words are poor things

lonely these days for 

old landscapes

wet windowpanes

leaves soaked by rain

reaching for a place

where hollows of loss

and seared damage

can grow into

new space

so full of grace

here
where every 
morning the

sun brushes 
my face

this song Thao & Mirah - Hallelujah

this book Housekeeping

Singapore, by Mary Oliver

In Singapore, in the airport,
a darkness was ripped from my eyes.
In the women’s restroom, one compartment stood open.
A woman knelt there, washing something
     in the white bowl.

Disgust argued in my stomach
and I felt, in my pocket, for my ticket.

A poem should always have birds in it.
Kingfishers, say, with their bold eyes and gaudy wings.
Rivers are pleasant, and of course trees.
A waterfall, or if that’s not possible, a fountain
     rising and falling.
A person wants to stand in a happy place, in a poem.

When the woman turned I could not answer her face.
Her beauty and her embarrassment struggled together, and
     neither could win.
She smiled and I smiled. What kind of nonsense is this?
Everybody needs a job.

Yes, a person wants to stand in a happy place, in a poem.
But first we must watch her as she stares down at her labor,
     which is dull enough.
She is washing the tops of the airport ashtrays, as big as
     hubcaps, with a blue rag.
Her small hands turn the metal, scrubbing and rinsing.
She does not work slowly, nor quickly, but like a river.
Her dark hair is like the wing of a bird.

I don’t doubt for a moment that she loves her life.
And I want her to rise up from the crust and the slop
     and fly down to the river.
This probably won’t happen.
But maybe it will.
If the world were only pain and logic, who would want it?

Of course, it isn’t.
Neither do I mean anything miraculous, but only
the light that can shine out of a life. I mean
the way she unfolded and refolded the blue cloth,
the way her smile was only for my sake; I mean
the way this poem is filled with trees, and birds.

www.32poems.com

dreams like cloth

"But I, being poor, have only my dreams;

I have spread my dreams under your feet;

Tread softly..."

~Yeats

       My dear friend Corri once spoke to me about how some dreams are ours because there is something in them that makes our hearts sing,  and how other dreams develop from some type of burden, dreams that we never chose to have, but that we have come to carry nonetheless. When I think of the thousands and thousands of survivors of sexual abuse and human trafficking everyday,  I am reminded of Fredrich Beuchner, who once compared faith to a lump in the throat.

     Here are two places that have been the result of dreams to restore survivors, that took shape organically and through communities of people who dared to push through the thick of what is so often an elusive and intangible battle.  In the early stages, like any dream,  I imagine it took some very soft treading on the grounds they were laid.  

  

Therapy tree house in the Round Home in the Philipines. Dr. Gundelina Velazco is a psychiatrist whose vision and approach to aftercare of human-trafficking victims, in cooperation with Love146, creates an environment that promotes healing of body, heart, mind, soul.

Hope House (Asha Niwas) near Calcutta's red-light district. A safe environment providing girls who have been "born into brothels," with education, psychological and physical health care, and employment opportunities to   help them find the strength to change their circumstances. This all started, with a woman teaching some children how to take pictures.