Dukkha by Naomi Beth Wakan (for Colten Boushie)

My DNA is crammed
with thousands of years
of persecution and pogroms,
of expulsions and
lives lived in perpetual exile,
so when I hear
of injustice anywhere
(as large as genocide, or
as small as one neighbor
maligning another),
immediately my cells
line up in indignation
and words of protest
overwhelm my mind.
The headline read
“Man Kills Boy”.
No, let me correct that,
“White man kills Indigenous youth.” 
Yes, that’s the trigger,
the trigger that floods
me with images
of Inca-killing Spaniards,
of Leopold’s slaughter in the Congo,
of Mao and Stalin and Pol Pot,
the Armenians, Rwanda, Srebrenica, 
the Kurds, the Isaaqs, the Rohingya, 
and here and there and everywhere
the indigenous people of those lands, 
and for all times and all places
always the Jews, the perpetual Jews . . .

The snapshots pale, and
I am left, once more,
with the stark image
of one white man killing 
one indigenous youth.
An image that may well 
tear a country in shreds. 
And, uncertain what to do, 
I turn to my husband,
who answers my unspoken question
in his usual simple way.
“Life is complex,”
is what he says. 

Poetry That Heals by Naomi Beth Wakan

How can poetry heal? Naomi Beth Wakan shows us through a tour of the different forms of Japanese poetry and ultimately answers the question.

Each chapter pairs the poetic form with the way healing intersects with reading and writing. But first the author asks “Who has not at times of distress sighed, groaned, cried and let out an anguished “Why?””

Chapter headings read like a self help guide: Being Here Now, Reading Haiku, How to Write a Haiku, The Haiku Walk, Healing the Earth, Loosening with Laughter, Freeing the Artist, Letting it all out, The Journey.

How can poetry heal? Naomi Beth Wakan shows us through a tour of the different forms of Japanese poetry and ultimately answers the question.

Each chapter pairs the poetic form with the way healing intersects with reading and writing. But first the author asks “Who has not at times of distress sighed, groaned, cried and let out an anguished “Why?””

Chapter headings read like a self help guide: Being Here Now, Reading Haiku, How to Write a Haiku, The Haiku Walk, Healing the Earth, Loosening with Laughter, Freeing the Artist, Letting it all out, The Journey. But it’s not shallow advice, not a quick-fix-buy-this kind of magical thinking.

Writers throughout took to writing stuff down as a powerful antidote to despair even in the most sad and tragic times. Even sadness expressed at a particular event can fight against depression.  Poems that witness minutes, seconds, days or years, without rushing toward a solution, are revealing an element about life which the ego matures and understands - we are not in control.

Having experienced that catatonic flood. That rock in the stomach that prevents a move forward, that inner system bunged up with too much information for the mind and heart to process, I have turned to something unrelated to gain balance, and it has often given me new insights.

Being Here Now (the first chapter) shuts the door to all the weather swirling around and points to a particular moment: the heron / looks at its image / shallow waters. Nature offers a  returns to the universe. Ah yes, right.  Got it! Vanity is a lonely pursuit.

Reading Haiku and How to Write Haiku is makes it clear this book is not a guide on how to become a post-modern Basho. “Haiku don’t tell you what to think or what insights they might offer.” writes Wakan. “Haiku present images for readers to consider and then experience the resonances within themselves that the strong images of the haiku produce.”

The Haiku Walk is about reconnecting with nature, the eyes, the ears and the mind, using our own feet. 

Healing the Earth when there is so much abuse of this planet and its beings,  “you will find no despairing comments … No “it’s so bad!” or “it’s so terrible! Nor will you find overt comments on the awesome wonder of it all. What you will find is just what someone has sensed intensely at one moment in time.”

This is easier to contemplate than lists of what we can do and what we can’t control, or endless arguments about politics … the promise of a better world and better leaders, and the inevitable hangover after the “drug” wears off.

Anything we cherish needs more care than clever speeches from politicians. It needs a level gaze. It needs to be nurtured.  The difference between sadness and despair is that sadness can evoke our care, whereas despair can lock the heart and mind in a vault.

The poet will share an opinion with humility through careful observation with her senses and her humanity.  “Yes, at such bitter and such sweet times poetry has its uses, I find.” writes Wakan.

This books taps into human nature - the apps that we are born with, that have served us throughout the centuries: the power of humour, freeing the artist, letting it all out, and the journey. 

This book is light in weight and size yet large in its capacity to bring us back to our humanity.

[published by Shanti Arts Publishing 2018

first published in 2014 by Pacific Rim Publishers]

In Canada you can order the book here mail@pagesresort.com 

In US here info@ShantiArts.com

BODY, MIND & SPIRIT / Healing / General
POETRY / Haiku

ISBN: 978-1-947067-28-8 (print; softcover; perfect bound)
ISBN: 978-1-947067-29-5 (digital)

LCCN: 2017964362

Released February 2018

104 pages

Glow of a Young Face (for Colten Boushie)

Colten Boushie's life ended at twenty two.

I never met him but his existence met me.

Interrupted my perceptions about people.

About my people who clean their houses.

Wash their clothes. Read books.

Listen to the news.

My people who have a lot to say about right and wrong.

People who have clean tap water and cheap food.

Who had three meals a day and a clean classroom

to go to in their formative years.

Who watch TV dramas about Queen Victoria.

Her marbled halls and floors. Her servants.

Their extravagant clothes and hats.

My people who grew up in the age of hope.

Who benefitted from that deep well

of social contracts, a society where

we armed ourselves with opinions

mostly kept to ourselves

keeping the streets free of our tempers

that we have now lost.

A privilege to get over because the stealing 

was done before we came and it was much more

than a wheel or a tire. It's time to give back

to the young faces and young hearts

something to live for.

Poems for Colten Boushie

We shall not forget you. We shall not simply pass this day of injustice as though it's business as usual - because it certainly isn't justice.

If you want to read about it go here Toronto Star: Our Reaction to Injustice by Shree Paradkar 

As a memorial project consider writing a poem for Colten, and send it to Lipstick Press (lipstickpress@shaw.ca). We shall post some of them.

It's not enough. It's no substitute for justice, clean water, schools and respect for our original peoples. But it is a protest against the shame of racist attitudes.