Sand Opera Lenten Journey Day 31: New Heavens and a New Earth + Craig Santos Perez

Sand Opera Lenten Journey Day 31: New Heavens and a New Earth + Craig Santos Perez

Thus says the LORD:
Lo, I am about to create new heavens
and a new earth;
The things of the past shall not be remembered
or come to mind.
Instead, there shall always be rejoicing and happiness
in what I create…          

--Isaiah 61

With every new life, there is a new heaven and a new earth, and yet how quickly these new lives are baptized into our human unhappinesses—not only their own hunger and thirst and pain, but also the burden of history and man’s inhumanity to man. How can we, through them, these babies, bring Isaiah’s vision to life, where there is a lightness and joy in all that we have and create?

From “Hung Lyres” (Sand Opera)

@

She asks: is that man crying

or singing?  How should I answer? 

War takes him in its fingers,

raises his body, a punctured bone

flute, to its lips, and breathes

the living dust

                        to dust alone—

this is the air we scull

air of ancestors & ashpits 

just five, the child’s baptized into this

unhappiness:

            she corrects the voices

she hears butcher

the name of the country she’s never

seen—it’s “ear-rock,”

not “eye-rack.”

From “understory” by Craig Santos Perez

(to my wife, nālani
and our 7-month old daughter, kai)

kai cries
from teething--

how do
new parents

comfort a
child in

pain, bullied
in school,

shot by
a drunk

APEC agent?
#justicefor

-kollinelderts--
nālani gently

massages kai's
gums with

her fingers-
how do

we wipe
away tear--

gas and
blood? provide

shelter from
snipers? disarm

occupying armies?
#freepalestine--

nālani sings
to kai

a song
about the

Hawaiian alphabet--
what dreams

will echo
inside detention

centers and
cross teething

borders to
soothe the

thousands of
children atop

la bestia?
#unaccompanied--

nālani rubs
kai's back

warm with
coconut oil--

how do
we hold

violence at
arm's length

when raising
[our] hands

up is
no longer

a universal
sign of

surrender? #black
livesmatter--

kai finally
falls asleep

in nālani's
cradling arms,

skin to
skin against

the news--
when do

we tell
our daughter

there's no
safe place

for us
to breathe #...

From Hawai'i Review special online issue, Write for Ferguson. With special thanks to editors Anjoli Roy and No'u Revilla. Used with permission.