Bad Poetry: Anger as Healthy Fuel

When the Teacher who never had suffered

from petty anger or spite

looked down on the money-changers

the tables flew left and right,

as those very respectable merchants

cringed, squealed, and then fled without hope

from a young man raising and swinging

the end of a harmless rope.

Yet his followers, feeling not thinking,

have worked themselves back around

to the claim: "Women should feel no anger,

or not show it by sight or by sound."

No, I say, it's no sin if we're angry.

It may be a disgrace if we're not.

Some worry about pressing charges

against those who deserve to be shot.

It will not look like sober reflection

if we find ourselves fighting a fire.

It will not look like tender affection

if we stand up and challenge a liar.

Still the feeling of rage can debilitate

patients with certain kinds of disease.

Meditation or prayer can facilitate

the emotion of anger's release.

When my husband was dying of cancer

anger's causes were thick on the ground.

Disrespect, neglect, regimentation--

yet when he vented anger, he found

himself weaker for each time he sat up

and called for the changes he'd want.

So he bowed down before the Great Spirit

that can do what we know the flesh can't.

Things so awful they seemed almost funny

made us angry, and also afraid.

He avoided a friend with pneumonia

yet lack of hand washing conveyed

the pneumonia bacilli to him, just the same.

And some young men tried to steal his coat.

And a patient no one was sure quite how to help

called in vain till he injured his throat.

Then my husband called for the Great Eagle

that would carry him up through the sky,

and he offered it prayers for those he would leave

on this Earth when they started to fly:

May God help the friend who was foolish,

who threw his great talents away.

May God help the teen whose parents have not seen

him as his friends see him every day.

May God bless the city policeman brought in

when he lay on the ground as if dead,

and how he reached that situation

not even himself could have said.

The mind can do only one thing at a time

and when it is devoted to prayer

it can leave fear and worry and anger behind

and see glimpses of what's "over there."

It is wrong to preach about this to the young

because nobody wants them to pray;

people want them to have no minds of their own

and live for nothing but to obey.

It is wrong to lie still, contemplating,

when called to arise up and fight.

When people may die, never mind how we feel,

we must do whatever is right.

But when my husband prayed, praying was the right thing,

and bought days of less loss and pain.

Letting his mind blend into the Mind of good will

let him die as he'd lived, strong and sane.