​Holding the Door by debgrant
 
I saw a man
shuffle by
inside his jeans
too big
for him.
 
Unshaved chin
tucked into
a chest 
concaved
somewhere
beneath 
an old dress
shirt. 
 
Out of the
coffee shop,
he stopped
at the door
to hold it
open 
for the person
walking with him.
There was 
No one there.
 
It was just
a muscle memory.
Even in a broken heart
love lingers in
a gesture
embedded
in our tissues.
 
###

​Skin deep by debgrant
 
I find it ironic 
that as we
as I age
that my skin is getting
thinner.
 
the irony is
that I was born 
with the 
tender 
epidermal layer.
No diagnosable illness
just born with a 
metaphor
wrapped around sinews
and bones,
flexible enough to
keep my entrails in.
My liver from falling out.
 
Born with that metaphor 
of thin-skinnedness
like the tender spot on top
of a baby's
uncooked cranium 
at birth. 
 
Thin-skinned is an character flaw.
Weakness in the land of 
only the strong survive. 
How does one deal with this 
vulnerability?
No one method works
unless I was willing to be 
a jerk. 
That is what happens when 
I let the scar tissue from the
wounds thicken my tender spot
to the point of unfeeling.
To deal with the disorder
from the inside is to hide
behind a thicker organ
like a spleen or a heart.
Cling to ribs under the cover
of lungs. 
But in the end, the pain, even 
the little ones of thoughtlessness
plant malignant cells of 
paranoia.  
Who can be trusted with this
skin laced with nerve endings
that take the telegram of 
a pain to wherever 
I am hiding?
 
How then shall I live?
Name what the world has labeled 
a character flaw 
my thin-skinnedness.
Learn how to live with it.
Not hide, not turn into a lump of 
unfeeling scars.
But truly live with it. 
 
How then shall I love?
This world does not need more problems.
My friends do not need more pain.
Those suffering injustices do not need my 
self-serving introspection.
 
To love is to live inside 
each other's pain
without drawing attention 
to one's own....
or hiding it
or cutting one's self 
off from life-giving love.
 
Hi, my name is deb
I have been thin-skinned
from birth.
I am still alive.
I am occasionally a jerk.
I am very good at hiding.
I am capable of
saying
"Ouch" out loud.
I am capable of 
of turning my thin skin
into a protective bandage
over another's wound.
Perhaps thin-skinned people
like me
just need to discover
the pain is not 
as great as the fear.
We can live with pain.
Perhaps it isn't so much
the thinnest of our skin
but the thickness
of our fear
that keeps us from
loving each other
from the inside out.   
 
### 
 
 
 

​"I wish Jesus hadn't said that thing about the poor being with you always."
 
The person didn't say it to mean:  It is a pain having to deal with the poor all the time.
 
Too many use that as an excuse not to work to alleviate poverty because it will never go away. 
Too many use that as an excuse to hoard their money and look the other way.
Too many use that an excuse to give up after a life of service to others. 
 
Now I am beginning to wonder if Jesus said it because he knew we would always have the poor 
 
because at any given time 
in our lives
in our human history
 
We create poverty.
 
We rob from the poor and give to the rich.
We steal from pockets and empty our souls.
We circle our wagons and make our world small and cold.
 
We are a broken band of Robin Hoods.
 
Jesus said the poor will be with us always.
Jesus said that he also would be with us always.
There are no sides.
We are poor. We care for the poor.  Christ is present.
Carry on.
Do not be afraid.
Do not give up.
Carry on. 
###

​When you visit another person's house, what do you notice?  What captures your attention? The furniture, the floorplan, the dust bunnies in the corners?  What snapshot do you take with your mind's eye and take home with you?
 
I tend to look at words on walls, books on shelves, notes on refrigerators.  They are little clues to me of the interior decor of the residents, but only clues. Sometimes they are shiny bits of wisdom. Some are leaden lumps of truth about the air quality in the house. 
 
My mother's favorite wall plaque said:  "God could not be everywhere so that is why he created mothers."  
 
The piece of wisdom that I probably use on a daily basis is "Righty tighty, Lefty loosey."  I cringed that it now a stick with which to draw a line in the sand. 
 
"Pick your fights"  was a phrase that helped keep me out of fights that were not worth the energy.  It also became an obstacle I threw in my own way when the battle was important and I was lacking courage. 
 
I believe the Spirit uses every tool at her disposal to heal, to nudge, to pinch, to love us into and through the perils of this journey.  Such wisdom should be harvested, milled for truth and offered as bread for one another.  I am hungry for truth. 
 
So what about you?  I invite you to share (hit reply button on this email - the replies are seen only by me).  I am doing a Wisdom Harvest.  I would like to gather those pieces of wisdom you have picked up along the way. The phrases that you circle through often, wisdom that glistens as true, surfaces when you most need them. WHY? I want to embed in my artwork and my writing the wisdom that resonates. Could i google "wisdom phrases?" Sure. I would rather hear the ones that have flesh, blood and a little sweat attached. That's where I need you. You can include more than one.  You can ask your family and friends.
 
Here are some of what people I know have told me so far: 

1. People will forget what you did, or what you said, exactly. But they will always remember how you made them feel.
2. You are never too busy to stop and listen.
3. Most of what is accomplished in this world is done by people who don't feel good.
4. Just because you have the right to do something doesn't mean it is the right thing to do
5. “Run!"
6. "Don't blink"
7. If you meet one asshole a day, it's probably them. If you meet ten assholes a day, it's probably you.
8. It is what it is.
9. “You are confusing stubbornness with strength, my dear. And I warn you, the people will not like it”.
10. it’s a great life if you don’t weaken!!!!
11. just know where to put doors!!!!!
12. Every little bit helps!
13. When you hit rock bottom, there’s still up.
14. Be still and know that I am God.
15. Know who your circle of influence truly is
16. The most important thing is for your kids to know you love them
17. Sometimes "good enough" is enough. Perfection is not required.
18. Failure is not fatal.
19. Tell them you love them. You won't regret saying it too often; you will regret not saying it.
20. People may not like a strong leader, but they will hate a weak one.
21. That which is created in a relationship can be fixed in a relationship.
22. It never hurts to be the first to say you’re sorry.
23. It's all about love.
24. What goes around, comes around.
25. Robert Frost wrote in a poem “the only way out is through,” a reminder to embrace the suck and push on because avoidance will get you nowhere.

​In a recent article by Elie Mystal, the author described rather brilliantly, in my opinion, the internal speak that happens when someone in your presence says something that is hurtful to you.
 
“People say hurtful things all the time. Often, they don’t mean it. Language is an imperfect tool for communicating thoughts. But when you are an “other,” when you are a minority or part of a disadvantaged group that has historically been shut out from power, and when the person saying it is a member of an advantaged group, you notice the hurts. You notice them because you always have to assess where the hurtful comment lands on the spectrum between merely inelegant to actively dangerous. Did the person misspeak? Or did the person just accidentally reveal deep antipathy for your kind of people? Or was it something in between?
And what should you do about it? Should you ask them to repeat it? No, because what if they do, what then? Should you confront them? Should you make a scene? Should you play it cool? Oh no, can everybody tell that you haven’t actually been listening for the last 10 minutes because your mind is still wrestling with what’s been said? Should you go to the bathroom and collect yourself? Wait, why are you the one who needs to collect yourself?— you didn’t say anything. Why are you even in this position? You should punch him, that solves everything. Wait, no, that solves nothing. Actually, you should go to bed, because it’s already six hours later and you have work in the morning.”*
 
Not a week went by in the course of my 37-year career in a profession historically dominated by men that I did not have occasions when something hurtful was said and that very same internal dialogue didn't bounce around inside my head.  There are many people who live with hurt and tension related to their otherness EVERY DAY and for many, several times a day.  
 
Language is an imperfect tool.  Even as a writer, I know that all too well.  As a human being, I know and fear how the words that fly out of my mouth can be weapons of lasting destruction. On this day on which we honor an American champion for justice,  I pledge to listen deeply, to choose tenderly, and to speak courageously.  Peace be with you, my brothers and sisters. 
 
Deb Grant
 
*Elie Mystal, The Nation, 1/19/2020

A selection from my book of poems called STORM.  
 
Fire ants by Deb Grant
 
Fire ants
Their thirty-five day lives are spent
Surviving.
Their only thriving is done
In the dry heat and sudden rain
Finding food
Framing dirt
And tending to their replacements.
A massive operation.
They are built to move in mass.
They colonize. They teem. They swarm.
Defensive action is to bite.
A single bite is annoying.
A swarm could fell a deer.
Singularity is not even a luxury.
They could not survive alone.
 
Every rain surfaces their disaster plan.
They are built to survive a flood.
As the flood rises, the ants take action.
Linking ant legs and mouths,
they weave themselves
Into a raft in a minute
moving queen and Infants
to the center in the highness and dryness
Of their now seaworthy community.
A buoyancy of bodies
with fine hairs trapping just enough air
barely breaking surface tension
Keeping the whole colony afloat
Until the ark of their covenant
Arrives, not back home again,
But on new dry land.
 
Wading humans lifting and pulling legs
Through flood waters
Are warned of floating fire ant mounds.
The rafted colony is fully armed.
Locked and loaded for survival
They are ready to pull the trigger and
Light a fire on the flesh that water
Cannot douse or sooth.
 
Humans are warned to watch.
Steer clear
Of the drifting rage of rafted ants.
Keep your distance.
Leave them to their disaster plan.
You tend to your own.
 
Our disaster plan if there is one
Starts as one. One person. One household.
Our plan is to climb away alone
or walk out alone.
We drag our wet legs alone
Through the thigh deep sewage avoiding
The dangers we can see.
Unaware of the dangers
To which we cling.
 
The fire ants float with the current,
linked by legs and mouths
Accepting their need for
and responsibility
To one another.
It comes naturally to them.
The rest of us drag our wet legs
Into the truth that
we need each other.
Or we navigate alone and
Steer clear of both the
ants and their lesson
of intimate survival. ◘◘
 
(From STORM by Deb Grant, available on Amazon,www.jazzwater.com and her Etsy shop: Jazzwater - Copyright by Deb Grant)

One of the risks/challenges of writing a book about hurricane survival/recovery in poetry form, even free verse poetry, is that no one wants to hear about disaster AND "poetry doesn't sell." 
 
Both are true. 
 
As I reflect on my journey, the micro and macro disasters that have befallen me, it has been shreds of poetry - a line here, a verse there that surfaces like a floating timber.  Poetry comforts, provokes, laughs and soars.  Two days ago, Dan Rather, the journalist said, that we need poetry in such a time as this. 
 
I have written a book about disaster in free verse poetry because I want to help in such a time as this. 
 
This is a poem called Solar Flare, a selection from my book called STORM. 
 
SOLAR FLARE by Deb Grant
 
When the sun burps its gastric indigestion, 
it doesn’t say excuse me.
It doesn’t turn its massive head away.
The flaming viscous phlegm arches from
The surface sending Incendiary splatter 
miles into black space. 
Most of the time, the flare is not big enough 
or targeted enough to reach the face of earth.
What we know is a reduction of its sauce.
Reduced to a dragon’s breath of chemicals 
That waft unnoticed except by 
clever instruments
Or a flicker of electric lights. 
 
Be warned. 
The scientists deliver the doom 
with a sense of surrender.
One well-directed solar flare 
burping in the direction of earth
Will impale the planet with fangs of poison
That will smelt our electrical grid 
For years.
Not a temporary outage.
For years.
 
Disasters happen.
In fire, wind, flood and earth, they come.
The solar flare burps out a possibility
That shakes us out of our disaster doldrums
So accustomed we are to hearing 
a hurricane or fire explode in the
News and quickly disappear. 
It cannot happen here. 
 
The solar flare tosses a dinner conversation hypothetical. 
How to prepare 
For a disaster that has never happened to us. 
The first thing, the sudden
Massive, wide-scale power outage. 
What would you do? 
What would you do first?
What would you do next?
And what after that?
What would you do if the power did not return for
a day or a month?
What news source, if any, would you trust?
What if there was only word of mouth?
How would you feed your family?
Can you trust your neighbor or
the one who says they are?
 
One solar flare sent in earth’s direction.
We would find ourselves
 inside a Twilight Zone episode 
hoping for the ending credits to roll soon.
Please tell us it was all just a game. 
It could not happen here.
“I can’t believe it happened here.”
“I can’t believe this happened to me.”
Disasters fall randomly. 
Sometimes there is a warning.
It is never soon or long enough. 
How do you prepare for a solar flare?
Or a wind-whipped forest fire,
Or ground shaking cracks into concrete,
Or rivers ignoring their banks?
Sometimes the best we can do is 
Ask ourselves what would we do?
Who would we need to help and to help us?
What would we need to survive together?
And make a list. ◘◘
 
*******************************
(Copyright by Debra Grant), STORM by Deb Grant is available through Amazon, Etsy(Jazzwater), Jazzwater.com or available to order through any book seller.  
ELOGOS is written by Deb Grant, Houston, Texas. Email: deb@jazzwater.com
Grant's Social Media: FACEBOOK(wordfoodbydeb), www.jazzwater.com and www.wordfoodbydeb.com and her Etsy shop: Jazzwater
*******************************************************

​​Sugar & Racism   by Deb Grant
 
A double-digit change 
in the year.
A new decade begins.
The house cleaning
continues 
with a passion.
 
23 months ago
I pitched everything in
my cupboards
and my refrigerator
and my restaurant menu choices
and my potluck plate
that included
sugar. 
 
Sugar is my cocaine.
It is addictive.
It lies to us.
The industry is killing us
softly with its song.
It kills. 
I wasn't told to quit 
my cocaine.
I told myself. 
 
Sometime during this decade
I discovered racism 
in my old photos,
my way of navigating,
my choices of books
and movies.
Guilt made me feel better
like sugar.
Guilt doesn't solve the problem
it delays the house cleaning
and the disease snacks
on our livers
and our lives.
It kills. 
 
My house cleaning continues
with a passion.
The banning of my sugar intake
takes vigilance.
I read labels.
No, I don't want to see your
dessert menu.
 
My house cleaning continues
with a passion.
The guilt of my racism
is banned from my
liver.
The ugly fear of the other
lingers in the air
waiting to land 
where I have just dusted.
It requires vigilance 
and love.
Time to read,
to learn, to listen,
to act and to pray, 
to eat well,
and to love
like I was born
to love
with muscle
with my mind, my heart,
my liver, my hands, my actions,
my words, my choices, 
my talents, my time.
 
###
 

​he Company I Keep by Deb Grant
 
There are four chairs
in the room called
living.
It is where I sit writing
to you because
the morning sun
on my writing desk
is both glorious
and impossible 
on eyes squinting into a
a laptop screen that 
reflects my morning
disheveled face -
the face I have been told often
is hard to read. 
The chairs are for daily companions.
One is a child full of fear,
Wanting to belong,
Willing to morph into whatever is needed.
One is a Jacobian wrestler struggling
through the night with problems bigger
than my weight class. She has a nasty limp.
One is holding space, 
Like Mary,
Like Elizabeth,
Like a tomb,
Like a sea surf drawing the waves back
and leaving the beach empty....for a powerful moment. 
The challenge for me and,
perhaps for you too,
is NOT to fill the chair that is holding that space. 
The others in the room
called living.
The fearful child, the night wrestler, 
the one who squints at the sun
all need the One who comes
who is bigger than the fear, the length of the night,
the weakness of our sight.
Love chooses to come
and sit in our worst 
company
to make space for
toys of joy,
a night of peace,
a living room. 
 
###
 
 
 
 
 

​A bit of history:  I have been writing ELOGOS for over 25 years.  It started as a way to encourage college students to develop a practice of daily devotions. I invented the word ELOGOS as a spin on E-Mail.  I created the tag line "Daily Devotions" to go with it.  Now that I am less than "daily" I wanted to be more honest with the tag line so I chose "Word Food by Deb."  
 
As I move into my second year of this uncharted retirement season, I want to keep writing.  This past year I moved away from the strict formula of Bible Verse/Devotion/Prayer to free verse poetry to let my voice stretch.  I plan to continue stretching.  I hope to write more frequently.  I hope to mix it up more in style and topics.  I hope what happens is that the sustenance of the Word, the Logos, will be pulled through me, Deb-flavored, and offered to you for your purposes.  It may or may not be what your body needs, but I will offer it.  It is my way of "casting my bread upon the waters."  
 
There are 318 email addresses on my ELOGOS list as of today.  That number has not changed much over the years - it grows when one is shared and a new person subscribes.  It shrinks when addresses get bumped by spam filters and or someone unsubscribes.  My email server tells me that about 30% on the list actually open the email.  About a dozen of you, send me emails personally.  In this day of fractured humanity,  I am grateful for the tender electronic thread that I can pluck, that can vibrate into your world and through which we can weave some compassion and wisdom where we are.  Now I need to stop talking....I am mixing up my metaphors of food and threads,  unless we are talking about hot, stringy mozzarella, but I will leave that for another day.  Until then, thanks for reading ELOGOS Word Food by Deb.  I'll keep writing.