Our corner of the world
is a garden lantern glowing.
When lilies sway on soft light
the paintings and poems of your ancients speak
 
Today, hearing soldiers shot you  [i]
I would have left the flowers
on those streets
till someone said
“It was time to halt them.”
 
then came a long discussion: 
“Moderation has no friends,
it can’t appeal to passions.”
History says mobs are dangerous.
If so, those shots make sense,
though not to many…
 
since I believe in sacrifice
and first-fruit offering,
which is youth.
But logic says  –  Christ died alone,
it was the Crowd that killed him
 So, now, my heart leans toward you.
 
Well … your blood ran today
and I, like your long ago sages,
have no role but to invite your spirit
–  would it had been your youthful selves  --
into my garden.
 
Sit by my lantern
paint me a picture
read me a poem
listen to reason.
 
 
(1980s  –  I had no affection then for the Beijing dictatorship. But the student action, grown violent, was no longer intellectual dissent. A government who tolerates such action likely invites further trouble and so abdicates its rule. The bloodshed on the square, in that sense, was at least defensible.
The cruelties and persecutions afterward were needless, thus indefensible, and to me the most appalling terror of the whole event. The poem was composed before that retaliation became known.)


[i]   “1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre”.  Wikipedia.org.  {https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Tiananmen_Square_protests_and_massacre}  (accessed January26, 2022).

I knock at your door,
then open it myself
and cry, “Hello, HELLO ?”
I enter there unsure,
and hear you call, “HELP, help!”
you send a faint echo
 
I walk past your room to sit
and past your room to eat
and past the room to cook
scenes of neglect, unkempt, unfit,
to your place of sleep,
and further still must look
 
I find you fallen in the bath
lying in tub all tangled
moaning in distress
some mishap’s uncouth aftermath
with limbs still strangely angled,
your bowels a loosened mess
 
             ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
 
I look at your bruised limbs
          and my limbs are trembling
I look at your body fluids
          and my stomach is churning
I look at your running tears
          and my eyes are streaming
 
             ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
 
I, old lady, in my eighties,
would call for my own Rescue –
Instead I reach out my hand
to you, Old Lady, in your nineties,
the mirror of myself in you,
and say, “Good Day, my friend.”
 
I say that Help will come,
since your  body should not be moved
then I go to find a phone
and dial EMERGENCY,  9-1-1.
I will wait, to show you are Loved 
and will not be left Alone.
 
You, who told me once that Drink
was your only Friend in life,
and drew slowly into isolation,
were drunk before you fell, I think,
meeting this Friendly Foe last night,
ironic – saved by intoxication.
 
             ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
 
For years I spoke of another Friend
who would let you Drink his Life,
discussions that never did go straight.
On this my reach was to no end
it seemed, but now I hold you tight.
“Close your eyes, we wait.”
 
I remember a night last year
driving a country road
alone, yet not Alone, in prayer,
when my wheels struck the corpse of a deer –
hit with speed, the car shook its load
and ascending, traveled through air.
 
How long that flight, I cannot tell.
In frozen fright the thought I found,
“Lord, here I am. I trust you’re near.”
My guardian angel helped me well
and set me safely on the ground.
The car still drove, I still could steer.
 
             ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
 
I look at you in your bathtub
          and I see an Altar.
I look at an unwilling Victim
          and I see a Lamb.
I look at stubborn Denial
          and I see the Search for a Friend.
 
             ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
 
And I, old lady, would like to give
to you, Old Lady, my heart – I mean – 
not the sympathy that’s spoken of,
but help for hardship, goals to live,
against despair that’s visible, Help unseen,
this joy, this trust, this Love.    
 
                                                                     (for two Marys, both – 2000)