5 April 2003
Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada
Dear Friends,
Today at our peace gathering, when the son of a poet read a poem in Arabic on the steps of city hall, something broke loose in me. My mind comprehended none of the words, but my body understood the emotion carried by rhythm and sound.
No one knows where poems come from; we can only notice the circumstances in which they arrive. This one showed up about two hours after the rally ended.
SONG OF SOULS
Startled by death
that fell from a roaring sky,
we flew away.
We circled high,
higher than the war planes fly,
and we saw you far below,
piling our broken bodies
in the back of your truck,
driving to a hospital
where none could heal us
and none could heal you.
O hear our song
in the music of the wind —
We have found the forever place,
the place of no war.
We remember you, beloved.
We remember you always.
– Harriet Ann Ellenberger
note: photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash
Dear Harriet, thank you so much for this. It carries universal pain, universal compassion.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you so much for this, Oen.
LikeLike
Hi Harriet, I tried to “like” your response, but have no idea whether I was successful 🌎
LikeLiked by 1 person
I think your “like” didn’t register, but WordPress has so many features, simple actions can get complicated. I only learn what I have to, and when I’m confused, I ask their happiness engineers. They’ve rescued me from my blog boo-boos every time.
LikeLike
This is lengthy and gushy, but true. Quoting from Auden, “I have read translations of Cavafy made by many different hands, but every one of them was recognizable as a poem by Cavafy; nobody else could possibly have written it. Reading any poem of his, I feel: ‘This reveals a person with a unique perspective on the world.'” I react to all Harriet’s writing–poems and prose–this way.
LikeLiked by 1 person
You’ve been reading me longer than anyone else, Susan. And keeping me going too.
LikeLike