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We Are The Germans

We are the Germans in 1930s Germany.
We are allowing this to happen.
We are watching as those being scapegoated and dehumanized
Are put on planes to a prison camp.
This is now.
This is us.
We are culpable.
We are guilty.
We are the bad guys.
We are the fascists.

How do I wear this mantle?
I want to rip it open,
Pull my arms out of the heavy wool sleeves
Emblazoned with swastikas.
I struggle and struggle
But the heavy gold buttons stamped MAGA
Will not open, will not release me.

I did not choose this.

How often have we asked
“Why did the German people let it happen?”
As if we know that of course we wouldn’t have let it happen.
But the Germans, they are all guilty,
If not for supporting the Nazis
At least for not stopping them,
Just as we are guilty for today’s atrocities.
Our resistance does not matter
Unless it is effective.
Unless it can beat back this tsunami of hate and evil
That has turned the world upside down,
Making friends of enemies
And abandoning the allies who rose up with us to defeat the Nazis.

We have become the evil empire.
Risen from the ashes of our democracy.
I am unable to shed the mantle that marks me as a subject.
The weight bears down on me,
Making it difficult to move.
A kind of paralysis.

With great concentration and deliberation
I manage to slowly put one foot in front of the other.
I try to shield with my body those who are most vulnerable.
I shout to the deaf ears of those in power.
I cry in the arms of loved ones and alone in my car,
Every day.

I cry out to a God who feels far away,
Who has lost battles to the Devil before
And seems to be losing now.
He trusted us with our free will
And it has come to this.

Perhaps one day
Good will triumph over evil in this land,
Probably not in my lifetime
But perhaps in my children’s
Or my children’s children’s.

Posted on by Debra Rose

Christmas 2020

I spent the last year
Writing about people who no longer walk this earth:
Living with them, loving them,
Learning from them, laughing with them.

I came to know them in new ways,
My heart and mind open to what is revealed
When we dwell in the spirit of our loved ones.
I found memories buried so deep in my heart
That I had the pleasure of living them again.
And even though some memories inflicted the pain of a fresh wound,
All brought me closer to those I have loved
And love still.

This Christmas, many of us will be separated from those we love most.

After a year spent with so many long-lost loved ones,
Here is what I have come to believe.

I believe, no matter how many miles or years separate us,
We will celebrate with our loved ones.
We will summon memories
That have often been lost in our frantic gatherings of the past.
We will have the time to think about
How much those we are missing mean to us,
And cherish them even more.

I believe that every moment we are apart
Is a gift we give to our loved ones.
The greatest gift of all.
The gift that arrived in a manger,
In a stable far away, in a time long past.
Jesus our Emmanuel–God with us.
The Savior who would sacrifice his very life
So that we might have life and have it abundantly.

Trusting in him, we are united one to another in love
Across all space and time.
We cannot be separated from those we love,
Just as we cannot be separated from the love of God.

“Neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38-39)

Debra Rose Brillati
December 2020

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The Soul of Our Nation

My head and heart are imploding
Crumbling in upon themselves
Crashing with a heavy thud
In the pit of my stomach
Filling me with a hot dust
That burns behind my eyes.

This wreckage is multiplied by the millions
All across our country
As people of faith and goodwill and decency and morality
Witness the planes flying into the towers
Of our common humanity
Seeking to destroy from within
What terrorists from without failed to do.

Who will run towards the fiery rubble
To save us all?
Who will risk life and limb
To stop the madness?
Who will enlist in the army of better angels
To defend and protect the most vulnerable among us?

Even more than we did after 9/11
We the people need to rise up as one
And with courage and perseverance
Oppose the enemies within
Oppose the enemies in Congress
Oppose the enemy in the White House
And save the soul of our nation.

I don’t know how we will do this
I only know we must.

May God help us all.

Debra Rose Brillati
July 2019

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Bleeding Heart

The very idea
that someone thinks
calling me a bleeding heart
is an insult
is at the heart
of our inability
to understand one another.

If my heart did not bleed
For the pain of others
If it did not boil
Hot inside my chest
At the sight of a child
Being separated from her mother
If it did not send thick blood
Rushing pulsating throbbing
To fill my head with
A deafening white noise
At the news of shots
Ringing out in a sacred place

Then I would wish my heart
simply
to stop.

Because after all
What is the alternative
To a bleeding heart?

One made of stone?
Or ice?
Or paralyzed
by a hard shell of hatred?

My heart may bleed
But it continues to beat
And as long as it does …

I will bind up my wounds
So I can tend to the wounds of others
I will get close enough to the cold-hearted
So that my heart’s warmth
Might melt their own
I will cushion the landing
As others fall on hard times
So that hearts of stone cannot crush them.

Yes, I am proud of my bleeding heart.

Maybe I’ll even wear it on my sleeve.

Debra Rose Brillati
June 2019

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Feral Child

Feral child.
A psychiatrist’s description
Of our daughter in full meltdown.

How can so much rage
Reside inside this petite and delicate form,
Behind the grey-green eyes
So prone to sparkle
Until the demons within extinguish them?

Starting life
Lost, alone, without family or love or support,
An innocent little orphan gone wild.

Our feral child.

How do we reach inside to touch
The lost child
So she knows she is not alone
And never will be?

Why can love not cure
What lack of love has caused?
Are we just impatient?
Or have the long days of care-giving
That never seem to be enough
Fed our own demons,
Leavings us exhausted
from the struggle to wrestle hope
From their clawing grasp?

As her raging subsides,
She seeks my body now.
While at first there was no comfort in my touch,
She has come to endure a prolonged embrace.
Maybe, just maybe,
In these moments
She does truly know that she is not alone,
That she is loved,
That we are not going anywhere.
Just maybe.

I want to strap her lanky seven-year-old body to mine
And carry her through life.
But no,
As much as her heart needs anchor in my love
Her spirit needs to soar.

I pray that each embrace will work some small magic
To quell the dark feral child inside
And bring peace to my bright light
With the sparkling eyes.
Because one day,
She will light up the whole world.

Debra Rose Brillati
March 2004

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Where Do You Go?

Where do you go when it feels like the whole world is conspiring to drive you mad?
When all that you honor and hold to be true is shredded and trampled by evil forces disguised as saviors?
Where do you go when rage and grief are intertwined like long abandoned chains
And your effort to tease them apart only adds frustration to the tangled mix?

You pack your heart in a suitcase and go as far away as you can.
You leave those who have taken arms with the devil against you
But also those who have loved you and love you still
In your desperate need to run as fast as you can.

There are choices to make on this journey.
Do you allow yourself to fall prey to the evil lurking within you
and chart your own path of revenge and destruction?
Do you add to the suffering of our suffering world
By magnifying your rage and grief
And projecting them onto others?

Or do you search along the way
To find your better angels wherever they have flown?
Do you place the tangled chains in God’s hands
With no request but to accept them?
Do you muster the courage to find your way home
And unpack your heart
Bruised
Fragile
But beating still.

You must choose
But perhaps it does not have to be today.

Debra Rose Brillati
March 2019

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I Got Nothing

I got nothing.

Perhaps it’s just the usual
Blank page panic
That terrorizes every writer.

And yet
This nothing feels different

Really.
I got nothing.
I am empty
Drained
Depleted.

Outrage has coursed through my veins
For so long
That I am eroded from the inside
A vast Grand Canyon of emptiness
That somehow feels oddly heavy.

This emptiness is filled
With stories that will go untold
Poetry that will never sing
Music that will never resonate in our hearts.

Somewhere deep down
At the bottom of the canyon
A small voice cries out
The tone is plaintive
But too soft to carry it out of the depths
To my ears
which long to hear
Something.

But I got nothing.

For so long now
I have watched
as truth as been hollowed out
as decency has been discarded
as cruelty has seeped in to fill the void.

Perhaps “nothing”
Is better than the images
That haunt my waking and my sleeping:
School children cowering in closets
Babies ripped from their mothers’ arms
Refugees huddled in squalid camps
Dead black boys
And Palestinians
And Puerto Ricans
Swastikas and burning crosses.

I got nothing.

Tomorrow
I will face the blank page again
I will listen very hard
To hear the voice from the depths of the canyon
Maybe the cries will reach me
And I will hear something
And it will give me hope.

But for today
I got nothing.

Debra Rose Brillati
June 2018

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The Antichrist

To some he says

I dare you
I double dare you

Come on
You can do it

You can be as selfish as me
You can be as rich as me
Or as rich as I say I am

Tempting
Ever tempting
Tweeting bitter nothings in their ears
It’s OK to be cruel
If it is for love of your own
It is good to exclude
If it makes you feel better
It is OK to kill
All those I tell you are the bad guys

Exalting himself
Taking his seat in the temple
He declares himself God

Looking down from his self-made throne
Upon those trudging in Jesus’ footsteps
He smiles that ridiculous Joker smile and says,
“Go ahead and hate me. You know you want to.”

I dare you
I double dare you

Come on
You can do it

You can wish me dead
Because I deserve it
You can cut yourself off from friends and family
Because they are with me
You can lose faith in human nature
Because I have perverted it

Tempting
Ever tempting
Flaunting Satan’s work with a smirk

Surely this is the antichrist
Thriving on evil in all its forms
Devouring our hatred of one another
Gorging on our hatred of him
To fuel his wretchedness

I would not presume to tell you what to do
But as for me
I will not feed the beast

Debra Rose Brillati
April 2018

 

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Prayer for Racial Justice

Prayer for Racial Justice

Written for and prayed at the All Auburn Churches Harriet Tubman Day Prayer Service in Auburn, New York, March 10, 2018

Gracious God, lover of souls, we feel your Spirit in our midst today,
We know that you dwell in every heart,
That you inspire every mind,
That you uplift every soul.

We know, precious Lord, that it is you who gives us eyes to see and ears to hear and hands to do the work you would have us do.

You have given us all we need to bring about your kingdom on earth, a kingdom where justice reigns and compassion rules.

Give us, we humbly ask, eyes that see all our brothers and sisters as ourselves, eyes that see Christ in all people, eyes that are not blind to the racism that permeates our world and that allow us to look inward to see our own part in it.

Give us, we pray, ears that hear the truth in the testimony of our neighbors, that listen for the pain behind their words, that recognize the lies that are told to separate us from our brothers and sisters.

Give us, we beseech thee, hands that reach out to expose injustice wherever we find it. Give us lips that speak truth to power. Give us feet that carry us to every dark corner where oppression dwells so that we may shine your light on it for all to see.

Fill our hearts with an abundance of love but also righteous anger for the long dark history of racism in our country.
Fill our minds with wisdom and creativity so we may collaborate with one another to work for justice.
Fill our souls with the Holy Spirit, the sacred energy of the universe that makes all things possible.

We pray all of this in the name of our Creator, Sustainer and Redeemer. AMEN.

Debra Rose Brillati
March 2018

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Julienne

A cane in each hand
she carried herself
With remarkable grace and dignity
As she entered the large circle
of worn and mismatched chairs
In the dark church basement,
Nodding and smiling
at each of the handful of people dotting the circle.

She couldn’t have been more than five feet tall
Petite and fine-boned
Her long blonde-gray hair
Soft around her face
And drawn up loosely
In a messy bun
That didn’t look like it would last the day.

Her dress was a deep blue floral cotton
Almost reaching the floor.
Over it she wore a very fine pale yellow pullover
That draped softly from her thin shoulders
The wide neck stretched just enough
To offer a narrow glimpse of freckled skin
Peeking out at the top of her left arm.

She nodded and smiled as she passed in front of me
Then with great care and a flourish of the two canes
Took the seat beside me.

Someone quickly drew up an extra chair in front of her
And gently helped her lift one leg onto it.
On her small arthritic feet
She wore what looked like orthopedic sandals
Thick and black
Too heavy for her delicate frame.
Her left leg stretched out in front of her
was swollen from knee to ankle,
The paper-thin skin so shiny and taut
It looked like a bruise-colored balloon about to burst.

“I’m Julienne,” she said,
In a most refined British accent
With a lovely lilt on the last syllable
That combined with the twinkle in her gray-blue eyes
To give the impression of a sprite
Ready for a little mischief.

I just had time to smile and say my name
when the training started.

We were here,
Some of us,
To learn what it would be like
To get arrested
To stand up for what we believed in
To stand in the safety of our privilege
And fight for the rights of others.

Others were here to teach us.
Gray and bearded men in rumbled khakis and plaid shirts
A woman with a headscarf battling cancer and injustice
A trans person with a funky designer oxygen mask
Who from their field experience as a medic
Counseled us about the health issues
Of being arrested.

All had been arrested
Most several times
Many overnight
Some for a few weeks

But Julienne
Julienne
Was the hero of heroes
Veteran of three months in prison
A tortuous stint she earned
By standing up against torture.

“Oh, but you should do it,”
She said during a break
With a glimmer in her eye.
“You need to really see
How people of color
Are treated differently.
You need to experience it yourself.”

I know next week
She will be locking arms
With some of the people in this room
Counting on them to be her canes
As they are counting on her to be their courage.

Will I stand and be counted
Like Julienne?

Debra Rose Brillati
May 2018