Project Type: Volume 10 | Issue 2 | Waging Peace

No Rain | Liliana Negoi

We are continuing in this issue our ReCollection section, looking back through The BeZine past issues and blog posts in this, our tenth year. This poem comes from The BeZine Volume 3 Issue 4, on January 15, 2017. Liliana Negoi is a Core Team member, emirata. The theme for the issue this poem appeared in was “Resist!”

No Rain

blades of onyx
sharp
cut the umbilical cord
of sounds and tears
flooding the sea of sorrow
with dryness

the eyes of drought
measure with pride
the parched souls
lined up at the gates of the sun

“no water!”

the sponge drips only sour blood
on the lips of light

“no roots!”

echoes of salt
whirl within voices
and sand stays still

“unworthy!”

the earth screams
muddy with guilt and regrets

someone
somewhere
will carve hieroglyphs
in the stones we become
today…

©2017 Liliana Negoi
All rights reserved

Collage of images—a dove with olive branch in upper left, empty bullet shells in lower right, gear wheels in lower center with peace arrow pointing toward the left and war arrow to the right, a red rose is just off center and larger than the other images, other flower images fade in the background under a spattering of colors
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Togetherness | Irene Emanuel

We are continuing in this issue our ReCollection section, looking back through The BeZine past issues and blog posts in this, our tenth year. This poem comes from The BeZine Volume 4 Issue 2, on November 15, 2017. Irene Emanuel remains a contributing Core Team member. The theme of the issue this poem originally appeared in was “Hunger, Poverty and The Working Class as Slave Labor.” Jamie Dedes, z”l, our Founding Editor, began the introduction with this paragraph:

“All of our concerns—peace, environmental sustainability, human rights, freedom of expression—depend on a more equal distribution of wealth, on making sure no one goes hungry and on breaking-down barriers to employment, healthcare, education and racial and gender equity.”

Togetherness

They’re there;
hollowed into make-shift sponge-foam beds,
tight-curled into malodorous rag-blankets
and plastic of dubious origin.

They’re there;
the shadow-ghost people
of no fixed abode,
gathered loosely together
in cohesive misery.

They’re there;
existing on society’s fringe,
sustained by the government’s pandering promises;
sharing glue-highs and garbage rot

They’re there;
old children, dying people,
together in perpetual poverty.

They’re there;
trampled contours on grass verges,
silhouettes on street corners,
robotic vendors with nothing to sell
but themselves.

They’re there;
the street-people of forgotten causes,
unified in the rainbow nation
of lost hopes.

©2017 Irene Emanuel
All rights reserved

Collage of images—a dove with olive branch in upper left, empty bullet shells in lower right, gear wheels in lower center with peace arrow pointing toward the left and war arrow to the right, a red rose is just off center and larger than the other images, other flower images fade in the background under a spattering of colors
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Wabi Sabi | Jamie Dedes

We are continuing in this issue our ReCollection section, looking back through The BeZine past issues and blog posts in this, our tenth year. This poem comes from The BeZine Volume 3 Issue 2, on November 15, 2016, which had the theme of “Loving Kindness.” Our Founding Editor, Jamie Dedes, z”l, wrote this poem in 2013 and was very fond of it. It seems a fitting closing to both this month’s ReCollection section and the June 2023 issue (Volume 10 Issue 2).

Japanese tea house: reflects the wabi sabi aesthetic, Kenroku-en Garden
Japanese tea house: reflects the wabi sabi aesthetic, Kenroku-en Garden
From Pictures section of OpenHistory under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Wabi Sabi

if only i knew
what the artist knows

about the great perfection
in imperfection

i would sip grace slowly
at the ragged edges of the creek

kiss the pitted
face of the moon

befriend the sea
though it can be a danger

embrace the thunder of a waterfall
as if its strains were a symphony

prostrate myself atop the rank dregs on the forest floor,
worshiping them as compost for fertile seeds
and the breeding ground for a million small lives

if i knew what the artist knows,
then i wouldn’t be afraid to die,
to leave everyone

i would be sure that some part of me
would remain present
and that one day you would join me
as the wind howling on its journey
or the bright moment of a flowering desert

if i knew what the artist knows,
i would surely respond soul and body
to the echo of the Ineffable in rough earthy things

i would not fear decay or work left undone
i would travel like the river through its rugged, irregular channels
comfortable with this life; imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete

©2023 Jamie Dedes
All rights reserved

Collage of images—a dove with olive branch in upper left, empty bullet shells in lower right, gear wheels in lower center with peace arrow pointing toward the left and war arrow to the right, a red rose is just off center and larger than the other images, other flower images fade in the background under a spattering of colors
Return to ToC