Progress, not perfection)
4. I can make a lunch/update date with my several ‘kids’ I’ve known for 30 years from our Youth-At-Risk program. (planning stage.)
5. I can DOUBLE my donations to favorite organizations (Planned Parenthood, Nature Conservancy, Doctors without Borders, OHOM, etc.)

Making this list and carrying through with it at least gives me peace of mind, happiness, and a sense of control.

Second is the national/country realm. That includes national politics, Trump, media, environment/climate change, et.al. ad nauseam. This is heartbreaking and infuriating, and, honestly, there is not a lot I can do to change or control this second realm. I will leave it at that.

Third and last is the universal/cosmic/infinite realm. Paradoxically, this is comforting; I am a speck, the height of insignificance, nada in the infinite time and space dimension, so nothing really matters in this universal realm. I am here, I will be gone, in no time it will be as if I never existed. Live my joy of life, do my best in my personal realm and…let the rest go.

The three realms. Amen.

 

—Jude Russell