Bolivia Series, Families, Pastel, by John Cummings
Bored Soldiers in Green Uniforms Shoot Kids Throwing Pieces of Their School
You can’t save them.
What you can do in the chill
of first light is rake fir cones
after last night’s big wind.
In uneasy sleep you heard
the wince and lash of limbs.
No one can save them.
Now you’ve got three sizable piles
of fir cones, each cone
an ingenious bundle of the perpetual,
a packet of scales,
bracts and seed wings.
You can’t save them.
You love the term “seed wings,”
as if hidden inside
every woody bullet a seed-bird
waits to fly into being,
into being a new tree.
No one can save them.
Squirrels feed on seed wing seeds.
In your three tidy piles
some cones show signs
of being chewed open.
Thus does the world live on.
You can’t save them.
Your task is to scoop the piles
into the compost bin, wherein
they will break down
with other matter as mulch
for next year’s garden.
No one can save them. Aurora,
dawn goddess, she who revives
the day with morning dew,
she who drapes her gold negligee
over the crowns of Doug firs,
how little acknowledged are your gifts.
Even she can’t save them.
The world has said no,
so the kids pelt a tank with chunks
of brick from their bombed school.
You can’t save them.
No one can save them but you.
_________________
Edward Harkness
Review by Dave Mehler
I resonate strongly with this poem. One of the curses and blessings of our age is to be made aware of what things are happening around the world since the internet and social media have brought global events to everyone’s fingertips and handheld devices. One benefit is that it is harder to commit large and even small scale atrocities in the shadows and individuals and whistleblowers post all sorts of news. One hopes this helps to prevent bad things that might have happened otherwise, and that justice and accountability for evil acts done is made more possible. One of the drawbacks of this kind of knowledge is that it easily distorts one’s view of the world by making the viewer think only evil things are happening everywhere or even in one’s backyard all the time–one’s perception of reality is skewed because the focus is negative predominantly, unless one filters it out or ignores it. A steady dose of world cherry-picked events and headlines can lead to despair, apathy, a sense of disconnection and impotence and outrage–this happens in all media not just alternative sources. Not many of us can or will choose to become activists, stage protests or strive to participate and change the situation. Mostly we become passive eavesdroppers who drink it in or avoid it. I’m not convinced this is healthy either way, but I do experience feelings of despair, resignation and impotence.
In this poem Edward Harkness has set up just such a situation as his speaker in the pacific northwest in America has heard news of Palestinian children in Gaza throwing rubble (from their bombed out school) at Israeli tanks. Not only non-military targets, but children, a school, not any building of strategic importance certainly–the children are taking action, absurd, impotently gets them targeted, but they are not, like the speaker standing by, passive. What is a person to do upon hearing this news? Harkness’ speaker goes out and rakes up pine cones on the lawn. He sees, he listens, he takes it in, and rather than do nothing at all, he cleans up his yard and meditates, then writes a poem. He is not standing by, passive either, but seeing to his own corner of the world and trying to bring order to it, rather than allow more chaos. The pine cones will feed the squirrels and birds, more trees will sprout–then he interjects a poetic image about Aurora bringing dawn and light. It seems inapropos? Or does it? Because Harkness’ form of action is work, meditation, poem. Also to convey a certain impotence. I think this might be a little over the top, and 18th century, but it works in reinforcing the absurdity of the situation. Also, how little acknowledged are your gifts. This gets at my earlier point that we tend accentuate the negative and lose the positives in our equations of reality–to lose the forest for the trees?
Harkness utilizes an alternating refrain every other stanza: You can’t save them, alternated with No one can save them. Agreed. This happens six times and then in the seventh stanza we get both stated again in the penultimate and last lines, but with a twist, No one can save them but you. But you… I’ll admit I pushed back against this conclusion. Is it only there for the poem, to be poetic, falsely hopeful, adding variation on a theme and motif without being earned? Does it make, or break the poem? Different readers may conclude differently.
I decided the last line isn’t just whistling in the dark, or simply poetic (God help us)–it fits and if it doesn’t necessarily ‘make’ the poem for me, it helps rather than hurts. To suggest we aren’t all connected on the basis of our humanity, even if things are happening on the other side of the world would be less than true. Maybe too materialistic. No, we are all connected. The poet wrote the poem, I as editor am publishing and reviewing the poem. It isn’t saving the kids, but it is witnessing to an event. As I said in another comment somewhere, this is no small thing. Sometimes simply looking, paying attention, reading about and becoming familiar with another’s plight, affliction, injustice, suffering, is doing an important thing. But a couple other things happened for me this summer: Pádraig Ó Tuama’s podcast (Poetry Unbound) aired a poem by Palestinian Mosab Abu Toha, which caught my attention and I bought his book, Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear, and I was reading that. I was also aware of the Sealey Challenge (www.thesealeychallenge.com), which is to read a book a day through the month of August. On Nicole Sealey’s recommended book list were 13 Palestinian or Palestinian American writers whom I investigated–either due to her list, or coincidentally, these poets/books were being highlighted in independent bookstores.
Many poets, especially amateur poets, love to take up current events and write about them, especially if they know very little about what’s really going on in such cases. A lot of bad poetry gets written because the poet lacks on-the-ground experience, the necessary emotionally heightened and lived, firsthand experience. Poets in the attempt to be prophets are not skilled journalists but think they could be (?) and love to jump on bandwagons. They lack the data to be precise, are relying only on what others have told them. However, sometimes good poems get written. I like this poem by Edward Harkness, for example, because he isn’t pretending to know or be or act like he knows anymore than he does.
But again, can we save them? Does becoming familiar with another’s distant plight help? Sometimes yes! Yes, it can. In the back of Mosab Abu Toha’s book of poems, is an interview with the poet and he is asked about the Edward Said Library he began in Gaza. It started with finding a Norton Anthology under the rubble from his bombed University, and posting a picture of himself holding the rescued book on social media. Friends started to offer to replace and send books to him, so he started a web page, Library and Bookshop for Gaza. People sent 600 books, word got out, interviews happened, American poet Katha Pollitt made contact and offered support, Edward Said’s widow and daughter also offered support, and not without domestic political difficulties he started a fundraising campaign and bank account for the library. The library became not just a repository for books but more of a cultural center with “various youth initiatives, in music, in drama, in painting and drawing, etc. Literary groups come to meet. There are lectures and training sessions for parents and community members. Computer training. Workshops in how to protect against COVID, for example, and in psychological well-being.” It is possible to effect real and substantial good and change, and here is one real life example in the life of Mosab Abu Toha. Edward Harkness has offered us his.