Covid Pentacost

Grief walks the streets, masked.
Isolation is summer’s undesired shield
from the hum of bees,
of birdsongs,
of joy.

Help me—oh mama!
I cannot breathe!
Bye-bye!

Injustice walks the streets, armed.
Legal structures and strictures shield
ideologies of subjugation;
they rule with impunity,
sparking outrage.

Help me—oh mama!
I cannot breathe!
Bye-bye!

A virus propelled by breath runs unabated.
Much needed conversation is stifled
—not to mention song,
medicine the spirit
longs to feel.

Help me—oh mama!
I cannot breathe!
Bye-bye!

Gather, all ye in the village squares,
mourn that capture by all such restraints
as leads to the stifling of breath,
sending, untimely, more men of color
to meet Jesus in Paradise.

Help me—oh mama!
I cannot breathe!
Bye-bye!

Fire beetles, light the night,
signal the elusive dove to morning flight,
and when comes here the sun,
rain upon us a fire for righteousness.

Transform these hearts of stone
into the living hearts of compassion;
Make us to speak only justice,
to understand the language of love and no other.

Let not the riotous soul go unheard,
that stands by with help for all humanity;
strengthen us to bring comfort and blessing
to every neighbor, in these times of trial. Selah!

© 2020 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen and songsofasouljourney.blogspot.com

We live in dangerous times. People who should be leaders are fomenting unrest for political gain. Innocent people are caught in the crossfire. Some sworn members of that profession intended to “protect and serve” abuse their power.

I am reminded of Ezekiel, Chapter 7, a description known as “The End Has Come.” At the very end is this line:

“I will deal with them according to their conduct,
and by their own standards will I judge them.”

As bleak as this seems, there is much to hope for. There are good and compassionate and loving people in every place.

Martin Luther King, Jr. said:

“Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.”

Love truly is the answer, and the only one.

Rise Up And Ride

~ to celebrate Lawrence Ferlinghetti on his 100^thbirthday

We gather
We gather around
and while around We gather
We reflect in the moment
Our reflections remotely interior
reflections that ripple on our surfaces
with experience and emotion
expectation going unspoken
passing traumas unconfessed
tattooed on every cell of blood
that roams the living heart
teased by inner drums
to dance

We gather
We gather around
and while We gather
Our reflections speak
riffing off Our rippling shores
through Our interior drumbeats
and Our drumming fills the space
with that intricate ostinato called
Our Shared Humanity

The Prophet
softly approaches
reading the crowd
feeling the bed of drums
and the spaces between each beat
the World of hurt and of love
the crashing of the seas
the winds of time
motes of the dust of an hundred years
—and more, perhaps—
bounce in the City Lights,
and out of the depths
of these waiting primordial rhythms
he speaks

Friends, Poets, Countryfolk,
quothe he,
There is nothing I can say
that you are not breathing right now
into the outermost continuities of space
—Our collected vibrations are heavy
their mass carries weight yet gives light
unto those of us who are trapped in the night
the collective sighs of We gathered Here
join with those of a Nation and a World
clamoring to settle into any groove
that will kick the beat forward

I say to You
“Kick it forward”
and I’m not talking about any can
but can-do
though any can will do
and be suffered to be cycled
and can be recycled
if you will
into the latest new case for Now

Because Pandora opened the can
all that spilled out is a reckoning
that can only be assuaged
in the timeless Era of Jazz
in the balm of the Beat
in the work of weaving

among hearts heaving
in the joy of healing
in the heat of the night

I say it again
“Kick it forward”
and that means You
You’ve got to swing into the groove
of that bed laid in long ago,
now is the time for listening
to hear rags and blues glistening
in singing and dancing
with canons and fugues
that RISE UP

Round while We gather
be here and hear, Dears,
hear the beating of All Your Drums
gather your precious song of Humanity
Kick it all forward into your swing
and into it find your groove;
join the ostinato traffic lane
and enter the wave dancing
RISE UP
and once arisen
RIDE!

© 2019 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Confluentia

  for Maura Sipilä  

Music tumbles over exuberant waves,
voiced over by circling kittiwakes and gulls,
tumbling joyfully into the sandy shores,
crashing, unquelled, across stony shingle
into the headlands of my heart.

Wherefore, wherefore, ye winds?

To tantalize by stirring a symphony,
knowing that the world is broken,
as if such sonically blooming waves
could fill wounds that gape and cry.

Responses billow from overland:
trees hugged by children send time,
being a representation of timelessness;
gorgeously gazing flowers smile
while bees distribute pollen as favors.

Brooks burble, bubble and babble,
flowing thither from origin to origin,
touching, fresh to salt, in confluence,
merging and surging, joy-joining,
clinging only toward outward release.

Songbirds unwittingly serenade
every small creature that sleeps in shade
given by all that verdantly defines place,
and the bell rung to call forth evensong
reverberates with healing and grace.

© 2018 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen