“Theology is not only about understanding the world; it is about mending the world”
-- Miroslav Volf
Started by a squabble between goddesses over the Golden Apple, the Trojan War is a complicated mess of jealousy and political intrigue. And did it really happen, or is it just a conglomeration of stories passed down? Let’s not haggle about the details. Look instead at this caterpillar on the dill. A gentle poke reveals its Osmeterium, a repugnatorial organ that jumps out like a snake to startle predators. Watch as its jaws reduce the shoot to a skeleton. This common caterpillar will become A butterfly named for Polyxena, youngest daughter of King Priam of Troy. Ironic metaphor for beauty that comes from strife, or fluttering reminder: Love for even the smallest miracle of life is the cure we must aim for?
Malvina will Sing It, and I'll write a poem in response.
Children's songs, songs about current events, the environment, politics, and gender inequity -- I've gotten to know Malvina Reynolds, but today's song makes me laugh. It's as though Malvina Reynolds has gotten to know ME! Add blues to her list of musical genres. My version of this song doesn't match her rhythm well enough to be sung, and I certainly could have written a more sobering and depressing version about my March, but I couldn't resist capturing a snapshot of the past couple of days.
The Fifth Grade in May Blues
Do you think you've hit bottom?
Do you think you've hit bottom?
Oh, no.
There's a bottom below.
There's a low below the low you know.
You can't imagine how far you can go...down.
Every once in awhile your lesson hits home
It clicks, it’s fun, but don’t forget...next time you’ll go...down
Do you think you've hit bottom?
Do you think you've hit bottom?
Oh, no.
There's a bottom below.
You watch the Kleenex fill up the trash can
Wash every surface with Chlorox and then (on the weekend) you go...down
Do you think you've hit bottom?
Do you think you've hit bottom?
Oh, no.
There's a bottom below.
You’re patient and kind and your voice is kept low
You’re frustrated and angry and then you yell...you’ve gone...down
Do you think you've hit bottom?
Do you think you've hit bottom?
Oh, no.
There's a bottom below.
There's a low below the low you know.
You can't imagine how far you can go...down.
Malvina will Sing It, and I'll write a poem in response.
Sometimes in Malvina's songs, she pulled her topic straight from the headlines of the newspaper. Her song today is about a little mouse who chewed some wires, causing big problems for humans.
Language alert if you are listening with children.
Be ready to hit mute at 1:06-1:09 and again at 2:40-2:43.
Malvina will Sing It, and I'll write a poem in response.
Through her music, Malvina addressed issues of diversity and collaboration, as well as economic and labor issues.
Riddle Poem
What is bigger than all its parts,
full to the brim of stops and starts,
more colorful than the boldest rainbow,
only silent when buried in snow,
less significant than it wants you to believe,
a problem to solve, a tragedy to grieve?
Malvina will Sing It, and I'll write a poem in response.
Another unifying topic in Malvina Reynolds' songs is the environment. The next few days will feature songs written in the 1960's and 1970's, but which are fresh and topical today.
Ode to an Inch of Life-Giving Rain
Oh, Rain!
You fall so abundantly further east
but we treasure every hundredth of an inch
here on the western high plains.
Oh, Rain!
You have rescued the wheat crop,
not to mention the Russian Olives
in the windbreak on the north side of the house.
Oh, Rain!
You lift every spirit.
Are your ears burning? The inch that fell last night
is the topic of every conversation at the post office.
Malvina will Sing It, and I'll write a poem in response.
One of the strongest unifying topics in Malvina Reynolds' songs is politics and protest. The next few days will feature songs written in the 1960's and 1970's, but which are fresh and topical today.
Ticky Tacky
(to the tune of "Little Boxes")
It’s the sameness, lack-of-change-ness
It’s the absence of diversity
Economic inequality
Absolute conformity
It’s a boilermaker
Never varying
So redundant
Truly tedious
It’s the absence of diversity
And it all looks just the same.
For the second half of National Poetry Month 2017,
Malvina will Sing It, and I'll write a poem in response.
One of the strongest unifying topics in Malvina Reynolds' songs is politics and protest. April 16-19 will feature songs written in the 1960's and 1970's, but which are fresh and topical today.
Grass Is
People want to tame me or Eradicate me. They underestimate my Root Structure and my Indomitable Spirit. I am Tenacious. I Exist Not to please, but to break concrete and spread Truth.
For the second half of National Poetry Month 2017,
Malvina will Sing It, and I'll write a poem in response.
One of the strongest unifying topics in Malvina Reynolds' songs is politics and protest. The next few days will feature songs written in the 1960's and 1970's, but which are fresh and topical today.
We Won’t Be Nice
Cause a disruption
Form an obstruction
March and rally and chant.
Shake up the status quo
Make a line and block the flow
March and rally and chant.
Rebel with civility
Abstain from docility
March and rally and chant.
For the second half of National Poetry Month 2017,
Malvina will Sing It, and I'll write a poem in response.
One of the strongest unifying topics in Malvina Reynolds' songs is politics and protest. April 16-19 will feature songs written in the 1960's and 1970's, but which are fresh and topical today.
Let Them Eat Cake was recorded live in concert, November 1972.
They Can Have Their Cake, and Eat it, Too
They sugar coat the truth for us,
fake the daily news,
make us look the other way.
What could they possibly lose?
They divert to keep the facts at bay,
disguise false validations,
sweeten fibs with taradiddles,
no need for vindication.
“What could we possibly lose?” they ask,
on the brink of a nuclear war.
They’re blind to even the simplest truths,
and deaf to our uproar.
For the second half of National Poetry Month 2017,
Malvina will Sing It, and I'll write a poem in response.
One of the strongest unifying topics in Malvina Reynolds' songs is politics and protest. The next four days will feature songs written in the 1960's and 1970's, but which are fresh and topical today.
The World in Their Pocket was recorded live in concert by KQED in 1967.
Holes
They say the world is richer,
With jobs and giant bankrolls.
But their logic’s got a hole.
They say we’ll build the pipeline,
Bother with leaks and spills later.
But their logic’s got a crater.
They say the world is safe,
In their constant Twitter spasms.
But their logic’s got a chasm.
When crater, hole and chasm
Become a vast abyss,
They’ll say, “Oops, we were remiss…”
"My mother came from a long line of women who worked outside the home. Her grandmother ran a deli while her husband read Torah. Her own mother and father ran a naval tailor shop. When I was in the fifth grade, my mother’s father died, and she and my father and grandmother ran the shop together."
Language alert: if watching the video with children, be prepared to hit the mute button at :33-:38 and 4:15-4:20. Also, apologies (and gratitude) to William Carlos Williams.
This is Just to Say
I have failed
the test
that measures
my worth
and which
you were probably
planning to use
to pigeonhole me
Isn’t it funny (not a joke no humor no puns) Isn’t it funny how war creates a necessity that strips away all the labels previously preventing a person’s life work?
Isn’t it funny (not a joke no humor no puns) Isn’t it funny how the devastation of war creates industries and builds an economy out of destruction?
“My mother was writing her dissertation when I was little and got her Ph.D. in 1939. But it was the middle of the Depression; she was Jewish, a socialist, and a woman; and she couldn’t get a job teaching. But when the Second World War broke out, she got a job on an assembly line in a bomb factory, and Bud went to work as a carpenter in a shipyard.”
“...it was while doing graduate work in English there (University of California Berkeley) that she did some student teaching. She used pop songs to teach her high school students about rhyme scheme and meter, as they were not poetry readers."
Malvina Reynolds would have been at Berkeley in the 1920's, and "Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue" was a popular song then. Perhaps it was one she used to teach about rhyme scheme and meter.
Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue
Words: Sam M. Lewis and Joseph Widow Young; Music: Ray Henderson (1925)
Five foot two, eyes of blue,
but oh, what those five foot could do:
has anybody seen my gal?
Turned-up nose, turned-down hose
Flapper? Yes sir, one of those
Has anybody seen my gal?
Now, if you run into
a five-foot-two
covered with fur,
Diamond rings,
and all those things,
Bet your life it isn't her
But could she love, could she woo!
Could she, could she, could she coo!
Has anybody seen my gal?
My Gal, Mother Nature
Birds and bees, rocks and trees
Oh the breeze and green green leaves
Has anybody seen my gal?
Skies of blue, rivers too
Nature? Yes we need her hues
Has anybody seen my gal?
Now if the skies are hazed
Parks are paved
Trash everywhere,
Species dead
Sewage spread
Bet your life there’s no clean air
The temps are high, could she die?
Could she, could she, could she die?
Has anybody seen my gal?
“It was while she was in high school that Malvina first met William “Bud” Reynolds, at a socialist dance. He was a merchant seaman, seven years older, handsome, and even more shy than she. He was self-educated, having left school after the eighth grade. They read poetry to each other in Golden Gate Park, but when he proposed, she refused. Encouraged by her mother, she had her sights set on college and a career.
She married someone else, and so did Bud. He ran for governor of Michigan on the Socialist ticket, with the slogan, “You provide the evictions, we’ll provide the riots!” They found each other again after she was divorced, and this time she said yes.”
Gentle and meek are things of the past. I am Ready to take on the world. To Lead, Persist, and Open doors With my own talents, my own skills, and my own Expertise. World, are you Ready for me?
"I had first come to the attention of the principal’s office with a premature women’s liberation movement on the school grounds. At noon, the boys could leave the grounds to play around on the streets and to get hot dogs, hamburgers, coffee, and pop at the little store across the street. I circulated a petition that the girls be allowed out of the yard at noon also. The answer was no. It wasn’t proper for girls to be on the street. [The girls then asked that the boys be restricted, and were told] if the school tried to restrict the boys they’d just climb the fence. Probably in the same situation now, the girls would climb the fence. Then, nothing happened except that quiet, shy me was fingered as a troublemaker."
Storyteller, storyteller
come on out.
Tell us a story.
What’s it about?
Pirates or dragons,
a farm or a zoo?
Zebras? Lions?
Kangaroo?
Storyteller, storyteller
spin us a yarn.
Make it a good one,
one that will charm.
One full of laughter,
or one full of fear--
no matter what you tell
all of us will cheer!
"The times I have been happiest were the rare times when I was one of a gang….I had a kind of gang when we lived on Buchanan Street [in San Francisco]. I must have been seven or eight. We would sit in the light of the street lamp in the evening on the high wooden flight of stairs, a dozen of us, and while the bigger boys played “One Foot Off the Gutter,” I would make up long stories to tell the others. I don’t remember what the stories were about, but they must have been interesting; I can remember the young voices in the evening, calling me to come out."
