THE WHITMAN ISSUE

Grace Cavalieri

LILACS
(in the memory of W. Whitman)

Who will teach us happiness,
............................the language of goodness,
The man nursing bloody soldiers in the war,
Tending them
............................without constitutional amendments.
Lay a branch of lilacs on this photo.
Let us sell our belongings and purchase bewilderment, says
............................Rumi.
Let us trade household effects for the air of words; It is
.............................time to return to something I can not describe.
Watching from a distance, the word-stealers are coming.
We thought it was all we deserved. They are
............using our words to talk about things you should buy.
............................Say something else quickly and often, or
Poets will be speechless for the loss of the magic cargo.
Should there be a sign left on the ground that we have been here?
............"the grief of the dead..."
The wordcrafters took these voices to fight their war.
Making a space we cannot fill.
Lay a branch of lilacs on this.
.............and say, in the wisdom of Edna Millay,
How beautiful above all else that dies.

*

But there is a living book on the shelf in praise of noble sentiments,
Language reserved for a world real and just
............................where lilacs grow again.
Where shall they be planted?
Make the heart into a white boat brilliantly lifting on the milk of the moon. Fill it with lilacs,
Send it flying over field and crop,
Let it land in a place
Where we become our own music, filling us up with our own sound.
They took the words of the "patriotic"; they took the words of "compassion."
Plant new trees out the back door filling with flowers.
.............The children need time to listen as they grow.
Lay a lilac on this too:
.............the promise that what goes out from our mouths will not return emptied.

*

From running away I am filled with such sadness.
.............The world is a book but who will write it?
Fill the pages with lilacs
.............and call it legacy,
Say we could not hold silence,
We did not know the shape of loss, and
What it would mean to fill emptiness with flowers.
It is not too late in the season for a new tree, planted in reason,
Although it takes 40 years, although what we plant we will not see.
There is only one person in your soul’s dream.
.............It is you.

*

Read slowly.
What gave you access to your heart?
.............and to the language that forms us?
First it was the promise of what could come,
A man loving the sick soldiers, let us dream of it
.............without incident, without offending others.
But the leaf has just started coming out.
The green feather
Is made of veins. The leaf’s veins are mine,
The way the stalk begins,
.............this is the way lilacs start.

*

Once there was a man who had a God inside him
And he wrote without breaking the flowers

Sunlight .....praise .....garden .....story

That’s all it was.
Now the rage of consequence
Devours the orchard, bushes, hedges, shrubs and trees.
Vast and vicious turns of mind
............................uproot the soil.
Before your hand is buried completely,
.............please write to tell of it.
The Greek word for God is breath...
Writing for the unborn and those now dead,
.............tell of the lilacs, pink and purple,
When language belonged to its owner,
Holding in white clusters of hope, holding out hope as a
.............lavender bridge to other people's minds.

Grace Cavalieri is the author of thirteen books and chapbooks of poetry; her latest is a children's book, Little Line. Her play Quilting the Sun was recently presented at the Smithsonian Institution by its New York cast. Her twentieth play, Jennie & the JuJu Man, premiered in New York City in 2004. She has produced and hosted "The Poet and the Poem" on public radio for 27 years. The series is recorded at the Library of Congress for distribution via NPR satellite. She is active in small press publishing, writing reviews of books and theater, and teaching creative writing workshops throughout the country. Grace has won the Allen Ginsberg Award for Poetry, the PEN/Fiction Award, and the Silver Medal from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. She is married to the sculptor Kenneth Flynn. They have four daughters and four grandchildren.

Published in Vol. 6, No. 1, Winter 2004

To read more by this author:
Grace Cavalieri
Grace Cavalieri's Intro to Vol. 5, No. 2 (Spring 2004)
Cavalieri on Roland Flint: Memorial Issue
Grace Cavalieri: Wartime Issue
Cavalieri on Louise Gluck: Profiles Issue
Grace Cavalieri: Evolving City Issue
Grace Cavalieri: Split This Rock Issue
Cavalieri on Ann Darr: Forebears Issue
Cavalieri on Joseph Brodsky: US Poets Laureate Issue
Grace Cavalieri: Tenth Anniversary Issue
Grace Cavalieri on "The Poet & The Poem": Literary Organizations Issue
Grace Cavalieri: Poets in Federal Government Issue
Grace Cavalieri on Ahmos Zu-Bolton II: Poetic Ancestors Issue