RESILIENCE -- flash poetry

Yesterday, our 5/5 GREEN SHABBAT  IPCC 2021 MURMURATION spanned the globe with guests from Delaware, Tennessee, Berlin, Dubai, South Carolina and Malawi. We read the IPCC 2021 press release together and then talked with artist, scholar and activist Jonathan Schorsch about the Green Sabbath project.

In every murmuration, we host a flash poetry session where we choose a word that captures our conversation and then we write for 7 minutes. Afterwards, we read our poems aloud to each other. 

I have found these flash poetry sessions to be so moving and enlightening. I learn so much from my fellow starlings and admire how adeptly they share insights, beauty, and wisdom in mid flight. I am also grateful to have the chance to breath and see and think through poetry again in a space where none of us are poets and all of us are poets.

Yesterday Jonathan chose the word RESILIENCE.  This is my poem:

When I think about 

RESILIENCE

I think about grasses
and reeds
​
I see them
at the edge of a lake.

I don't know
why
these reeds
come to mind.

Though maybe
it comes 
from
SCRIPTURE

a Bible verse

my mother 
used
to read
to me
as a child.

A BRUISED REED
HE WILL NOT BREAK.

Is that right?
I don't remember. 

I can look it up. 
I look it up. 
I google it.

A bruised reed
He will not break
and a smoldering wick
He will not snuff out

In faithfulness
He will bring forth justice.

He will not falter
or be discouraged
till He establishes
justice on earth. 

*************

I am troubled
by the HE.

*************

RESILIENCE
also means
establishing
new relationships 

to NATURE
to SACRED TEXTS 

handed down

to have the WISDOM
and GOOD SENSE 

to
ACCEPT
what is
USEFUL

to not throw out
the BABY with the BATH.

POOR BABY. 
I see her flying
out into the air.

RESILIENCE
is that child
landing

in the garden
in the fragrant
herbs

in the soft
receiving 
warmth 
of the
ground.