October 7th – Grits and Grains

For one day only – my poem Today

Here is a play on words,
a fundamental question.

Is the I a number that marks a beginning,
or, is that I me with rather less feeling,
as in number with a silent b?
Is this a play on words,
or, a play on numbers with words,
a play for today, November 1st?

Here it is: 1 11, 11/1 or 1/11 –
depending whether you’re American
or not, All Saints Day,
when the air’s cleaned of mischief
when the I’s come out to play,
1 11, the first eleven, the perfect team.

The play goes on.
Picture that All, for all the saints,
its two ll’s standing as one,
seeing as one, holding hands,
a love’s embrace.

Or is it illness we see
under the spill and spell
of numbers – III, iIIness –
to make a season to remember
the dark days of the fall,
when another I joins the ranks
of the ones of one and eleven

to make 11/11 a day when the evil of war
became an anvil
for the forging of peace?
Is this a play on numbers,
or a poem that builds today?

There are other acts, other dates,
nothing ever begins with the first.

Take, for example, 911, our 11/9
which we’ll call 9/11
for its hallowing of American soil.
911, the emergency number,
our 999. The 9 followed by the twin towers,
all the ones destroyed
when the ground reduced to zero.

Picture those 1s
and you’lll see there’s never one alone.

Ceiling to floor, ceiling to floor,
each 1 towering,
one copying another,
each office a cell
a spreadsheet of humanity,
each one working part of their lives,
one of a family,
one of a community of so many other ones.

And then came Hamas on a day
which belongs to the same season of war.
Did that mark a beginning?
Was that the start of things
as the Israeli right claims?
Or was it just
the extreme one
in a string of grievance and reprisals?

7/10 we’d call it,
a high mark of history,
possibly the end of a nation.
Israel has always known its numbers,
the seven days of creation,
the ten, the measure of God’s authority.
They multiply those numbers
to sum up the fullness and perfection of life

or to ask the question of the times –
how many times must we forgive?
Is it 70?
Is it just 70?
Good news responds:
It’s not just 70. It’s 7 times that.
It’s so many times we’re bound to lose count.
There’s no going back to number 1
and whatever its cause.
No one ever started it.