East End Report

Kathy Engel: Inaugural

Inaugural

This is the time
to be generous
this is the time to be brave
to watch
how the dove tails up, blinks,
sits tight over invisible eggs
and waits

this is the time to protect
a time to risk
to poet
this is the time to mother
to become curious
this is the time to father
the time to be a child
and listen to the world’s striped
breath
this is the time to caulk blood
and love water

this is the time to build
to speckle and spackle
sorrow and happiness
understanding there was never justice
only enough love to keep the species going
against the constant backdrop of arrogance
this is the time to listen to a porcupine
follow a lizard
this is the time to undress

this is the time to redress
dance to the music of our youth
like we’re still young
accepting our turtle bodies
this is the time to hear our children’s music
this is the time to grow food
and give it away
to see time as a lover,
acrobatic, responsive, calm with familiarity
always uncertain
this is the time to reconcile
and this is the time to expect more
conquer less
this is the time to end torture
(and war)
to stop believing that because things have been
they must continue to be

this is the time for garlic
and a new Jerusalem
this is the time to distinguish between cruelty and absence
and not to be absent or silent
in the face of the intolerable
this is the time to insist
the time to become whole
and give back what you’ve learned in wholeness
eyelid of light
a disciplined gift of pure grace
for anyone who can breathe and for those
whose breath was stolen or just left them

this is the time to make maps to end hunger of the belly
language to fill hunger of the heart
this is the time to starve
the invader and
turn history back into a prose poem
this is a time to recognize the fuzzy lines --
lack of clarity is not indifference
a time to discern not judge
this is the time for storytelling
sad and defiant and laughing tongues
holding forth about bamboo and the miracle of living things
as well as the inevitable and what appears to be mundane
this is a time to dare being sappy and silly
to fill buckets with endless
alliterative lines replacing cellphones
and instant message

leading towards
lemon verbena
or a flat shining dawn over the spiral sea
to hold your coffee cup
in your hand as you walk into day
smoky java musk
and heartbreak
swirling before you
and behind you

this is a time for jasmine
to construct schools with plenty of light and paint
led by adults who love children more than state exams
this is a time to nail shut prisons and stupid laws
write songs
with wrinkled eyes and cayenne lips
this is the time for loving ghosts and fathers
who talk through their ashes
in farmland and film
to let bad ghosts hang out too
until they realize there’s no place for them and leave

this is the time to remember the future
like lentil soup
adding one at a time, each ingredient,
a piece of the possible, the savory – cilantro,
rosemary
seasoning according to the tastes of those you love
this is a time to recount the words of favorite writers
and laborers
and find the words of writers you’ve never heard of
painted onto walls and train cars
anywhere
books hidden in dusty shelves
in small villages surrounded by birds and possum
this is the time to remake a family
and make dinner

this is the time for atheists to pray and zealots to let go
to marvel at the way a sea lion
gets lost on the shore, nods
then waddles back to the waves,
and smile with the realization that the world is not yet
coming to an end
but not become complacent
this is the time to suck out the garbage, all the plastic bags
suffocating salt whispers and ocean roars,
the hump of life
to gasp at the sight of a 5 ton whale
its perfect shining arc
white tipped lime green fin extension
proving there is a form of life whose
structure and purpose remains exquisite

this is the time to twang country music, skit skat jazz
and reach for aria’s in languages you may never understand
this is a time to be with animals
and remember when you were an animal
lying in a field in the warm horse snort
newly cut grass turning to hay
the sweetest tonic

this is a time to intervene in matters
of bureaucratic pain and idiocy
and not accept the appropriate
a time to make small things matter
and imagine big things
this is a time to turn the faucet off
and rain poems

© Kathy Engel
June 2008 SeaChange Cottage, Provincetown Mass

Shinnecock Museum Indian Market

Saturday July 12th

11am - 4pm

Native American Art,

Jewelry, Carvings,

Wampum Artists

On Exhibit

“A Walk With the People”

100 Montauk Highway and

West Gate Road,

Shinnecock Indian Reservation

Free Admission Free Parking

Week of July 3 - Click Here for Updates

"Who can protest and does not, is an accomplice in the act" Talmud ( Sabbath, 54b)

Click on the following links:

Petition on Israeli Restrictions on Freedom of Movement and the Press - Mohammed Omer Case

July 12 at Shinnecock Museum - Indian Market

Stop the War Mall Tour Update

Stop Act of War Against Iran

Peace and Justice Calendar

Suffolk Peace Vigils: Vigil Sunday in Bridgehampton

Casualties in Iraq

WPKN/WPKM - Tidings from Hazel Kahan - Downloads / Blog

WPKN/WPKM East End Ink - Downloads

July 4 Events

Sayville:

This Friday, July 4th, the Sayville Women In Black will be standing vigil at the corner of Main St. & Railroad Ave. from 4:00-5:00 p.m. A large presence might remind people on their way to BBQs and fireworks displays that there is still death and destruction going on in our name.

Southampton:

The annual July 4th parade in Southampton starts at about 10am from the area around the LIRR station and winds it way up Main Street to Jobs Lane. As usual the patriots who won the right to march in this event displaying their opposition to the Iraq war will march. Last year they won the right to exercise their First Ammendment rights after an action brought by the New York State ACLU on behalf of the East End Vets and other groups.

Look for groups with the banners of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of the South Fork, Code Pink Long Island and the East End Vets.

Those who want to march with any of these groups should assemble south of the station by 9:30 am.

See you there!

Sag Harbor:

6 pm at the Whalers Church - reading of the Declaration of Independence and the preamble of the Constitution

from Spyglass by Maryann Callendrille in 27East.com (Southampton Press):

Sure, there’ll be the toasted marshmallows and sunburn (weather permitting) this Fourth of July. But over at the Whalers Church, something a bit more patriotic will be taking place between the beach and the barbecue. A diverse group of community members will participate in a reading of the Declaration of Independence and singing some favorite patriotic tunes.

The deacons of the First Presbyterian Old Whalers Church are sponsoring the program to honor the memory of 19-year-old Lance Corporal Jordan Haerter, who was killed this spring while serving in Iraq. Community members will take turns reading passages from the country’s great document, Lois Ross will provide piano accompaniment, and participants and audience members will also read in unison the Preamble to the Constitution.

Tickets to the event are $10, or $12 with an American flag pin. Children under 10 will be welcomed free of charge. Advance tickets are available at Canio’s Books, the Sag Harbor Garden Center or the church office on Thursday, between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.

Stop the War Mall Tour - Update

Suffolk County Long Islanders opposed to the U.S. occupation of Iraq, took their protest to the Walt Whitman Mall in Huntington on Saturday. Peace activists, asserting their right to free speech as guaranteed by the First Amendment, carried on the action which began in Smith Haven Mall on March 29th, and which resulted in the arrest of an 80 year old man who refused to remove his anti-occupation T-shirt at the food court while eating and resting after the demonstration outside.

The Walt Whitman demonstration was proceeded by a walk around the inside of the mall by Long Islanders in their anti-occupation T-shirts which brought attention to the over 4,000 American soldiers who have lost their lives. The T-shirts stated, “ENOUGH!”

Protesters in and outside the mall, including members of East End Women In Black which has vigiled for peace twice monthly in Bridgehampton and Sag Harbor for almost 6 years, called for bringing home the troops; reallocating war funds for housing, jobs, healthcare, the environment and education; restoring Constitutional rights and human rights; and the implementation of a foreign policy based on the rule of law, justice, and human dignity. While there was a great deal of security, protesters were peaceful, did not disrupt shoppers, but hoped to get the local community to pay attention to what is being done in their name.

Summer 2008 Stop the War Long Island Mall Tour sponsored by the Suffolk Peace Network will continue July 26 in Roosevelt Field Mall, Westbury, Long Island.

filed by Sigrid Meinel for East End Report