Wednesday December 4
I read this Joy Harjo poem early yesterday, before word came out about Judge Stephen Rhodes’ Detroit bankruptcy ruling. Hard news full of uncertainty, hard edges, and promise. We’ll learn how Detroit plays out in the local news these next months.
“Climbing the Streets of Worcester Mass” is a new Joy Harjo poem to me, Perhaps it caught my eye this morning because Worcester is another tough industrial town with roots back into the 1800’s, not a stranger to loss and to rebirth. Joy’s words are tough and surprising. And full of hope.
john st sj
p.s. Yesterday two people asked me to take some breaks from poetry and try some prose. I’ll look around.
Climbing the Streets of
Worcester, Mass.
Houses lean forward with their hands
on thin hips.
I walk past their eyes
of pigeon gray, hear someone
playing horn, and there’s the wind
trying to teach some trees
to fly.
It could happen.
LA is tempted by the ocean.
And sleeping storms erupt the weakest hearts.
I scan the street. Know up one hill.
groans a sacred fire
and down the next
could be a crazy trick:
three crows laugh
kick up the neighbor’s trash.
Telling jokes
they re-create the world.
All night
while I was making other plans
the wind drew circles around this town;
scraped clean the dead skin
of its soul
but left three crows, a horn
some trees
to talk it back again.