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Kim Stafford: Poems for a Cause
Poems for a Cause
What’s your calling? What’s your cause?
If it’s justice, then pen a few just words
into a chant or song that can call us all
upright to witness and to testify.
If you believe education is the key,
then compose a winsome proclamation
for a child to recite, standing small
but tall in the hall of power.
If it’s Earth that tugs your heart,
or immigrant children who haunt
your dreams, or people by bad luck
cast out to camp under the overpass,
then find a way to sing your sorrows
into remedy, your hurt into help, syllables
to gather others, so words can guide our work,
and your pain be our refrain for change.
.
So Still
They took Eric for a cigarette. They took George
for a twenty dollar bill. Breonna is gone ’cause they
didn’t like her door. Who will be the next to lie so still?
They took Ahmed for running. They took Laquan because
he walked away. They took Trayvon ’cause he was lookin’ ’round.
Wrong time, wrong place, is all they say.
They took Emmett for a whistle. They took Medgar
for a word. They took Martin ’cause they didn’t like his dream.
Again, they said, it’s time that dream’s deferred.
So still, so still, did they kill you for a thrill? So still, in your casket,
so silent, and so chill. They took away your laughter,
let us keep our tears. They took you in your troubles, in your
tender years. They took you for your color, that’s how it appears.
And when will we decide true justice to fulfill, before we
let another lie so still?
.
Rainy Day in the 40s
When my parents were in love and poor
just after the war, a hungry Sunday on the street
in San Francisco they trod the pavement feeling glum.
Where Telegraph Hill came down they heard a sound,
looked up to see no one but an apple gleaming red,
rolling down the road into my father’s hand, and
with his knife, divided, it became the gritty sacrament
they taught us: bounty in small will be enough to fill
your hand or cup when your own hard times come.
So be of good heart, hold on, look up.
.
Words of Sugar, Words of Salt
Don’t these times call for cayenne—
a taste to seize the mind in thrall?
What recipe can bring rogue judges
to their senses, bolster timid politicians,
feed the fat cats truth enough to cut
their purr? See that smoke curling
from the cook-off—forests on fire,
floods full, heat waves roasting us alive?
Maybe we’re past hints and whispers,
our chance gone for subtle scents
and fugitive flavors—time for coffee
black, jolt of onion, garlic unadorned.
.
What’s Not in the News
People use their eyes not to see
beauty, but to avoid danger.
—Joel Meyerowitz
Sunrise doesn’t make front page.
What stringer quotes my mother’s ghost?
Who shall report a child’s opinion?
A vagabond’s obituary? An inmate’s
joke in the funny pages?
Instead, the roving eye of the news
swivels toward trouble, tragedy,
the work of big money and mean souls:
tell the tough, but hide the tender…
spotlight death, leave birth in shadow.
And of what of peace, joy, devotion?
That’s up to us.
.
The Moth Vote
No more streetlights! (Let them all go dark).
We will have the moon. The minnow vote:
No more herons! We will glitter free.
Rivers agree: Go around the opposition.
Butterflies in solidarity: Don’t pin us down.
Skunk’s campaign slogan: It makes scents.
The race for top turtle got off to a slow start:
Easy does it. In the possum campaign, scandal
got no traction: We all sleep around. Nail-biter?
Cliff-hanger, dead-heat, re-count run-off?
That’s the law of tooth and claw. But in
the end, mud won by a landslide.
Copyright 2023 Kim Stafford.
Kim Stafford’s many books include Singer Come from Afar (Red Hen Press, 2021). From 2018-2020, he served as the Oregon’s Poet Laureate.
Vox Populi 
A delight. I especially ‘vote’ for SO STILL and THE MOTH VOICE.
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Thanks, Rose Mary. Kim Stafford shows us that political poems can be fun.
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Just had to click on the title and then it worked. Love these! Is there such a thing as blue humor? I’ve always been a fan of black humor, but there is a captured sadness in his poetry that fills me with tears but keeps me from drowning.
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I feel the same way, Barbara. Thanks for saying it so well.
M.
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What a delight, those little gems!
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Thanks, I love Kim’s poems, each one perfect in it’s own way.
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the email was empty! Only the title promising Kim Stafford, one of my favorites. Please repost! thank you, Amrita
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Hi Amrita, I’m not sure why the post didn’t arrive with your email, but here it is again:
https://voxpopulisphere.com/2023/04/26/kim-stafford-poems-for-a-cause/ Kim Stafford: Poems for a Cause voxpopulisphere.com
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There’s no post.
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I’m not sure why the post didn’t come through for you, but here it is again:
https://voxpopulisphere.com/2023/04/26/kim-stafford-poems-for-a-cause/ Kim Stafford: Poems for a Cause voxpopulisphere.com
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