Z studied with me
In a Social Justice class fall 2007
I learned that semester
How much Z loved poetry
They kept a notebook of new words
They’d come across and then make the words a part of them
They seemed a soul-mate to Walt Whitman
So I gave them his Poetry and Prose
That next spring semester
We decided to read poets together
Meet outside at Coffee Cartel
Share favorites, read aloud
One of the books we read
Was by Daisy Zamora
The Nicaraguan revolutionary and feminist
Her love poem to Father Ernesto Cardenal touched me
I remembered Cardenal from the 1980s
Minister of Culture under the Sandinistas
Friend of Thomas Merton
Latter day antagonist of Daniel Berrigan
So moved was I by Daisy’s poem
I began reading Cardenal
And I keep reading him
Early works
Revolutionary works
Cosmic mystical works
Even though I was reading him in translation
He helped free up my imagination
With his practice of exteriorismo
And montage holding it all
I had been stuck
On a writing project involving Palestine
Slowly I lightened up
Trusted instinct
Read The Doubtful Strait
and Zero Hour and Other Documentary Poems
Didn’t worry about logic
Or linearity
Read “Room 5600” 20 times
and Ernesto’s epistle to Dom Pedro Casaldáliga
And eventually Dear Layla
Welcome to Palestine emerged
In time for me to give it
To Nima Sheth
(Who with Matt Miller
Three times traveled to Palestine)
On the occasion of her graduation
From the SLU Medical School
I stop to consider: What if Z had taken
A different theology class that fall of 2007?
Today’s gratitudes
For Z and Daisy
Walt and Ernesto
Nima and Matt
