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I Remember You and the Amber Moon

file3761333734081When I remember you
I remember the amber moon
and the burnished brown of old oaks,
their leaves like hands waving goodbye
Summertime, as dusk transitioned to dark,
we’d sit on the beach by slow cooking-fires,
their coals gone from hard black to gray dust
I cherished your warm hug in the chill of the night
and falling asleep, safe

I stopped loving you,
but I never stopped loving the memory of you
I carry that with me on lunatic trips of the heart ~
though my preference is to rest solitary on forest logs
with their stunning imperfections and those
secret-lives swirling in the sunless damp on which they rest

I think of the path that led from then to now,
a mix of smooth and rough along a rocky coast ~
I live near the sea to breathe
I imagine you living, wherever you are –
by an ocean with your skin still smelling of Old Spice,
with your well-formed hands, the hands of a pianist and surgeon,
and the high-tensile strength of your mind

In the odd geography of life, no one knows where we came from
or how it was, how it felt to be us in the days of promise
when the spell of Hudson Bay fell like a prayer to St. Christopher
That bay is no longer our safe harbor,
but it gave us our sturdy roots and strong wings
and so the nights, the nights by this bay are good
When I smile at the amber moon, it smiles at you

Posted again at a reader’s request. I had taken it down.

© 2013, poem, Jamie Dedes, All rights reserved; Photo credit ~ Anne Lowe, Public Domain Pictures.net

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EARTHLINGS, Make the Connection

Horrific. Devastating. Unflinching. If, when you think of farms and ranches, you think of old MacDonald and happy cow advertisements, think again. I figured if I couldn’t watch this movie I had no business eating flesh, going to the circus, or wearing animal skins. I have no business asking other human beings to do my dirty work for me.  I forced myself through Earthlings in part to firm my vegan resolve. I’m probably not the only one to do this. Among other things, I found a video of Ellen DeGeneres on YouTube where she talks about having done the same thing.

Earthlings goes where our best-self fears to tread. Using undercover cameras it takes us inside of farms and dairies, slaughterhouses, labs that do animal testing, fur ranches, and circuses. It shows us the pain our younger brothers and sisters in the animal kingdom suffer for our sakes. It also shows us just how far we humans can go to debase ourselves: at least that was my reaction to seeing people skinning animals alive and leaving them to die slowly, slitting the throats of cattle while they hang alive and upside down, tossing male chicks into a grinder while they’re alive, swinging chickens on a hook just for the fun of it, tossing a live dog into the back of a garbage truck and laughing about it, digging hooks into elephants to train them … you get my drift.  It’s painful to think of the calves that are separated from their mothers to prepare them to be veal and of all the dairy cows and chickens going insane packed into small indoor spaces and never walking the good earth or seeing the sky.

A key point this movie makes is the link between our ability to be cruel dominators of our fellow creatures in the animal kingdom with our ability to be cruel to other human beings. It shows the damage done to the environment as we pursue dominance over nature and not stewardship of it. Both thumbs up on this one. It’s the movie to watch for the sake of our humanity.

The trailer below is not as graphic as the movie. You can view the entire movie for free HERE.

© 2011, Jamie Dedes All rights reserved

Video uploaded to YouTube by 

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Conversations on Poverty and Homelessness (Part 2) ~ The BeZine, 100,000 Poets for Change

On our 2015 Facebook Page for 100,000 Poets for Change, we’ve been discussing poverty and homelessness.  I’m sharing some of the conversation there.  If you’d like to join us on Facebook, please let us know.  All are welcome. For the September 2015 issue of The BeZine, we’ll be exploring poverty and on September 26, we’ll hold our virtual event and we invite reader participation.  Instructions will be in our blog that day.  Links to everyone’s work will be collected and posted as a Page and also incorporated into a PDF that will be archived at 100,000 Poets (writers, artists, photographers, musicians and friends) for Change; i.e., peace and sustainability. 

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This conversation was started on our The BeZine 100TPC 2015 Facebook Group Page by Michael Dickel (Fragments of Michael Dickel):

It’s only a little more than a month until 100 Thousand Poets for Change—Fifth Anniversary—26 September! Time to start some provocations…

Just to get us thinking abou the Poverty Theme next month—this was posted in a FB group, “Philosophy,” a while back but just appeared in my timeline.

The question I have is, does the standing man reach into his pocket because of empathy? Does he see that the beggar could be him? Or is it narcissism, that he sees an extension of himself (rather than seeing the person himself as separate)? Is he only giving b/c it is another version of himself (white male)? Would he reach into his pocket if he saw the Other?

I don’t ask these questions to be cynical, but because I think the cartoon suggests all of this and possibly more. Who do we see when we see poverty? Who do we help? Who do we wonder why they are not “making something” of their lives (as one commenter on the posted photo said he would ask “himself”—the beggar self—in this situation)?

Jamie asked me to take the lead for the poverty-100TPC page, if I understood correctly, so consider this a first provocation. I hope to put out a couple of more in the next couple of weeks.

Are they prompts? Inspiration? Irritants? I like the idea of provoking thoughts, creativity, ideas. So I call them provocations. Mainly, just use what generates something for you, ignore the rest or all if you’ve got your own excitement rolling.

– Michael Dickel

Some of the discussion that resulted from Michael’s prompt follows:

“Would he reach into his pocket if he saw the Other?” Heartbreaking that we even have to ask. And we know the artist’s perspective, he is not seeing the other.” Terri Stewart (Beguine Again)

“I’d like to think in the spiritual sense he’s seeing himself but that is wishful thinking, eh? Jamie Dedes (The Poet by Day)

“The ‘but for the grace of God, go I’ response. Maybe. I was more cynical…I was seeing the ego. Ego demands giving to look good. Ugh. I’ve been doing justice work too long.” Terri Stewart

“I think the cartoon suggest all of this—the empathy of “there but for the Grace of God” likely the intent of the artist. The ego the reflection in the mirror, and possibly also intent? Who knows, I guess about intent… and that sense of I will help those like me. And what about those not like me? Terri Stewart

The drawing is provocative. And privileged. And as such, regardless of intent, draws attention to our own privilege, those like me anyway, white male, sitting at my expensive computer writing on FaceBook, drinking good coffee, and not worrying about where my next meal will come from, just whether I can afford to install central AC.” Michael Dickel

What are YOUR thoughts? Please feel free to share them below.

The August issue of The BeZine will be published online on August 15. The theme for August is music.

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what remains as testimony

IMG_6885what remains as testimony are the
iceberg’s tip, the crisp of an autumn leaf
an ebbing tide, a few fading records, packed
waiting for the day, opened in repository
and sniffed at by the curious, seen as quaint
by those who weren’t there, who didn’t know
with what courage and sinuous grace we moved
through our trials, our victories, our passions
until we lost ourselves walking along the
roof’s edge, our eyes on another realm
we didn’t look back, only put out our hands
to shake yours as you passed us on your way

© 2015, poem and photograph, Jamie Dedes, All rights reserved