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Monday Meditations
Late, but I'm in a constant state of worry and distraction these days. Here's a poem that reflects my anxieties--maybe yours too--that first appeared in Live Encounters.
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ALL THE BANSHEES ARE FLYING NOW
In great-granny’s day, our family had its own banshee,
a cloaked little woman always combing wild red hair,
eyes red-rimmed from constant weeping. She kept
to the woods, flitting here and there among bracken.
Seldom would they see her until one day they’d hear
her shriek, run outside to find her flying circles
round the house and know a son far afield,
a daughter, father, or newest babe had slipped
through the veil. Their own wailing would begin.
Now banshees are everywhere—so many dying
or dead—flying frantic circles above Congo, Ukraine,
Gaza. They weep for Russians tripping out skyscraper
windows. They slog through jungles soaked in rain,
deep in the Amazon, mourn river dolphins, golden
tamarinds. They scream in American schoolrooms.
They bluster and caterwaul where First People keep
a tenuous grip on ancestral homelands. Their cries
for the planet Herself, we mistake for squalls.
We’ve closed our ears to the banshees, shuttered
windows and doors. We hide behind a deafening,
constant din we make with our machines. We talk
without breathing, fill every silence with useless
chatter. Caught in the yawn of our own prattling,
we’ve forgotten how to listen. We’re snails,
hiding deep in shells of our own design. We crawl
through our dwindling days while all around
banshees fly—weeping, warning, wailing for us all.
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