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THE POEMS OF KATHERINE GORDON
Katherine L. Gordon is an author, editor, and reviewer, writing in a secluded river valley near Rockwood, Ontario. Her work has been published in Cuba, India, the U.K. and North America. |
Wanting A Wall Oh Jerusalem I envy you your wailing wall,
some public place annointed by the ages
where grief is vented, blessed
and taken up from the sufferer
into porous stone that holds
the tears of centuries,
releasing slowly
tragedy transformed
to lessons in life.
There is no place here to offer this hurt
to lay or leave it
no way to leaven wisdom from bitter bread,
passages into purgatory go unmarked.
Seen with reddened eyes
the colour of happiness past
the fog-bound future with its blackened edges
boundaries squared into small earth cell
inside a circle of failed promise.as published in A Time Of Trial
The Harvest of Black September In the bright autumn of our year
they fell.
Young leaves of life
who bannered our hearts
with love and joy,
their farewell a flame
that burned the innocence from our world.
Now, in their names,
from soot and ashes of mean death
we rescue their light,
unite with their astonished spirits
as they fade unwilling
from this plane.
Brothers and sisters
across the lands of earth
will transform cruelty to kindness,
will build a monument,
not of stone or steel
but of the human spirit.from A Time Of Trial
Conjured Borders I stood on the shore of the dream,
painted cave, furling fire,
primeval scream,
listening for a whisper
from the book of time
to tell the verses of destiny
chant the meaning of the journey,
dry old tears.
The sound that answered the summons
death-rattling on these conjured borders,
warned of turning pages
in a text I could not read.
Somewhere the laughter
of a baboon,
descended from trees
to bang the forest floor,
reverberated in sinister mockery
of all the cyber spells
I thought we knew.
Drum-promises of ape-man to angel
may belong to a different race.Time Re-unites Every Atom The God of Moses has gifted his people,
like the sand and the rocks they endure.
Though eroded by waves of envy and hatred
they rise as mountains
on the other side of the sea.
By politics and prejudice
these people of precious stone
are crushed and battered,
yet not a grain is lost.
Their works and their words
endow the generations, teaching us
the overcoming of every blow,
forged steel becoming brighter, stronger,
resilience learned in the fire.
When the glass of hatred
is washed from all eyes
a continent of love
assembles from the shards.Written for YOM HA-SHOAH, 2005
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