We Paddled Across The Sun - Tom Lagasse

As Life and Nature are not great with reference to the Present only, 

But greater still from what is yet to come,

Out of that formula for Thee I sing 

Walt Whitman, One Song, America, Before I Go

All parts away from the progress of souls,

All religion, all solid things, arts, governments - all that was or is apparent

    upon this globe or any globe, falls into niches and corners

    before the processions of souls along the grand roads 

    of the universe. WW Leaves of Grass

I

Ithaca’s Farmer Market

June 2019

We paddled across the sun-streaked canal into the heart of Ithaca.

Ithaca, welcoming hostess, sanctuary to the idealistic who confound the narrow-minded at

home, nourishes its strangers, and is energized by their ideas and ideals.

Where the tesserae of justice and decency replace the decaying tiles of mythology and

intolerance, Ithaca is the cement that binds them.

Years from now, the yet unborn children will arrive at Ithaca to a find a new home, one less

different than the one they left. They will not find a plaque or statue

Commemorating a single event where a divided country walked towards one another.

Rather, the good citizens here allowed goodness and hospitality to flow

and met goodness and hospitality from other parts of the country. Together, they

quenched a thirst, like water, throughout the land. We paddled across the sun-

streaked canal along the park’s edge. Parents nervously watched their children play

baseball and the gravel paths were energized with lovers holding hands and runners, and

We were Lewis & Clark – not discovering new land, only one more exotic to those whose

imaginations were myopic or opaque.

When we eased towards the shore, we were greeted by children

wide-eyed and curious, who marveled at two old men,

Their grandfathers’ age, struggling in knee-deep water to dock their canoe against the quiet

lilting afternoon waters.

“I’m Mauricio” the young boy welcomed. Like men on equal footing, he asked for our

names. Ernest in his desire to lend his small, un-calloused hand, he received

The frayed end of the rope my friend tossed towards him. Filled with the generations of

goodwill, Mauricio helped pull the canoe ashore.

“This is my sister Lucella,” he said with neither pride nor disdain. Lucella was small and

bright in her white dress. The water’s reflection danced on her face.

“We have Spanish names” was all she said. Together Lucella and Mauricio

guarded our canoe as we went ashore and entered the heart of Ithaca:

The Farmer’s Market, open and airy where friend and stranger,

Consumer and artisan congregate to become friends. Beneath the cathedral ceiling

Of corrugated metal, this elemental world of raw materials, hand, tools, and spirit forged to

feed us. Vendors wait for the converted that line the perimeter to approach them.

The shepherd with the arthritic hip hobbles to the cooler. Her husband waits to relieve her.

The experienced farmer calls upon his children for help. And they answer.

The young female farmer, wearing a sundress, leans her weary body

over the fecund display of lettuces and greens.

Young male farmers in shorts and t-shirts, their bodies strong and supple, flex under the

demands of the early summer harvest.

These youthful bodies, ripe and bountiful as the day’s harvest, move

Confidently. Inheritors of the ancient craft, they will help nourish the community

This summer and seasons ahead. Exuberantly they explain methodology, once common,

has grown esoteric. The cost of this knowledge is etched into their faces

By an unforgiving sun, the ache of their backs, and callouses on their hands. Through

education ancient crafts and norms are renewed.

Appreciation for the commonplace is resurrected and celebrated.

Tattooed college students and tattooed bikers stand shoulder to shoulder.

Interracial couples push strollers with children of the new America

This we celebrate.

Old couples look adoringly at this new life.

Women walk with women and men walk with men.

Are they friends or lovers?

No one bothers to ask.

This we celebrate.

Chefs consider arugula, lettuces, and radishes to satisfy hungry patrons.

This we celebrate

We eat empanadas, cookies and hand-churned ice cream.

This we celebrate.

The lines for Cubanos and pad Thai grow, desiring a taste of the exotic.

This we celebrate.

The aromas entice and call to curiosity.

No one minds waiting. We are buoyed by pleasant conversation and laughter.

This we celebrate.

Vintners and guests raise small shot glasses of wines and ciders.

This we celebrate.

Cheers!

Money for goods is exchanged. No one quibbles to drive prices down for a bargain. The

cost of work is respected and a fair wage is expected in exchange for it.

Families gather on blankets, at picnic tables, along the edge of the riverbank with an ease

brought upon by a week of hard work and re-connecting to the water and trees.

They break bread, naan, pitas, baguettes, sourdough, challah, focaccia, bialy, leavened or

unleavened. Here our common hunger is satiated:

the common humanity of wanting to nurture the seed of love:

We are the dirt

We are the kernel.

We are the stem

We are the chaff.

We are the fruit

Conversation sings. Children climb an old willow tree, hollowed and sanded and they

shriek in delight. Voices rise into the pristine cloudless sky. Laughter.

A baby cries and is given her mother’s breast without shame.

II

New York City Poetry Festival

July 2019

We journeyed by car, by train, by taxi, and by ferry. It was not difficult but required

commitment, a desire to eschew the daily logistical burdens that mark our days.

As we move from car, to train, to taxi, to ferry, we encounter a broader, more diverse

America than the one we left.

On the ferry, we depart one island for another. Like the rest of this land, like ourselves, we

are constantly re-assessing, reinventing, re-making.

From the boat the mountain of buildings, once abstract, embryonic visions, embody

a thriving city where dream blossoms upon dream, like a bouquet. Here, no single America

dream exists – but the commonality of human longing and desire.

The ferry ride draws us towards the genesis of immigration, to the torch of liberty, still a

beacon in these dim times. And where millions of lives intersected, abundant with a

cornucopia of ideas and hope.

The festival symbolizes the best what Emma Lazarus wanted for us.

Power wants to restrict freedom because it fears people

will recognize their strength and flex it.

At the festival, power is jazz and poetry – democracy of creativity and not fascism.

Yet, we stand on blood.

The island, once Lenape land, was called Paggank (Nut Island). Rich

in people, hickory, oak, and chestnut, Paggank was not savage with raw humanity

and materials, in need of taming; rather it was the conquerors’ need to bend

a narrative to glorify the savagery to come.

Renamed Noten Eylant, by the Dutch, Anglicized into Nutten Island. The language and

ideals of colony wrapped like a noose around freedom.

Today on this land, poets try to unloosen the knot so the land and its people can finally by

free.

Under the Saturday summer sky, all dreamers of freedom poets, dancers, musicians, artists,

bike riders, walkers, environmentalists, and tourists roam.

Young families ride bikes in clusters. Fathers and mothers guide

their unsteady young until they master the art

of balancing on two wheels.

Children dance and rejoice refreshed from the sprinklers as their parents

Vicariously experience it with a hint of jealousy to be so free.

Along walkways, the gardens and large swatches of grass, people fill

Open spaces like wildflowers. Here, the fashion is the fashion of self:

Women in saris; women in tank tops, women in hijabs, women in burkas. Men in shorts

and t-shirts, men in khakis and golf shirts, men in dresses and skirts.

All these bodies make one body.

The body is art and the body is politic the body is sex the body is spirit.

All are allowed their space to walk in peace.

They are the America whose ideas drive the idea of America.

They are America equal parts custodian, factory worker, taxi driver, executive, sales rep,

mother, father, sister, brother. We are capable of all things and all things are within us.

Here the stranger is as much a brother and sister as the brother and sister contains the

stranger.

Under a singular creation of the unnamed, the glimpsed, are we not all

but a piece within the most generous definition of the unknown

from where all things flow?

Lovers share space with the lonely, the affectionate with the isolated. Together,

The audience sits on the grass and listens.

On stage, poets struggle to be heard through the din and commotion of life teeming around

them and the inadequate sound system.

All of it is grounded in experience. Their poetry speaks of love, of loss, of identity, of

invisibility, of violence, of mending, of repair, of recovery, of war and peace and transforms

it into something greater – art.

They sing of universal themes clothed in the personal. Who among us has not

Howled into the night with pain and despair?

The poets sing of what we are

and what we are not, what we were, what we can be, what we will be.

Hand trembling with nerves, Hispanic women poets recite their poems. Some read them

from their phones, others from their books, and others have memorized their words as

though they are etched like tattoos into their bodies.

The poets mash Spanish and English together to build the new vocabulary,

Although the audience may not yet understand it, in a sanctuary of generosity, the music of

language and courage is enough.

Here they speak in the language of truth

Here they speak into the pain

Here they give voice.

Here they are our conscience.

Here they are our soul.

Many voices rising into the skyListen to the pain be transformed.

Listen for the fire.

Let it destroy all it needs to burn.

We can rebuild.

The applause of approval.

Other poets also read about love, identity, or politics or the politics of love and identity.

Wild sparks of revolution fly into the air and wait for the tinder of spirit to catch fire.

This wildfire will torch the straw institutions that no longer serve us.

On Paggunk the freedoms of speech, assembly, creativity, and equality pushes the

pendulum away from this country’s darker angels. The false nationalist center will not

hold.

Governor’s Island, once a military base, is now a park.

III

Mothers and fathers weep

Any day in the United States

In distant lands most American citizens cannot locate on a map,

soldiers protect and pay with their lives for our greatest ideals,

the inexhaustible reach of empire –

What privilege for

Ahmed, Ramon, Yashabel, Francisco, Du Hai, Alvaro,

To take their last breathes in a United States uniform – for us, for all of us.

Mothers and fathers weep for who they were and who they might have been.

How heroic Daniela, Enrique, Roberto, Ricardo, Herbeth, Octavio, Kafele,

Ember, Javier, Trinidad, Delfin, Willbel, and Humayun were on those fateful days

As they defended a country against terror on foreign soil.

Mothers and fathers weep how they will be remembered.

While mothers and fathers mourn life lost

Others weep as well as their children

will be birthed into the imperfect freedom of this country.

Ali, Ming, Juan, Johnny, whose real name is Chen.  

Their lungs will fill air as they

Pedro, Merima, Kamala,

Rashida, Ihan, Faiza, and

Danesh who will be called Danny

Begin their journey in the only land

they can call home.

And mothers and fathers weep for who they may become

The open palms of doctors

Muhammed, Nazmul, Marzena,

Yair, Jolanda, Souheil, Sampath, Fawad, Sai,

will transport them across the border

From one land to another.

Generous, competent hands wrapped in vinyl.

Hands trained to shepherd a new generation to life.

A fresh vocabulary with a shared etymology of healing:

Yong-Sung, Vijai, Makram, Sampath, Margarita,

Bala, Radhika, and Sapna

And mothers and fathers weep for who they may become.

Innocence gives rise to the demons.

The living, white as ghosts, who are too afraid

to square the present with history’s truth: one

nation built on racism and genocide. This truth

has been long dismissed as though it were a harmless college hazing.

And mothers and fathers weep for who they may become.

The young, the first

of their families born in a new land, energetic

and determined will draw

their gaze towards living into this country’s ideals,

which will not be as cruel

as the coal-hardened heart of this one.  

They will bid farewell to this era -- builders

are too busy. Their gaze fixed as though following

the North Star on their enduring work.

They embody the ideals the United States has longed to be:

All thriving for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness with equality.

These words, written by and ratified by slave owners, may at last be

expunged of their original sin.

A new freedom crawls in pediatricians’ offices, runs at recess

In schools, creates a new business, prays in places of worship

Until they crack the weight of genocide, slavery, reconstruction, Jim Crow -

Institutional & systemic racism -, interments, the battle for civil rights,

Gender equality, immigration, asylum, violence, children and parents

in cages and the hard shell of the mythic American Exceptionalism

allows the kernel to crack

to at last bloom

into the flower of truth

Reconstruction 2.0.

This is the army of time. 

The new generation will sing in equal voices,

A rising chorus, deep and resonate. It will

not be the small, tinny voice of privilege.

And mothers and fathers weep for who we may become.

Walt Whitman, Captain my captain, who experienced a divided nation and nursed soldiers with a

compassionate poet’s heart:  I hear your echoes in this moment:

The great masters and cosmos are well as they go . . .

    the heroes and good-doers are well,

The known leaders and inventors and the rich owners and pious

    and distinguished may be well,

But there is more account than that . . . there is strict account of all.

Notes

Walt Whitman. Selected Poems 18-55-1892: A New Edition. Schmidgall, Gary Ed. St.

Martins. New York. 1999.

One Song, America, Before I Go pg. 340.

Leaves of Grass 1856 pg. 147

Leaves of Grass pg. 79.