Eloquence

After the stormy blasts:

Why are you here?

The question not heard,
but felt from before before,
as if thought-occurred,
but not.

Because of you!

After the air is
completely stilled,
yet poised, bated:
Why are you here?

Because of me!

Even the stilled landscape,
hushed to stasis as it was,
registered a riffling shift
through space and time.

Return!

This is where to go
will not be to arrive
at any reminiscent place,
but where leaving
is departing
from old places and ways
as they are irrevocably
and forever
being torn from the fabric
of memory and knowing.

© 2015 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

~ kol d'mamah dakah

Good Neighbors: 1. Monday

All you who pass by,
don’t judge what you don’t understand.

Please, don’t walk away;

        Any small amount would help
            a homeless,

        hungry

and sick-to-my-very-bones me.

My soul suffers, and has for a long time;
how much longer can I hold on?

You could stop, you could help;
you could save me, for Humanity’s sake!

Instead, you just walk on by;
you show me your back.

           Words of gratitude are not spoken by the dead,
but I might sing your praises

           if you’d relieved my dread;
any small change could help.

Riddled by sleeplessness,
           I drench my tattered coat in tears
that could flood the very streets
           with a river of my shame.

My eyes are weary,

because I fear for my safety.

You’ll ignore me and move on,
            but what goes around comes around;
your indifference will bring the shame on you.

© 2015 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

This poem is part of a cycle based on the seven Penitential Psalms. The subtitle of the cycle is "Psalms from the Streets." This first entry is based on Psalm 6 and an all too familiar passage from Lamentations; it could be subtitled "The Homeless."