Sunday Poetry

To Wahilla Enhotulle

Alexander Posey 1873 –1908

^{(To the South Wind)}

O Wind, hast thou a sigh
Robbed from her lips divine
Upon this sunbright day—
A token or a sign?

Oh, take me, Wind, into
Thy confidence, and tell
Me, whispering soft and low,
The secrets of the dell.

Oh, teach me what it is
The meadow flowers say
As to and fro they nod
Thro’ all the golden day.

Oh, hear, Wind of the South,
And whispering softer yet,
Unfold the story of
The lone pine tree’s regret.

Oh, waft me echoes sweet
That haunt the meadow glen—
The scent of new-mown hay,
And songs of harvest men;

The coolness of the sea
And forest dark and deep—
The soft reed notes of Pan,
And bleat of straying sheep.

Oh, make me, Wind, to know
The language of the bee—
The burden of the wild
Bird’s rapturous melody;

The password of the leaves
Upon the cottonwood;
And let me join them in
Their mystic brotherhood.

This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on November 16, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets.

More about this poem, and this poet here.

Poem-a-Day on Saturday

Joan of England in Bordeaux, 1348

Paisley Rekdal

^{Daughter of Edward III, Joan of England, traveled during the Black Death to meet her fiancée, Peter of Castille.}

What name will he call her when they meet
in her embroidered skirts of silk and velvet?
It’s all that she can bear to wonder,
trapped on board this docked ship

in her embroidered skirts of silk and velvet,
fingering her betrothed’s enamel face.
Trapped on board this docked ship,
sea light ripples through the window,

fingering her betrothed’s enamel face.
No one’s come to greet her.
Sea light ripples through the window
and she is alone. She is never alone.

No one’s come to greet her,
neither courtier, supplicant, nor priest.
She is alone. She is never alone.
The sky outside is thick with smoke.

Where is the courtier, supplicant, or priest
to lead her to the prince her father promised?
The sky is thick with smoke
swirling in knots: a labyrinth of black roses

leading to the prince her father promised.
Her father, who laughed at her love of beauty—
her knotted silks, labyrinth of roses—
In his world, love means power;

he laughed at her love of beauty.
But now, outside, masked figures scurry
and she sees the only power left to her is beauty.
A hard knot rises at her throat.

Outside, masked figures scurry
as a scythe of birds swings over the road.
A hard knot rises at her throat.
This isn’t the kingdom she was promised,

its scythe of birds swinging over the road,
where the sea air smells of rotting roses,
ash from a kingdom she wasn’t promised.
Cold light tongues her betrothed’s face.

The sea air smells of ash and roses.
She’ll ride out soon to meet her husband,
cold light tonguing her face—
No world lasts forever. And she won’t live

without riding out to meet her husband,
smiling as his pale hands reach for her.
No world lasts forever. And she won’t live
a moment longer upon this cold, unmoving sea.

She smiles as pale hands reach for her.
What name will he call her when they meet
far from this cold, unmoving sea?
What dark road will they ride together?
It’s all that she can bear to wonder.

Copyright © 2024 by Paisley Rekdal. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on November 15, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets. More about this poem and this poet here.

Poem-a-Day: Miscarriage

Christine Stewart-Nuñez

Gauzy film between
evergreens is a web

of loss. Get closer. Reach
to touch the shimmering

gossamer and your finger
pushes through. Remember

filling that space with desire?
Someone else might grieve

the spider who abandoned
this home; others grow anxious

waiting for a deer’s walk
to wreck it. But you—

you grieve the net of thought
spun inside your own womb:

intricate and glossy and strong.

More about this poet and this poem here.

Today in Good, almost Karmic, News

You Cannot Make This Up: The Onion Buys InfoWars

I am so tired of the lies about immigrants to please the maga bastards.

OK this is me just ranting before bed. Sorry. See I was an abused kid. Most of you who come here already know and don’t need any extra help in that to show you how badly I was abused. So I don’t need to show you more than my occasionally over the top ranting about my childhood abuse or the republicans claiming the republicans are stealing kids at the border … which is really what the republicans did. They separated parents from children and then gave the children to Christian adoption agencies to sell for profit. I wonder how their god feels about that. But please let’s keep talking about how Biden lost all these kids … who were never lost. Does any one else mind they are doing this????? Because as a human trafficked sexually abused and traded person … I fucking sure DO! Hugs.

https://apnews.com/article/fact-check-misinformation-migrant-children-missing-7ab0cea2fd2238346197429e952baa8b

https://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2024-10-02/fact-focus-claims-that-more-than-300-000-migrant-children-are-missing-lack-context

I am so very very tired and sorry if I hurt anyone tonight. It just hurts what the republicans are doing and keep doing. They hurt adults … They hurt kids. They care for no one.

I wrote this post days ago and fell asleep before I could publish it. Hugs

Legacy

Ted Kooser 1939 –

I have spent seventy years trying to persuade you,
to manipulate you with the poems I’ve written,
to remember my people as if they’d been yours—
to flesh out in evocative detail my parents,
my grandparents, cousins, uncles and aunts—
knowing that one day I’ll be gone, and without me
to remember them, the poems I’ve written
will have to go it alone. I owe my people
so much, and I want them to enjoy—if not
immortality—a few more good years in the light,
my grandfather patching a tire for a quarter,
his brother weaving a rag rug on his sun porch,
my mother at her humming sewing machine,
my father un-thumping a bolt of brocade,
measuring for new draperies. Perhaps they were
for you, to draw open and see on your lawn
Cousin Eunice Morarend playing her accordion.

The Warrior’s Plume

Bertrand N. O. Walker 1870 – 1927

On the plains and in the vales of Oklahoma,
Grew a flower of the Tyrian hue,
The color that is loved by the Redman,
That tells him light and life,
And love are true.

Long ago it flamed in beauty on the prairies,
Lighting reaching vistas with its glow;
Ere advent of the whiteman and his fences,
Told the care-free, roving hunter
He must go.

The throng, the herd, and greed have madly trampled
Prairie, woodland, valley, and the height;
Crushed the feath’ry flower and rudely blighted
Its pride and life and beauty,
And its light.

Today ’tis found in silent glades and meadows
Where by twos and threes it greets the May.
Like the scattered braves who loved its color,
It has passed, been trodden out
Along the way.

As the oriflamme it flaunted through past ages
Went to gladden the fairness of the earth;
So the greatness of the Indian will linger
In the land that loves them both
And gave them birth.

This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on November 10, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets.

More from and about this poet on the page.

FACT FOCUS: Claims that more than 300,000 migrant children are missing lack context

https://apnews.com/article/fact-check-misinformation-migrant-children-missing-7ab0cea2fd2238346197429e952baa8b

I am so tired of this stupid lie. The right / republicans keep using it because the children they stole from parents at the border back during tRump’s term have never been found and returned to their parents. That is what this asshole false claim is about. Here are the facts. Hugs

By MELISSA GOLDIN

Updated 6:29 PM EST, October 2, 2024

Republicans, including former President Donald Trump, have recently claimed that hundreds of thousands of migrant children who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border unaccompanied are missing, then criticized the border policies of the Biden administration and Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris.

Ohio Sen. JD Vance, the Republican vice presidential nominee, repeated the claim during Tuesday night’s debate.

“We have 320,000 children that the Department of Homeland Security has effectively lost,” he said as he met Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz in what is likely the last debate of the 2024 presidential campaign.

But immigration experts say the claims regarding missing migrant children lack significant context.

Here’s a closer look at the facts.

CLAIM: The Biden administration has lost more than 300,000 unaccompanied migrant children.

THE FACTS: This claim misrepresents information in an August report published by the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of the Inspector General, which faulted Immigration and Customs Enforcement for failing to consistently “monitor the location and status of unaccompanied migrant children” once they are released from federal government custody.

The report noted that more than 291,000 unaccompanied migrant children had not, as of May 2024, received a notice to appear in court. Additionally, more than 32,000 unaccompanied migrant children got a notice to appear but then failed to show up for immigration court hearings. Those figures came from ICE and covered a period from October 2018 to September 2023. During that period there were a total of 448,820 unaccompanied children released by ICE to the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement.

But experts say it is a stretch to refer to roughly 300,000 children as “lost” or “missing.”

“This is not a ‘missing kids’ problem; it’s a ‘missing paperwork’ problem,” Jonathan Beier, associate director of research and evaluation for the Acacia Center for Justice’s Unaccompanied Children Program, wrote in an email.

Plus, President Joe Biden only entered the White House partway through this period. It includes approximately 15 months when Trump was president and does not specify how many children arrived in the U.S. under each president.

Experts say there are many reasons why the children might not have appeared for hearings or received a notice to appear in the first place. For example, they only get a notice to appear when removal proceedings against them have begun, and if ICE hasn’t started that removal process, they wouldn’t have gotten a notice in the first place.

A lack of communication between government agencies could mean a notice is sent to the wrong address if it has been updated with one agency and not another. A child’s guardian may be unable to take them to court, perhaps because they live on the other side of the state.

The report does not provide any explanations.

“All of these factors can explain some of the deficiencies and a conclusion that the children are missing could be very, very premature,” said Raul Pinto, deputy legal director for transparency at the American Immigration Council.

Carmen Hills, an ICE spokesperson, said the agency agreed with the inspector general’s recommendations to improve information sharing within ICE and externally with HHS, but disagreed with the suggestion that the children are missing.

“We are concerned that the report’s findings are misleading and may be misconstrued because they fail to acknowledge key facts,” she said.

Hills said ICE does not generally issue court notices to unaccompanied children “until after they have been placed with sponsors who have been vetted by HHS” so that they can get settled and seek legal help.

Representatives for HHS and Vance did not respond to requests for comment from The Associated Press.

An unaccompanied migrant child is defined by the U.S. government as someone who is under 18, lacks lawful immigration status and has no parent or guardian in the country to take custody of them. When they’re apprehended by the Department of Homeland Security, they’re transferred to the HHS’s Office of Refugee Resettlement.

They are then placed “in the least restrictive setting that is in the best interests of the child,” according to the resettlement office. That can mean shelters, foster care or residential treatment centers, among other options. If possible, children are released to sponsors, often family members, who can care for them.

Removal proceedings may be initiated by ICE and the Department of Justice. Some children are able to stay in the U.S. legally if they qualify for asylum, special visas for victims of abuse, trafficking and other crimes, or other types of immigration relief. In those cases, removal proceedings may never start.

___

Find AP Fact Checks here: https://apnews.com/APFactCheck.

MELISSA GOLDIN

Goldin debunks, analyzes and tracks misinformation for The Associated Press. She is based in New York.

Let’s talk about China wanting peaceful coexistence with Trump….

Belle talks about how tRump and his supporters build his fake image of being a superpower in the world. They take stuff that tRump had nothing to do with and claim it only happened because of him. They depend on people not knowing the subject they are talking about. Hugs