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In My Dream

Patience covers the earth
like a down blanket
that warms
fingers
in Afghanistan,
Uzbekistan, Georgia,
the West Bank, Gaza,
India, Africa,
Bosnia,
the United States.

In My Dream

Humility is a mansion
whose roof oversees
soldiers shedding guns
and whose rooms
house world leaders
shaking hands.

In My Dream

Gentleness is no coward.
Love is borderless.
Beams of light have not replaced the two towers.
Danny Pearl is alive.

In My Dream

Poetry raises children
who know peace.
               -Esther Altshul Helfgott




Seattle Participants

Nancy Peacock
.
DIALOGUE AMONG CIVILIZATIONS THROUGH POETRY




Seattle Participants

Nancy Peacock
.


In My Dream

Patience covers the earth
like a down blanket
that warms
fingers
in Afghanistan,
Uzbekistan, Georgia,
the West Bank, Gaza,
India, Africa,
Bosnia,
the United States.

In My Dream

Humility is a mansion
whose roof oversees
soldiers shedding guns
and whose rooms
house world leaders
shaking hands.

In My Dream

Gentleness is no coward.
Love is borderless.
Beams of light have not replaced the two towers.
Danny Pearl is alive.

In My Dream

Poetry raises children
who know peace.
               -Esther Altshul Helfgott





DIALOGUE AMONG CIVILIZATIONS THROUGH POETRY WEEK

in Seattle, WA.      
Monday 18 March 2002
Seattle Public Library, University Branch
hosted by
It's About Time Writers Reading Series
In conjuction with:
DIALOGUE AMONG CIVILIZATIONS THROUGH POETRY WEEK



.



Over Hair Brushings
               for Agostina Gonella Bianco, 1887-1981                          

1.

I learned Nonna Agonstina's stories summers on the farm
in Salinas Valley where fog rolls in even in July.

Sparrows and crows in rows on clotheslines anchored
mornings as I spooned Spreckle's brown sugar over steaming
cream of wheat

When sun broke through, she'd tease out stories brushing
and combing and brushing my hair.

Weaving ribbons to dance to accordion polkas in my braids,
she told me - Blame is an ugly animal.  No one wants him.

2.

My grandmother's hands cannot carry logic.

If she lived her life in Montaldo Scarumpi, Italian village
of her birth, she'd take after her mother,
not a saint, but a mediator,

weighing for the people their baskets of sorrow,
holding their questions,
taking from her pockets, balm, a peacemaker.

3.

Twirling unruly cowlicks
I feel where a lesson,
an opening,
a kind of insight was planted.
                           -Denise Calvetti Michaels