Remembering Frances Barnhart, Poet

Artemis Speaks

Letter from Jeri Rogers, Editor, Artemis
http://www.artemisjournal.org
As 2020 comes to a close, I want to remember a poet and dear friend of Artemis who passed. Frances Curtis Barnhart was known and loved by many in the Artemis Community. In years past, we published both her art and poems. Now, we will miss her radiant smile, everlasting optimism, and joy. Her work often spoke of beauty and her last book, The Beauty of Impermanence: A Woman’s Memoir, captured the essence of her spirit.
Our podcast features a reading of the poem, Beloved Us, by Frances’s Grandchildren. Through the magic of technology, they gathered from all parts of the world, to remember their cherished Grandmother. All ten of her grandchildren participated in the reading at her service.
Beloved Us
by Frances Barnhart
It’s beyond this world, this love,
Great Spirit that permeates our everything.
You are the pulse in my wrist,
Sweet water between my lips
You are All That Is
and All that came before.
If ever there was a before.
So tell me, Oh Permeating One,
Are we each an endless stream of humanity?
With new sets of bones and skin and dancing feet
Stepping through the generations,
Mixing it up for posterity?
Do we travel through the doorways of color, creed,
class, gender, ability, and disability?
Could this be how we grow compassion?
Do we travel among stars that hold us close
While we decide what’s next before we come to here?
Today I know something new
and that is that I don’t really know.
At last, I don’t really know your Mystery
after all these years of Certainty
Now I Am open to my Self
peering in through a burning lens
to see who that might be.
Through stillness I remember who I am not
that bundle of opinions, attitudes, and preferences
walking around in comfortable shoes,
That muddle of misconceptions about you,
Dear brothers
and sisters
Coming from some strange land in a far away place
Or perhaps that clapboard house next door.
Please know that I am pained by your wounds.
Your pain does not stop where you end.
Know, too, I turn to silk and fire from your joy.
This air that I breathe leaves my body
and wanders toward you to fuel you with honey.
And your exhale carries your glisten back to me.
You are a Christian.
I am a Jew.
You are a Hindu. I am The Tao.
You are a Muslim,
And we are Buddhists, too.
What we do and how we love
Makes us who we are
And Compassion is the name we will become.
For the sun that shines on you
Splashes down on me.
2.
Our laughter raises up the world.
And on another note this sensual body
Relishes your rice and beans,
Your samosas, knishes and halvah.
It savors your curried goat and dumplings,
your satay, kim chee and perogi.
I drink in your ragas through my skin,
I embrace your chants and gospels and hymns,
Your Ave Maria, one voice davening to fill the air,
one drum, one heart, one dream
Are we not all of That in our emergence,
Even fern, fungi, flower and moss?
And aren’t we also trees?
Are we One endless love affair,
Slender tendrils intertwining
And a pebbled river fed by many streams?
Are we all of that?
Are we one furiously pulsing,
vibrant body of love?
say YES?