Ode to Spring-Rapture

rides the air waves
in America decrying the death by starvation
of a woman unplugged, ending a fifteen-year
vegetative state, an Easter parade with macabre
priests instead of pastel spring hats or egg hunts,
followed by the Pope, wafting in the mystical eros
of god-on-earth's last breath,
while families by the thousand in the Sudan die
of starvation, and the US invasion of Iraq
has resulted in the death of 19,696 civilians,
as of today, here, now
but we don't look at that, or do anything
about it, rapture
can get you higher than a kite
fest in the park, eyes glued to a
Tsumami water wall with everything jumbled
up together, death and the aberrant miracle,
the stench of rotting flesh, everyone's pets
starving on the beach, smart enough to run for
cover in time, foiled by dependence
on humanity,
it's alright to look at this, good to send money,
but not to dote on victims of war, or famine,
which could be avoided, rapture
requires innocence, if it's your fault, that's
a bummer, you experience guilt, are compelled to
work on the problem, fix it, find solutions,
feed people, stop fighting wars, ban
nuclear weapons, preserve the earth,
rapture can't live here and now
with all these things that are wrong
that need footwork
so we don't go insane,
bludgeon each other to mud,
rapture
requires innocence, tabula rasa, a clear
conscience —
the erotic blissful death of god on earth
even if she is a brain dead woman
even if it is the pope
this is the stuff of rapture,
rapture
can get you higher than a kite
fest in the park, brilliant colors coasting
on the April-soft, post-coital wind
of all we do not see.

©Susan Bright, 2005.

Susan Bright is the author of nineteen books of poetry. She is the editor of Plain View Press which since 1975 has published one-hundred-and-fifty books. Her work as a poet, publisher, activist and educator has taken her all over the United States and abroad. Her most recent book, The Layers of Our Seeing, is a collection of poetry, photographs and essays about peace done in collaboration with photographer Alan Pogue and Middle Eastern journalist, Muna Hamzeh.



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