No border wall

For Now

Wendy W. Blumberg

I cannot put my words

Together

It is as if they are trapped

Inside my brain

Words I need

To express my distress

Feelings of disbelief

And if I am truthful

Horror

At what is being allowed

In the unraveling of my country’s

Beingness

I cannot get the words out

Write them down

Will have to let other voices

Be heard

Other voices exclaim

The anger     bewilderment

Outrage

Like silt building up

In the pristine waters

Of a mountain stream

I will listen

Follow where they lead

Trusting it be

Into the light of reason

Again

 

For now

My hibiscus blooms large scarlet discs

Under my window

 

For now

I watch crazy flights

Of a Phoebe bird

As it snaps up insects

On the wing

Am mesmerized

By these different sized evergreens

On a hill

Above the Camino Real

Swaying as one

In the wind

 

For now

Music     laughter

Kind voices from anyone

Anywhere

Human and animal

Voices of my children

My True Love

Sounds from my own world

The only real word now

For me

Stench

Wendy W. Blumberg

It usually happened in summertime

Hot humid winds

Out of the west

Blew east

Over the city of Chicago

To the shores of Lake Michigan

Bringing with them

A stench

From the Chicago stockyards

The slaughter houses

There

 

Stench

A word from my childhood

Spoken by the adults

Around me

The words     stockyard

Slaughter house

I understood surrounded cows

Waiting to be killed

For meat

Now rationed by World War II

It had no impact on me     then

Until

A photograph in a magazine

A holding pen

With cattle crammed together

Waiting for slaughter

Made me sorrowfully aware

Of what the west winds

Signified

 

The Chicago stockyards

The slaughter houses

Long gone

But not holding pens

Slaughter houses

In other places

Cattle crammed so tightly

Together

None hardly move

 

I have stopped eating meat

 

There’s a stench

Here

An awful stench

Here

Words from a TV commentator

A congresswoman from the House of

Representatives

They face a large enclosure

Like a cage     a true

Cage

Inside     a hundred or

More

Immigrant men

Standing shoulder to shoulder

No room to sit     to lie down

To sleep

A few fortunate ones on the

Floor

They stand looking out

The TV camera

Records     their faces

Some raise their arms

Silent

Helpless

 

Seeing these immigrant

Men

Crammed together in that

Cage

I think back on my

Childhood

To the west winds

Blowing to the east

Over Chicago

On hot humid summer

Days

And remember the stench

I remember the stench

And what that stench

Means

 

I remember