Jonathan P. Baird

I wanted to acknowledge this date, remember Lise, and offer a poem. Lise loved the poetry of Muriel Rukeyser. One cherished memory I have is going with Lise to watch Muriel Rukeyser read her poems. I particularly remember her reading Ballad of Orange and Grape. I think Lise would have liked this poem.

Poem by Muriel Rukeyser

I lived in the first century of world wars.
Most mornings I would be more or less insane,
The newspapers would arrive with their careless stories,
The news would pour out of various devices
Interrupted by attempts to sell products to the unseen.
I would call my friends on other devices;
They would be more or less mad for similar reasons.
Slowly I would get to pen and paper,
Make my poems for others unseen and unborn.
In the day I would be reminded of those men and women
Brave, setting up signals across vast distances,
Considering a nameless way of living, of almost unimagined
values.
As the lights darkened, as the lights of night brightened,
We would try to imagine them, try to find each other.
To construct peace, to make love, to reconcile
Waking with sleeping, ourselves with each other,
Ourselves with ourselves. We would try by any means
To reach the limits of ourselves, to reach beyond ourselves, To let go the means, to wake.

I lived in the first century of these wars.