They emerged from an ordinary
van
…wore ordinary clothes
shuffled toward me along uneven
lines
squinting, sun-struck
I realized: Magi!
come close enough for
greetings and salutations
along the usual
Lines of dignitaries and princes-
Hands shaken; eyes met
they said oh, it is you!
(Me?) their honored guest?
regretting I had no
Gold, frankincense, myrrh to give them
Come so far we all are
children of the King.
The monkey tribe grieves
over the prone body of what is actually just
A robot baby
while across the globe in human cities
woman rage and tear
Euphemistic offspring from their own
wombs
Run, human child, to the relative kindness
of other mammal mothers
who would never, ever
do these terrible things
to even the semblance of
their own young.
her voice is metallic-insistent-succinct
Fire! Fire! Fire!
Thank God she is there
10 dollar angel
suspended above us while we sleep
…when we sleep
You know it took me years to know You did that
And then years again to know few others did.
Vigilant love, calling us out of darkness
where angels who watch over us if we
had eyes to see
Always resemble the Firstborn
Fill the sky with light
Ring the children with wings and eyes
And teach them how to vanquish
Implacable darkness
with words of supplication
to the fierce Unstoppable
God of Light.
Bet everybody loves a good
love story
Boy meets girl or something…
Only that is not enough
You once asked me if there were monkey bars that went all around the world
Could you do it?
I could do the math
24,901 miles around
Oddly specific last mile the hardest
Arms tired by the miles of
Arm-swing-leg-swing-hang repeat
131,477,280 bars
Feet
Hands and arms so tired
After an eternal day in the sun
The girl is such an ordinary thing
But the boy is one-of-a-kind
Worth looking for
The man who could, would, did and shall
Make this love story
Luminous.
In deep winter
she chooses to suspend
All the ordinary chores
Drags a heavy fishing net to the belly
of this man-made stream
Feet first into
cold deep
Swims upstream
where they wait for her
bobbing on the water
snagged by the naked
limbs of winter branches
An old oil can, adorned with red duct tape,
several empty beer bottles,
torn flotational device,
And a veritable tableau of shirts and trousers
Snagged on naked limbs
then animated by the wind
Once carefully extricated
she lines the children up by year, gender, alleged disability
Names them back to life
So they can indeed
Fly, flock of winter birds
to inauguration.
Years ago I did an informal study of the language associated with the debate over abortion.
At that time, forty years ago, both sides of the debate referred to “the contents of the uterus” as babies.
This is indicting.
In the 1970s we knew and articulated a simple fact: the contents of the uterus during a pregnancy include at least one human being.
I say all of this because…
Socrates is immortal.
I know, seeming non-sequitur as well as a bit of a hijacked syllogism. But if you think about it, that is exactly what abortion apologetics is about–hijacked syllogisms.
Track with me here.
The original and better known Socratic syllogisms run like this:
1. All men are x
2. Socrates is a man
3. Therefore Socrates is x
X could be mortal, animal, sentient, mammalian…
You get the idea…
But what if men were immortal? Then Socrates would be immortal. His life would be defined by more than the hemlock, the sham trial, the bad marriage, the stopped heart. He would be out there somewhere, forever, thinking, feeling, real forever.
So what does that have to do with the safety of abortion?
What if we substitute human fetus for Socrates or men?
1. All human fetuses are…
Half of all abortion patients die. Those patients are the children of the other half of the patients.
Anyone who says abortion is safer than giving birth simply has the math terribly wrong.
Imagine if this math applied to all medical appointments: half of the people who went to the doctor on any day would not only not leave the clinic alive, they also could have their remains given to research concerns for money.
Still, what does that have to do with Socrates being immortal?
If Socrates is immortal
Then Someone or Thing has made him so.
A Word perhaps, an eternal Word.
Born into poverty, at risk of being the victim of infanticide, not because of who he was right then but because of who he would be…
Who they would be…the millions of would-be people.
Who like, Socrates, deserve true logic, not faulty syllogism.
I just read your story about foster care.
I don’t think that you are ever too old to really find a family, really get adopted.
Don’t give up sounds trite and doesn’t pay the bills.
But I am here…maybe a little better?
Here if you need me.
E.
In an already messy old house
I try to find a place to stash my anger
The beat-up old chest?
Grandma’s dresser?
Each place I go I feel your loss
The way a tall boy once held a short girl at arm’s length
As she beat at the air with rage and sorrow
Maybe it is the air that is the problem…
Not enough oxygen?
The matrix of maternal affection somehow dislodged by
Something?
Something missing.
It is as though the lost girls had become those things-
A trunk, a cup, a worn blanket
Trapped in closets
…in the minds of monsters
The old childhood nightmare turned on its head-
The child in the closet
The mother, the monster
Shaking its imaginary head
“Even I could not
Would not
Do something so unspeakable
To a human child.”
When I was a foster parent in Beaver, PA in the late 1990s I was devastated to uncover adoptions going on in contravention of law and decency.
Some of the cases were covered by The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and 48 Hours. The ACLU sued the county.
The state did nothing.
One wonders if Grace Parker and her birth family were victims of the same kind of nefarious adoption scheme?
Horrible to think that the serious, maybe illegal actions of child welfare agencies are thoroughly shielded by confidentiality laws.
Even more horrible to think that Sara Packer may have used the federal money given to her to provide for Grace to buy the cat litter they used to disguise her murder.
it is the details you wish
To unhear, unread, undo
the window into terrible
Opened by her own
biological mother
Who then had the wherewithal to
Shower
After she had baptized the child
The spun-glass-irretrievable little girl
In pain and blood
When she should have plaited
Flowers in her hair.
Carrying Light 