[Paula Fernandez]

What Slips Away

Because some Jews are killing Gazans,
the slaughter of Jews has been forgotten.
Their dead now piled up on boats
slip gently over the mind’s horizon.

The slaughter of Gazans has been buried
in rumors of Haitians eating kittens.
What’s that falling off the mind’s horizon?
It is always like this, memory overwritten.

Someone said Haitians were eating kittens.
In Lebanon bombs fall where babies sleep.
It’s always like this, our cares overwritten,
the mind rocks gently over the deep.

Five hundred dead in Lebanon.
A day of wailing falls off to calm.
The heart rocks, but gently, over the deep.
One small kitten fills up the palm.

A day of wailing falls off to calm.
When morning dawns, my tears are gone.
Just one small kitten fully fills the palm.
I cannot hold very much for long.


***Edits***
S1L1: "the Jews" --> "some Jews"
S3L3: "news" --> "rumors of"
S5L2/S5L4: "our"-->"my" and "we" --> "I" (I agree with those who think I should not generalize my sense of shame at the inadequacy of my compassion.

[Glenn Wright]

Hi, Paula—

I remember as a teenager listening to the casualty counts during the Vietnam War and being surprised that with the repetition of the counts, night after night, we all developed an emotional callus.

I like your choice of the loose pantoum form here. The repetition seems to suggest that the N is trying to recognize and hold the horror in her mind, finding small tragedies close to her, like a dead kitten, more upsetting than the death of 500 people, including babies, far away. We seem to have a maximum limit for grieving that we cannot exceed.

The rhythm is also loose, alternating among trimeter (S1L3), tetrameter (S1L4), and pentameter (S5L3). Strangely, I found that this did not bother me. I felt that the rhythm suggested a soliloquy. The last line, though, feels as though it needs another syllable. How about “We cannot hold distress for very long” or “We cannot keep our grief for very long?”

I wonder if it would sound more introspective and less sermony if you used “my” instead of “our” in S3L3 and “I” instead of “We” in S5L4. Very nice work!

Glenn

[Roger Slater]

I don't think "the Jews" are killing anyone, though Israel certainly is. I'm Jewish, and I assure you that I haven't done anything of the kind, and we Jews don't actually get together and agree on a common plan. I understand you are pairing it with the next line, for balance, but that still doesn't rescue the first line from inaccuracy.

[Paula Fernandez]

Roger--

My apologies. I ought to have been sensitive to that. I have changed "the" to "some" in the first stanza to see if I can save the poem.

For what it's worth, it's the seemingly forgotten slaughter of October 7th that has most alarmed me... and all the holocaust before.

[Max Goodman]

Kudos for taking on an important, difficult topic.

The relationship of the atrocities in the first two lines is different than any other relationship between atrocities in the poem. If the poem is about too many horrible things happening to adequately think about, it may not be wise to start with two atrocities of which one was a response to the other.

"the news of Haitians eating kittens" sounds like they really were eating pets.

FWIW.

[Susan McLean]

Paula, for S2L2 how about "by rumors of Haitians eating kittens"? Or even "by lies that Haitians are eating kittens." I agree with Max that you don't want to make the rumors sound legit. For the last line, I really want something less conversational, perhaps something like "We can't hold on to much for long." I think of Frost's line "Nothing gold can stay." I think you can also drop "fully" from the preceding line."

Susan

[Joe Crocker]

I did worry that we were getting a lecture about the shallowness and short attention span of modern life. And we are, but it’s well done. The form in which the horrors of one stanza become masked by the succeeding verses is very clever and reinforces the message. I like that the incidents carry over from one verse to the next slightly transmuted and are eventually forgotten. And the idea that nothing beats a fluffy kitten is sharp.

You might substitute “tales” for “news” in the line about Haitians eating pets.

[Ashley Bowen]

Hi, Paula,

I read this a few times yesterday and I've come back to this a couple of times today. It wasn't until today that I figured out what I wanted to say about it.

Forgive my ignorance if this is a form that I do not know. Even if this is a form that requires a set number of lines, my thoughts would be the same:

The poem is actually only the last eight lines. Those lines have the most impact, the most emotional heft, and the most interesting language. Also, at least to me, this removes the contemporaneous feel of the poem and moves it more toward the universal.

I understand this is a radical suggestion, but that's how I'm seeing it.

I'm really glad that I got to read this. Thanks for posting.

[Paula Fernandez]

Thanks so much for the feedback everyone.

Glenn--Yes! It is a pantoum. My first attempt to use the form and I've modified it so much I'm not sure it really counts. But the repetition and the falling away built into that form felt perfect for this use.
I'm sure the current moment is nowhere near as intense as the nightly fatality reports from Vietnam, but I certainly am personally experiencing the horror of getting calloused to the body counts. This poem was an effort to wake myself up.

Joe--Glad you appreciated the way that this form supports the poems meaning and that it wasn't too trite (though I see it was a close call).

Susan--Thanks for the correction to "rumors". I definitely did have the echo of Frost in mind with the ending, so glad that came to mind.

Max--I suppose the relationship between the various atrocities (or rumors of same) is just the order in which they arise in the newspapers and hence in my mind. Some are real and large, others are made up and small, but each succeeds in taking over the small space in my mind reserved for compassion for distant tragedy.

Ashley--Thank you for the thoughtful reading and re-reading (it's always an honor to get a second pass). I was writing to a prompt which was to respond to the week's headlines. Hence, the poem is utterly "of the moment" and will mean nothing to anyone in a year's time I'm sure. I may well write another version without the headline references that would hold up better, but this one was meant to be ephemeral in that way.

[Max Goodman]

Originally Posted by Paula Fernandez

Max--I suppose the relationship between the various atrocities (or rumors of same) is just the order in which they arise in the newspapers and hence in my mind.

I understand. What I'm saying, FWIW, is that the causal relationship between the first two makes it impossible for this reader to read them that way.

[...]Because the boy gunned down several classmates, the bullying he suffered has been forgotten.
[...]Because the Germans started World War II, the devastating economic sanctions imposed on them following World War I have been forgotten.
[...]Because of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Pearl Harbor has been forgotten.

It would be hard to read any of those statements as meaning that the second event pushed the first out of mind by being more recent. They have a more specific relationship than that. I can't read the first two lines of this poem without hearing them comment on that more specific relationship, which I don't think is how the poem wants me to read them.

Apparently I'm the only one who feels that way, though, so maybe it's not worth worrying about. Cheers.