October 6, 2010
My dear sister, Annette, asked me to pen a poem to be read at her funeral. It's not that she's dying--far from it as far as I know--she just wants to be prepared. This is actually two poems in one--she's special.
Dancing On the Grave
(A Song of Rejoicing
for the Funeral of my Sister, Annette Smith
written well before she moved on)
So you think this is a victory
because my vocal chords are silenced
and laughter no longer bounces off
my tongue through the gap in my teeth
that will fall to the floor of this box.
You think this is loss
because my hands are folded flat
and not clapping to the heartbeat
no longer beating
the song beat of a different heart.
Do you believe this is the end
because my lifeless limbs
don't sway in the Wind in the dust;
and the dust will devour my flesh,
and the Wind will blow it where it will?
This is just the beginning.
My arms now move
to a whole new groove.
I am one with the Wind
and the dust don't keep me down.
This is gain.
My hands are lifted high applauding
the one beat,
the only beat,
the eternal beat.
Ha! This is a victory.
Hear my song.
Annette's Song
The Lord has brought me through.
My God has made a way.
Jesus carried me.
Your Word lead me.
Your Spirit moved me.
Your Presence guided me.
And I lived my life in You.
And You lived Your life through me.
And we lived our life as one.
Before Your throne I kneel.
Before Your power I bow.
Before Your majesty I lay myself down.
In the company of all the saints, I lift my voice to You.
In the sight of all the angels, I sing Your praise.
In Your presence, I worship.
I worship Your name.
I adore Your name.
I love Your name.
And I have a new name.
And though I have always known Your name,
it is new.
YES!
YES!
YES!
Bless You Lord.
Bless You God.
Bless You Jesus.
Jesus.
Jesus.
Jesus.
Showing posts with label death. Show all posts
Showing posts with label death. Show all posts
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
To Everything There is a Season Suite
February 22, 2010
This started as an assignment in Creative Writing 238: take a cliche and give it fresh life. I had picked from the list "freezing to death" and wrote a poem. I liked it. I wanted to do more. So I dug out other seasonal cliches (or not so seasonal) and created a pastoral suite. The suite itself is cliche with my usual twists. From consummation and birth to the hereafter. Oh, how cliche.
Spring Has Sprung
Spring has sprung
in a bed of love
to the flow'ry bed
Spring has come.
Springs are sprung
in an upstream swarm,
a race to become
Sprung into one.
Spring has sprung
in a seed that's sown
to sprout and to grow,
Springing to one.
Spring! Sprung!
fountains of the deep
waters have broken—
Springing son.
Springs are sprung
on the hands of time
to the infant mind
Spring is one.
Dog Days
of summer moons
howlings
barkings
yippings and yappings
at silent sights and scents
of sniffing this and that
and the other
fresh smell
stale odor
butt hole
connoisseur of pooh
and all things aromatic
master of the olfactory
of humping legs
and pillows
and oversized teddy bears
anything with
fur and four legs
in heat
of pissing on trees
and fences and
grass and tires
whatever presents
itself as being worthy
of being pissed upon
for the pleasure of pissing
piss piss piss
of chasing after
cars
cats
tails
sticks and balls
tails
cats
cars
of laying about
with nothing but
to nip at fleas
snooze and dream
of summer moons
Leaves: Much To Be Desired
The crowns of the deciduous morph from green to brown in varying degrees and stages of gold, pumpkin, and rust, signaling the end of endless days, portending the approach of cold and frost. From a distance, the colors mix and blend: a panoramic landscape destined for desktops and calendars.
Dun branches and twigs clutch each changing leaf, holding it high until, fingers splayed, it lets go to reach for something higher.
Now they're scattered all over the lawn. They need to be raked and bagged. Even with gloves, blisters form before the first pile is crammed and compressed into thick brown paper bags. It's only natural to want to jump in.
Freezing To Death
…his breath
hung in the air
like a ghost.
The heavens likewise with stone gray expiration
entombed the barren countryside.
His arms
wrapped about his torso
like winding sheets.
Tree limbs creaked
like old bones
in the flurry.
His feet
buried in his boots,
frigid markers in the snow.
The ground experiencing the last stages of rigor
interred the pastoral setting for a seasonal eternity.
Hope Springs, Eternal
Better than Hot Springs, Eternal.
This started as an assignment in Creative Writing 238: take a cliche and give it fresh life. I had picked from the list "freezing to death" and wrote a poem. I liked it. I wanted to do more. So I dug out other seasonal cliches (or not so seasonal) and created a pastoral suite. The suite itself is cliche with my usual twists. From consummation and birth to the hereafter. Oh, how cliche.
Spring Has Sprung
Spring has sprung
in a bed of love
to the flow'ry bed
Spring has come.
Springs are sprung
in an upstream swarm,
a race to become
Sprung into one.
Spring has sprung
in a seed that's sown
to sprout and to grow,
Springing to one.
Spring! Sprung!
fountains of the deep
waters have broken—
Springing son.
Springs are sprung
on the hands of time
to the infant mind
Spring is one.
Dog Days
of summer moons
howlings
barkings
yippings and yappings
at silent sights and scents
of sniffing this and that
and the other
fresh smell
stale odor
butt hole
connoisseur of pooh
and all things aromatic
master of the olfactory
of humping legs
and pillows
and oversized teddy bears
anything with
fur and four legs
in heat
of pissing on trees
and fences and
grass and tires
whatever presents
itself as being worthy
of being pissed upon
for the pleasure of pissing
piss piss piss
of chasing after
cars
cats
tails
sticks and balls
tails
cats
cars
of laying about
with nothing but
to nip at fleas
snooze and dream
of summer moons
Leaves: Much To Be Desired
The crowns of the deciduous morph from green to brown in varying degrees and stages of gold, pumpkin, and rust, signaling the end of endless days, portending the approach of cold and frost. From a distance, the colors mix and blend: a panoramic landscape destined for desktops and calendars.
Dun branches and twigs clutch each changing leaf, holding it high until, fingers splayed, it lets go to reach for something higher.
Now they're scattered all over the lawn. They need to be raked and bagged. Even with gloves, blisters form before the first pile is crammed and compressed into thick brown paper bags. It's only natural to want to jump in.
Freezing To Death
…his breath
hung in the air
like a ghost.
The heavens likewise with stone gray expiration
entombed the barren countryside.
His arms
wrapped about his torso
like winding sheets.
Tree limbs creaked
like old bones
in the flurry.
His feet
buried in his boots,
frigid markers in the snow.
The ground experiencing the last stages of rigor
interred the pastoral setting for a seasonal eternity.
Hope Springs, Eternal
Better than Hot Springs, Eternal.
Friday, June 12, 2009
Addiction: Living Death
November 24, 2004
Not sure how this one slipped through the cracks. Couldn't find it in the folders it should have been in. Fortunately, I have a hard copy.
I am not now, nor ever have been, addicted to any narcotic or drug (except cigarettes, but I quit them). The poem is about a variety of addictions. Let's face it; our favorite sin is our addiction. The Bible tells us that sin is death. So while we are committed to sin, we are walking around dead. Check out Romans 8. I'm still trying to wrap my head around everything in that chapter.
Addiction: Living Death
Flies swarmed about his head
screaming curses in his ears.
Sickly sweet stench invaded his nostrils
like the impotent rage of a rapist.
Grainy blurred images
imprinted on fading brainwaves.
Caked eyelids clenched shut,
anal retentive against the light of day.
Collapsed and drying lungs
heaved and hacked breathless sighs.
Lukewarm mucous clogged the vocal cords
that may have spoken if they had something to say.
Internal organs oozed precious fluids
flooding the chest cavity.
Flesh clung to brittle bones
like an insecure lover.
Standing in the loosened waste of his bowels
his feet could not, would not move.
Not sure how this one slipped through the cracks. Couldn't find it in the folders it should have been in. Fortunately, I have a hard copy.
I am not now, nor ever have been, addicted to any narcotic or drug (except cigarettes, but I quit them). The poem is about a variety of addictions. Let's face it; our favorite sin is our addiction. The Bible tells us that sin is death. So while we are committed to sin, we are walking around dead. Check out Romans 8. I'm still trying to wrap my head around everything in that chapter.
Addiction: Living Death
Flies swarmed about his head
screaming curses in his ears.
Sickly sweet stench invaded his nostrils
like the impotent rage of a rapist.
Grainy blurred images
imprinted on fading brainwaves.
Caked eyelids clenched shut,
anal retentive against the light of day.
Collapsed and drying lungs
heaved and hacked breathless sighs.
Lukewarm mucous clogged the vocal cords
that may have spoken if they had something to say.
Internal organs oozed precious fluids
flooding the chest cavity.
Flesh clung to brittle bones
like an insecure lover.
Standing in the loosened waste of his bowels
his feet could not, would not move.
Saturday, May 16, 2009
The Leaning Tree
January 200?
I wrote this one night while cooking at the Waffle House. I wanted to have something to enter in the Post & Courier and South Carolina Arts Commission sponsored South Carolina Fiction Project and the deadline was only 2 days away. I wasn't able to work on it again until the day of the deadline. I spent all day editing and re-writing, managing to get it posted 5 minutes before the post office closed. I didn't win.
The Leaning Tree
He rode out on Purpose, the gray-white mare he’d left on the farm three years ago when he went away to school. The sun had already been up for an hour, hidden by a ceiling of slate gray clouds. Probably going to snow. His breath hung in the still air like a ghost. The only sound, the muffled crunch of snow under the horse’s hooves. Everyone in the house was still asleep. Spent. Unprepared for the effort of the past few days; stress they thought they had prepared for.
The horse sauntered through the farmyard; past the rusting F150; past the bare clothesline, tiny icicles dripping off the sagging lines; past the dog pens, now empty; through the already open gate to the woods on the other side of the field.
The sweet scent of pine caressed his nostrils like a friendly cat. Purpose gingerly picked her way along the deeply rutted two-track cut by Dad's Ford, the John Deere, and mother nature. The road wound and forked through the forty acres of forest that surrounded the main house and farmyard. He and his three older brothers, all of them moved away from home and starting their own families, had hunted deer and ‘coon and rabbit with their dogs out here. Large mounds of snow-covered branches and roots were scattered in clearings on either side of the road. Dad had said something about selling some of the trees to help pay Mom’s hospital bills.
A year and a half ago he had learned about his mother’s cancer. His first year at State had been more intense than he'd expected, but he kept to the books. Being the first to go to college made him push harder. Now with Mom gone it just doesn’t seem to matter anymore. Maybe I should just quit. Save time and money. Come home and help Dad.
The two-track rolled out to an open field. Brown and broken stalks poked up through the snow. The bleached gray slat barn was supposed to protect the aging John Deere from the weather, but little mounds of snow sat on top of the huge tires and seat. He had made some weak promises to his father to fix the roof. Animal tracks criss-crossed the whitened field like impatient doodles. A hawk circled over the far end, the future looking bleak for some rabbit or squirrel.
The cornfield butted against the apple orchard. Harvested fruit (the farm’s main source of income for over two generations) was now applesauce or cider vinegar. Large empty crates, stacked rank and file, stood around the perimeter of the orchard; a makeshift fortress. Smaller crates cluttered the orchard floor; some stacked two and three high near the trunks, others strewn about carelessly under the unprotecting canopy of the leafless trees. As a boy, he had learned hard work picking up drops. And he had watched as Mexican migrant workers worked even harder to pick the red ripe fruit for their few dollars; all seemingly content.
Leaving the fruitless trees, the land slowly sloped up. A small ridge—open, unplowed, and left to its own. Dried up Queen Anne’s Lace stabbed the snow here and there. Clumps of dead grasses not flattened by the snow peeked out at the world. A single maple tree stood at the top of the ridge. Three main trunks rose to form a wide canopy. The trunk to his left had been recently struck by lightning, its deadened limbs bent to the earth.
He slid from the saddle to the ground and let the reins drop.
When I was a kid I used to pack up peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, potato chips, and pop to eat out here.
I smoked my first...and last...cigar by this tree. I thought I was so cool, until I coughed my lungs out and puked my guts up.
My back was against this rough bark when Darlene first kissed me. A few weeks later we discovered more than a kiss under this tree.
My hunting dog, Bones, is buried right over there.
Mostly, I just came out here to watch the clouds slide by and the breeze blow the grass.
Yeah, this is where I made my decision to go to school upstate. Stayed out here until it got dark. Mom was so proud that I was going to college. Any college.
And in the shelter of naked branches, he leaned back and wept. For as long as it took, he wept and sobbed. Puffy snowflakes floated down to frozen earth. Wiping his chapped cheeks, he took the reins of Purpose and walked her home.
I wrote this one night while cooking at the Waffle House. I wanted to have something to enter in the Post & Courier and South Carolina Arts Commission sponsored South Carolina Fiction Project and the deadline was only 2 days away. I wasn't able to work on it again until the day of the deadline. I spent all day editing and re-writing, managing to get it posted 5 minutes before the post office closed. I didn't win.
He rode out on Purpose, the gray-white mare he’d left on the farm three years ago when he went away to school. The sun had already been up for an hour, hidden by a ceiling of slate gray clouds. Probably going to snow. His breath hung in the still air like a ghost. The only sound, the muffled crunch of snow under the horse’s hooves. Everyone in the house was still asleep. Spent. Unprepared for the effort of the past few days; stress they thought they had prepared for.
The horse sauntered through the farmyard; past the rusting F150; past the bare clothesline, tiny icicles dripping off the sagging lines; past the dog pens, now empty; through the already open gate to the woods on the other side of the field.
The sweet scent of pine caressed his nostrils like a friendly cat. Purpose gingerly picked her way along the deeply rutted two-track cut by Dad's Ford, the John Deere, and mother nature. The road wound and forked through the forty acres of forest that surrounded the main house and farmyard. He and his three older brothers, all of them moved away from home and starting their own families, had hunted deer and ‘coon and rabbit with their dogs out here. Large mounds of snow-covered branches and roots were scattered in clearings on either side of the road. Dad had said something about selling some of the trees to help pay Mom’s hospital bills.
A year and a half ago he had learned about his mother’s cancer. His first year at State had been more intense than he'd expected, but he kept to the books. Being the first to go to college made him push harder. Now with Mom gone it just doesn’t seem to matter anymore. Maybe I should just quit. Save time and money. Come home and help Dad.
The two-track rolled out to an open field. Brown and broken stalks poked up through the snow. The bleached gray slat barn was supposed to protect the aging John Deere from the weather, but little mounds of snow sat on top of the huge tires and seat. He had made some weak promises to his father to fix the roof. Animal tracks criss-crossed the whitened field like impatient doodles. A hawk circled over the far end, the future looking bleak for some rabbit or squirrel.
The cornfield butted against the apple orchard. Harvested fruit (the farm’s main source of income for over two generations) was now applesauce or cider vinegar. Large empty crates, stacked rank and file, stood around the perimeter of the orchard; a makeshift fortress. Smaller crates cluttered the orchard floor; some stacked two and three high near the trunks, others strewn about carelessly under the unprotecting canopy of the leafless trees. As a boy, he had learned hard work picking up drops. And he had watched as Mexican migrant workers worked even harder to pick the red ripe fruit for their few dollars; all seemingly content.
Leaving the fruitless trees, the land slowly sloped up. A small ridge—open, unplowed, and left to its own. Dried up Queen Anne’s Lace stabbed the snow here and there. Clumps of dead grasses not flattened by the snow peeked out at the world. A single maple tree stood at the top of the ridge. Three main trunks rose to form a wide canopy. The trunk to his left had been recently struck by lightning, its deadened limbs bent to the earth.
He slid from the saddle to the ground and let the reins drop.
When I was a kid I used to pack up peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, potato chips, and pop to eat out here.
I smoked my first...and last...cigar by this tree. I thought I was so cool, until I coughed my lungs out and puked my guts up.
My back was against this rough bark when Darlene first kissed me. A few weeks later we discovered more than a kiss under this tree.
My hunting dog, Bones, is buried right over there.
Mostly, I just came out here to watch the clouds slide by and the breeze blow the grass.
Yeah, this is where I made my decision to go to school upstate. Stayed out here until it got dark. Mom was so proud that I was going to college. Any college.
And in the shelter of naked branches, he leaned back and wept. For as long as it took, he wept and sobbed. Puffy snowflakes floated down to frozen earth. Wiping his chapped cheeks, he took the reins of Purpose and walked her home.
Monday, May 4, 2009
Turning Night Into Day
March 2009
Trident Technical College, Copyright ©2009
This was written as an assignment for my English Comp I class at Trident Technical College. My instructor suggested that I submit it to the new school student anthology.
The atrocities committed upon the Jewish peoples in the early twentieth century are widely known and well documented. Elie Wiesel is one voice among thousands declaring the inhumanity of those times upon his people and himself. At the impressionable age of 16, he suffered the loss of his father to starvation at the Buchenwald concentration camp, as well as the deaths of his mother and younger sister in the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp. Wiesel vowed to not speak for ten years of the torturous brutalities he and ten thousand other prisoners endured (Hurst and Pavlick). His silence ended when he penned Un di Velt Hot Geshvihn (And the World Was Silent), the original Yiddish version of Night in 1954 (McDonald and Trotter 506). Night asserts that what Elie Wiesel witnessed as a young teenager in the Auschwitz-Birkenau and Buchenwald camps was the numbing effect of constant brutality and the threat of individual annihilation upon social conscience and personal faith. What he also recorded, however, as seen through the refining lens of hindsight, was the glimmer of hope within his people and possible redemption pictured in shadowed Christian symbolism.
In one chapter from Wiesel's account, the prisoners of the death camp are so numbed to the indescribable brutality around them that they are not merely unconcerned bystanders, but have also become willing participants. Wiesel depicts this condition when he tells of a young prisoner from Warsaw who is to be hanged for the crime of stealing. As the verdict is being read and the condemned youth stands defiantly before his executioners, their ability to be affected as a whole is demonstrated in the whispered question of a prisoner named Juliek: “Do you think this ceremony'll be over soon? I'm hungry…” (Wiesel 507). During this grave moment, Juliek's regard is for the prisoners' only meal: soup. Soup is their life. It is their sole concern. Soup is the currency of life. To preserve their own life “Two prisoners helped […] for two plates of soup” (Wiesel 507). The other prisoners do not seem to mind that their fellows assist. It has been said that if you do not resist evil you assist it. This saying speaks of this moment as the prisoners are no longer merely observers but have become actively involved in their own genocide.
Wiesel, on the other hand, though “no longer troubled” by the “thousands who had died […] in the crematory ovens” (Wiesel 507), experiences a re-awakening, if only briefly, of the threat to his life individually. The sheer numbers of the atrocities committed behind the closed doors of the crematory are desensitizing. “But this one […] he overwhelmed me.” (Wiesel 507, emphasis added) Wiesel writes that as he stood watching the Warsaw youth: “I could hear my heart beating” (Wiesel 507, emphasis added). Wiesel's reaction to this single life and his awareness of his own evokes a scenario in which he appears to feel that “This is a person. A vibrant individual. Soon to die. I am an individual. Alive. Death, brutal death, is a very real threat to me.” But the reality did not last. The numbness settled back over him, for when he returns from the execution for the evening meal he “remember[s] that I found the soup excellent that evening…” (Wiesel 508). He is still alive.
Although there are other hangings, it is the shock of executing a young child that produces a spark of humanity within the prisoners; but Wiesel looks upon the scene and loses faith in his God. This hanging is different from the ones before. The crowd spurns participation. There are no prisoners helping this time. As the chairs of the condemned are tipped over, Wiesel states that there is “Total silence throughout the camp” (Wiesel 509). There is no discussion of soup. This dying boy, dying an agonizing death, is more than the group conscience can bear. They openly weep. The “forgotten […] bitter taste of tears” (Wiesel 508) is fresh on their tongues. Unlike the hanging of the defiant Warsaw youth, this hanging touches their hearts. Wiesel, conversely, sees in the horror of this slow, tormenting death of “the sad-eyed angel” (Wiesel 508) the death of his God. As the other other prisoners question where God is during this atrocity, Wiesel responds internally. “Where is He? […] He is hanging here on this gallows…” (Wiesel 509). He sees no other explanation for how this could be happening than that it is God himself being executed. And at the end of the day, even his life giving soup now “tasted of corpses” (Wiesel 509).
God hanging on a gallows. Wiesel himself may not have intended to use Christian symbolism to show the possibility of hope for the prisoners, but a powerful picture of redemption can be seen in the second execution. Author Dorothy Sayers once wrote:
God in the form of Christ hanging upon a cross is the central image of sacrificial redemption for the Christian faith. Wiesel describes this child as “the little servant, the sad-eyed angel” (Wiesel 508). Likewise, Christ is often referred to as the Servant King. In another parallel, this “child with a refined and beautiful face […] would not speak” (Wiesel 508) before his torturers just as Jesus remained silent before his accusers. Additionally, this young innocent “struggl[ed] between life and death” (Wiesel 509) while hanging between two adult prisoners. Three gallows—three crosses. The hearts of the prisoners were rent in two even as the veil of the temple was rent when Christ died (Matthew 27:51). In Christianity, the cross, the sacrifice of Christ, is the symbol of redemption, the payment for and setting free from sin and guilt. Likewise, through the loss of this one, this innocent, many are given an opportunity to free themselves, their hearts and their humanity from the bondage of this insidious holocaust.
Loss. All who faced the threat of these unrelenting atrocities lost. The defiant youth and others—many others—lost their lives. Ten thousand captive bodies lost their sense of humanity, of compassion, of life beyond a bowl of soup. Wiesel lost his faith. Yet the loss of one life, though senseless and tragic, broke through to the hearts of these prisoners— prisoners of body, mind, and soul—offering an opportunity to be human again, redeeming them from the sin of complacency and freeing them to feel again.
Trident Technical College, Copyright ©2009
Works Cited
Hurst, John and James Pavlick. “Elie Wiesel Biography.”
Academy of Achievement ed. Hugh Esten. March 2, 2009.
American Academy of Achievement. March 6, 2009.
www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/wie0bio-1
McDonald, Ann, and Jack Trotter, eds. World Views: Classic
and Contemporary Readings. 5th ed. Boston: Pearson, 2008.
Sayers, Dorothy. Introductory Papers on Dante. New York:
Harper & Brothers, 1954.
Wiesel, Elie. Night. Trans. Stella Rodway. McDonald and Trotter 506-09.
Trident Technical College, Copyright ©2009
This was written as an assignment for my English Comp I class at Trident Technical College. My instructor suggested that I submit it to the new school student anthology.
The atrocities committed upon the Jewish peoples in the early twentieth century are widely known and well documented. Elie Wiesel is one voice among thousands declaring the inhumanity of those times upon his people and himself. At the impressionable age of 16, he suffered the loss of his father to starvation at the Buchenwald concentration camp, as well as the deaths of his mother and younger sister in the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp. Wiesel vowed to not speak for ten years of the torturous brutalities he and ten thousand other prisoners endured (Hurst and Pavlick). His silence ended when he penned Un di Velt Hot Geshvihn (And the World Was Silent), the original Yiddish version of Night in 1954 (McDonald and Trotter 506). Night asserts that what Elie Wiesel witnessed as a young teenager in the Auschwitz-Birkenau and Buchenwald camps was the numbing effect of constant brutality and the threat of individual annihilation upon social conscience and personal faith. What he also recorded, however, as seen through the refining lens of hindsight, was the glimmer of hope within his people and possible redemption pictured in shadowed Christian symbolism.
In one chapter from Wiesel's account, the prisoners of the death camp are so numbed to the indescribable brutality around them that they are not merely unconcerned bystanders, but have also become willing participants. Wiesel depicts this condition when he tells of a young prisoner from Warsaw who is to be hanged for the crime of stealing. As the verdict is being read and the condemned youth stands defiantly before his executioners, their ability to be affected as a whole is demonstrated in the whispered question of a prisoner named Juliek: “Do you think this ceremony'll be over soon? I'm hungry…” (Wiesel 507). During this grave moment, Juliek's regard is for the prisoners' only meal: soup. Soup is their life. It is their sole concern. Soup is the currency of life. To preserve their own life “Two prisoners helped […] for two plates of soup” (Wiesel 507). The other prisoners do not seem to mind that their fellows assist. It has been said that if you do not resist evil you assist it. This saying speaks of this moment as the prisoners are no longer merely observers but have become actively involved in their own genocide.
Wiesel, on the other hand, though “no longer troubled” by the “thousands who had died […] in the crematory ovens” (Wiesel 507), experiences a re-awakening, if only briefly, of the threat to his life individually. The sheer numbers of the atrocities committed behind the closed doors of the crematory are desensitizing. “But this one […] he overwhelmed me.” (Wiesel 507, emphasis added) Wiesel writes that as he stood watching the Warsaw youth: “I could hear my heart beating” (Wiesel 507, emphasis added). Wiesel's reaction to this single life and his awareness of his own evokes a scenario in which he appears to feel that “This is a person. A vibrant individual. Soon to die. I am an individual. Alive. Death, brutal death, is a very real threat to me.” But the reality did not last. The numbness settled back over him, for when he returns from the execution for the evening meal he “remember[s] that I found the soup excellent that evening…” (Wiesel 508). He is still alive.
Although there are other hangings, it is the shock of executing a young child that produces a spark of humanity within the prisoners; but Wiesel looks upon the scene and loses faith in his God. This hanging is different from the ones before. The crowd spurns participation. There are no prisoners helping this time. As the chairs of the condemned are tipped over, Wiesel states that there is “Total silence throughout the camp” (Wiesel 509). There is no discussion of soup. This dying boy, dying an agonizing death, is more than the group conscience can bear. They openly weep. The “forgotten […] bitter taste of tears” (Wiesel 508) is fresh on their tongues. Unlike the hanging of the defiant Warsaw youth, this hanging touches their hearts. Wiesel, conversely, sees in the horror of this slow, tormenting death of “the sad-eyed angel” (Wiesel 508) the death of his God. As the other other prisoners question where God is during this atrocity, Wiesel responds internally. “Where is He? […] He is hanging here on this gallows…” (Wiesel 509). He sees no other explanation for how this could be happening than that it is God himself being executed. And at the end of the day, even his life giving soup now “tasted of corpses” (Wiesel 509).
God hanging on a gallows. Wiesel himself may not have intended to use Christian symbolism to show the possibility of hope for the prisoners, but a powerful picture of redemption can be seen in the second execution. Author Dorothy Sayers once wrote:
If an image displays the universal pattern, it will display it at all levels and in all circumstances, whether the poet was or could have been conscious of these possible applications or not.(19)
God in the form of Christ hanging upon a cross is the central image of sacrificial redemption for the Christian faith. Wiesel describes this child as “the little servant, the sad-eyed angel” (Wiesel 508). Likewise, Christ is often referred to as the Servant King. In another parallel, this “child with a refined and beautiful face […] would not speak” (Wiesel 508) before his torturers just as Jesus remained silent before his accusers. Additionally, this young innocent “struggl[ed] between life and death” (Wiesel 509) while hanging between two adult prisoners. Three gallows—three crosses. The hearts of the prisoners were rent in two even as the veil of the temple was rent when Christ died (Matthew 27:51). In Christianity, the cross, the sacrifice of Christ, is the symbol of redemption, the payment for and setting free from sin and guilt. Likewise, through the loss of this one, this innocent, many are given an opportunity to free themselves, their hearts and their humanity from the bondage of this insidious holocaust.
Loss. All who faced the threat of these unrelenting atrocities lost. The defiant youth and others—many others—lost their lives. Ten thousand captive bodies lost their sense of humanity, of compassion, of life beyond a bowl of soup. Wiesel lost his faith. Yet the loss of one life, though senseless and tragic, broke through to the hearts of these prisoners— prisoners of body, mind, and soul—offering an opportunity to be human again, redeeming them from the sin of complacency and freeing them to feel again.
Trident Technical College, Copyright ©2009
Works Cited
Hurst, John and James Pavlick. “Elie Wiesel Biography.”
Academy of Achievement ed. Hugh Esten. March 2, 2009.
American Academy of Achievement. March 6, 2009.
www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/wie0bio-1
McDonald, Ann, and Jack Trotter, eds. World Views: Classic
and Contemporary Readings. 5th ed. Boston: Pearson, 2008.
Sayers, Dorothy. Introductory Papers on Dante. New York:
Harper & Brothers, 1954.
Wiesel, Elie. Night. Trans. Stella Rodway. McDonald and Trotter 506-09.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
A Short Dash
April 15, 2009
Contemplating headstones.
Information minimal.
FULL NAME.
Date born.
Date dead.
In between—a dash.
The race starts with a bang;
cheers of joy and pain
pushing you through the gate.
The crowded pack vies for position;
spikes threaten your calves, elbows your nose.
Ultimately, you race self…alone.
Settling in to a rhythm, muscles warming;
preparing for the stretch ahead,
setting a pace for the miles before.
The course varies, testing entire being:
strength, will, stamina, mental fortitude
stretched, pushed, moving ahead, lagging behind.
Uphill sprints, downhill control;
sand and grass, pine bark and pavement
pounding up through sinew and pore.
Weather, with you, against you,
rain on face, wind at back;
wool socks cover hands in cold.
Home stretch stretching out, every breath
breathed through snot. Face set
finish line, heart racing to the end.
It's a short dash—
defining the name
on the headstone.
Contemplating headstones.
Information minimal.
FULL NAME.
Date born.
Date dead.
In between—a dash.
The race starts with a bang;
cheers of joy and pain
pushing you through the gate.
The crowded pack vies for position;
spikes threaten your calves, elbows your nose.
Ultimately, you race self…alone.
Settling in to a rhythm, muscles warming;
preparing for the stretch ahead,
setting a pace for the miles before.
The course varies, testing entire being:
strength, will, stamina, mental fortitude
stretched, pushed, moving ahead, lagging behind.
Uphill sprints, downhill control;
sand and grass, pine bark and pavement
pounding up through sinew and pore.
Weather, with you, against you,
rain on face, wind at back;
wool socks cover hands in cold.
Home stretch stretching out, every breath
breathed through snot. Face set
finish line, heart racing to the end.
It's a short dash—
defining the name
on the headstone.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Shooting Star (for Douglas)
(November 13, 2007)
Douglas was my nephew. He was barely in his twenties when he was hit by a car while riding his bicycle.
I saw a shooting star
last night
in a foggy sky,
quickly shot through the dark—
too quick.
A glance away
and you would miss it.
I guess that's what makes them
special.
A speck of light falling
to wherever stars go.
And if you happened to glance
it's descent,
you've connected with the heavens.
But the connection is cut short
and regardless of your ties
or knots untied;
no matter the light years
or miles that separate,
we are all still connected
to the shooting star.
Douglas was my nephew. He was barely in his twenties when he was hit by a car while riding his bicycle.
I saw a shooting star
last night
in a foggy sky,
quickly shot through the dark—
too quick.
A glance away
and you would miss it.
I guess that's what makes them
special.
A speck of light falling
to wherever stars go.
And if you happened to glance
it's descent,
you've connected with the heavens.
But the connection is cut short
and regardless of your ties
or knots untied;
no matter the light years
or miles that separate,
we are all still connected
to the shooting star.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Senseless (in memory of Ricardo Bailey who died of a gunshot while just being there for his cousin)
(November 7, 2006)
I had not worked with Ricardo for very long. He was a nice guy; had a good time at work. I closed the restaraunt with him the night he was killed. I think that's why it impacted me so much.
Senseless.
No sense.
Make sense
of the violent,
of violence,
of vile, of bile
scattered on the ground;
shattered on the ground;
splattered on the grounds
that there are no grounds;
it's groundless
on the ground
found
emptied,
unloaded;
lost
life;
left behind
life
found;
fill with sense,
sensation,
cessation of senselessness.
I had not worked with Ricardo for very long. He was a nice guy; had a good time at work. I closed the restaraunt with him the night he was killed. I think that's why it impacted me so much.
Senseless.
No sense.
Make sense
of the violent,
of violence,
of vile, of bile
scattered on the ground;
shattered on the ground;
splattered on the grounds
that there are no grounds;
it's groundless
on the ground
found
emptied,
unloaded;
lost
life;
left behind
life
found;
fill with sense,
sensation,
cessation of senselessness.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Death of a Prophet (dedicated to Ron Gatrelle; pastor, brother, friend)
(May 2006)
And the man of God was laid to rest today.
The speaker used the word prophet
with an uncapitalized “p”
(I don't think he dared).
He didn't personally know the man—
the man of God—
the vessel that
though cracked and chipped and scratched
poured out
what was poured in.
(How could that hold water?)
Well, they said,
He's dead…
guess we were
wrong/right
about him.
But Prophets die,
(they're not immortal you know)
and occasionally another one
comes along behind him.
(Faster. Stronger. Better than before.)
Besides,
does the Truth die?
Do prophesies fade?
The grass still grows
after the tree is but a stump.
Anyway,
the man of God moved on,
shedding the cocoon of this life
for the wings of the next.
And whether we liked
the coarse, imperfect human being,
(how many true prophets are really well-liked?)
the facts of the words
that were not his
remain.
And the man of God was laid to rest today.
The speaker used the word prophet
with an uncapitalized “p”
(I don't think he dared).
He didn't personally know the man—
the man of God—
the vessel that
though cracked and chipped and scratched
poured out
what was poured in.
(How could that hold water?)
Well, they said,
He's dead…
guess we were
wrong/right
about him.
But Prophets die,
(they're not immortal you know)
and occasionally another one
comes along behind him.
(Faster. Stronger. Better than before.)
Besides,
does the Truth die?
Do prophesies fade?
The grass still grows
after the tree is but a stump.
Anyway,
the man of God moved on,
shedding the cocoon of this life
for the wings of the next.
And whether we liked
the coarse, imperfect human being,
(how many true prophets are really well-liked?)
the facts of the words
that were not his
remain.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Gray and Gritty
(May 4, 2002)
Stanley and his wife delivered the Sunday paper. They always came into the Waffle House just before I finished the night shift. He would give me a copy of the paper and always ordered the same thing. To most people he didn't seem very friendly, but he and I got along just fine.
In memory of Stanley Alligood
August 20, 1939-May 2, 2002
“If he liked you, he liked you;
if he didn’t, he didn’t.”
Gray and gritty darkening dawn
brought the Sunday paper loosely covered
with plastic.
Ambled over, shuffled greeting;
over medium, coffee black.
Graveled joking
understood in
gleaming mischievous eyes
(mistaken meanness).
Wink a wink.
Grin a grin.
Heh!
Gray and gritty darkening dawn;
aluminum foil folded tightly over
leftover ham.
Shuffled out, muffled grouch;
hearty heartfelt
“Take it easy, boss.”
Shed a tear.
Wink a wink.
Grin a grin.
Heh heh.
Stanley and his wife delivered the Sunday paper. They always came into the Waffle House just before I finished the night shift. He would give me a copy of the paper and always ordered the same thing. To most people he didn't seem very friendly, but he and I got along just fine.
In memory of Stanley Alligood
August 20, 1939-May 2, 2002
“If he liked you, he liked you;
if he didn’t, he didn’t.”
Gray and gritty darkening dawn
brought the Sunday paper loosely covered
with plastic.
Ambled over, shuffled greeting;
over medium, coffee black.
Graveled joking
understood in
gleaming mischievous eyes
(mistaken meanness).
Wink a wink.
Grin a grin.
Heh!
Gray and gritty darkening dawn;
aluminum foil folded tightly over
leftover ham.
Shuffled out, muffled grouch;
hearty heartfelt
“Take it easy, boss.”
Shed a tear.
Wink a wink.
Grin a grin.
Heh heh.
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