“Spirits” by Birago Diop

Xavier Jean Kiemde, September 13, 2012

The following poem is deeply moving to me. I first heard it in the hospital room on the evening of my son's birth and subsequent passing. My husband and another dear friend from West Africa were reciting it in French. The words ring true to my heart and help me celebrate Xavi's brief, precious life here on earth and his presence still in the spirit realm. I love thinking of him "in the trembling of the trees, in the water that runs..in the bush that is singing, in the voice of the fire" -- as Diop suggests. Amen.

Spirits

by Birago Diop

Listen to Things
More often than Beings,
Hear the voice of fire,
Hear the voice of water.
Listen in the wind,
To the sighs of the bush;
This is the ancestors breathing.

Those who are dead are not ever gone;
They are in the darkness that grows lighter
And in the darkness that grows darker.
The dead are not down in the earth;
They are in the trembling of the trees
In the groaning of the woods,
In the water that runs,
In the water that sleeps,
They are in the hut, they are in the crowd:
The dead are not dead.

Listen to things
More often than beings,
Hear the voice of fire,
Hear the voice of water.
Listen in the wind,
To the bush that is sighing:
This is the breathing of ancestors,
Who have not gone away
Who are not under earth
Who are not really dead.

Those who are dead are not ever gone;
They are in a woman’s breast,
In the wailing of a child,
And the burning of a log,
In the moaning rock,
In the weeping grasses,
In the forest and the home.
The dead are not dead.

Listen more often
To Things than to Beings,
Hear the voice of fire,
Hear the voice of water.
Listen in the wind to
The bush that is sobbing:
This is the ancestors breathing.

Each day they renew ancient bonds,
Ancient bonds that hold fast
Binding our lot to their law,
To the will of the spirits stronger than we
To the spell of our dead who are not really dead,
Whose covenant binds us to life,
Whose authority binds to their will,
The will of the spirits that stir
In the bed of the river, on the banks of the river,
The breathing of spirits
Who moan in the rocks and weep in the grasses.

Spirits inhabit
The darkness that lightens, the darkness that darkens,
The quivering tree, the murmuring wood,
The water that runs and the water that sleeps:
Spirits much stronger than we,
The breathing of the dead who are not really dead,
Of the dead who are not really gone,
Of the dead now no more in the earth.

Listen to Things
More often than Beings,
Hear the voice of fire,
Hear the voice of water.
Listen in the wind,
To the bush that is sobbing:
This is the ancestors, breathing.

 
Source: The Negritude Poets, ed. Ellen Conroy Kennedy. New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1989.
 

Fried Green Tomato Church

by Melissa Borgmann-Kiemde

After an incredibly trying church service (in which the newly walking Marguerite Kiemde strutted her developmental stuff, doing laps to the front of the church to the choir, out the side door to the street, around the corner to the front steps, toddling up and back inside, and then repeating the entire procedure with me closely behind, celebrating her steps, trying to stay calm, and avoid any judgmental? stares.) If you can imagine: I came home a bit beleaguered.

(How to parent in church? What does an enriching mass experience look like for a young family without a cry room or child-care center? What fine line exists between cultivating a child's physical/ emotional/ developmental stages appropriately, alongside her spiritual sensibilities? If I am not "fed" spiritually, as my child's mom, how do I ever nurture my babe?... That's another blog in and of itself!)

I turn to how Mags and I made "church" at home, after our early departure from Ascension (post-homily/ pre-Eucharist.) In a phrase we found God in: Fried. Green. Tomatoes.
YES!

This past week on facebook there was a whole strand about this delicious summer fare that included several exchanges from my Aunts Marian and Peg and their Osmond/Colorado friend Audrey Wanke Dummer. I asked for recipe ideas, and I got them. And today, after the above described nearly God-less mass, I came home and adapted these cooking ideas, using fresh green tomatoes from my own garden, and tried to channel as much love and family and Jesus as I could into the experience.

I share these recipes with you now, smiling, with a sleeping baby; both she and I with full, happy bellies.

Fried Green Tomatoes
4-6 hard, green tomatoes
Buttermilk
Flour
Panko crumbs
Cayenne Pepper
Garlic Salt
Bacon grease

I began by frying a half a pound of applewood smoked bacon in a skillet. Once browned and crisped, I removed the bacon, placing it on a large paper-towel lined platter, that I would use for the fried tomatoes. I reserved the hot bacon drippings for frying my green tomatoes.

I cut the tomatoes pretty thin, between 1/8 and a 1/4 inches, salting them, and then soaking them in buttermilk, covering them in the cayenne pepper/ garlic salt flour mixture, and adding panko crumbs for extra crunch, before putting each in the hot bacon fat. I was working this assembly line as quickly as possible with messy fingers, and thanking God for a content Marguerite in her high chair (eating a banana and playing with a clean feta cheese container.)

I fried these till they were golden brown, and appreciated the way bits of bacon adhered to the panko crust. Delish!!

Sweet Onion Relish Sauce
Half of a sweet onion, chopped and cubed
1/2 cup mayonnaise
3 Tablespoons rice wine vinegar
Salt

Note: I totally ripped this recipe off from Paula Deen, when I was doing research for the best item to accompany said green tomatoes. (Buttermilk dressing? Spicy mustard? In a sandwich? I didn't know how exactly I was going to EAT the tomatoes once fried.) This sauce rocked!

Paula adds sugar to hers; I didn't. I prepared this onion mixture and served it next to the tomatoes. Maggie then climbed up on my lap and we gobbled up the dish. (Well, mostly, I gobbled up, and she alternated showing me her shoeless and shoed foot.)

***

"How is this church?" you might persist in wondering. To this query, I respond, channeling my best St. Francis de Sales thinking: that all small actions, done with love, are prayerful ones. I add that when we couple prayerful activity --our intentions directed toward God-- with the company of family, friends, angels, saints, are we not in deed experiencing a kind of church?

Today, I experienced service in a literal way, at Church of the Ascension in north Minneapolis, (in all of its parenting complexity) alongside a more figurative celebration: in my kitchen and at my dining table with my daughter, and the company of women and men who have grown and prepared fried green tomatoes in our family. It was a most nurturing kind of meal that buoys who I am as parent.

AMEN.

Juxtaposition: Embrace

The above photographs were taken of Francois Kiemde and me during the past week. The first was shot on June 1, 2011, at Bethel College, at Francois' swearing-in-as-a-US-Citizen ceremony. Our friend, Alisa Blackwood Nelson was on hand to help document the day. The second was shot on Sunday, June 5, 2011, outside the Church of St. Philip in north Minneapolis. A reporter from the Star Tribune captured this moment just seconds after Fr. Dale Korogi officially declared my church of the past twelve years closed.

These images give me pause. They strike me as similar in subject matter, given that each features an embrace. In the former, I'm embracing Mr. Kiemde, in the latter, he's comforting me as our daughter reaches out to touch my arm. Both capture emotionally charged moments; one of joy, the other of incredible sorrow. Together, they feel like commentary to me on marriage. The way we support, envelop, wrap our arms around another and communicate presence, love.

I keep thinking of Sr. Mary Margaret's words to me so long ago in spiritual direction: When I fall in love, it will be an experience that challenges me to receive and be held in a new way. She talked about my future partner being someone who would nurture and support me in a manner that I had never known. Looking at this second picture: I see her words come true.

These images communicate the mutuality and gift of our marriage, our tenderness to one another. I'm grateful for the juxtaposition.

Marguerite Marie Kiemde's Welcome to the World

Friends, Loved Ones:
On Saturday, May 22, 2010, at 2:05pm, Francois, Gabby and I welcomed Marguerite Marie Kiemde to our family. The following are photos from her first few weeks with us. We share these with incredible joy for her arrival and presence among our burgeoning clan. Our hearts burst daily with love for this little one. We feel so lucky to welcome her, and to have such a community of faith and support to likewise embrace us all. Merci! Merci beaucoup!
Enjoy the photos! Post a comment! Stay tuned for more!
In love and creation contemplation,
Melissa Borgmann-Kiemde

She's here!
Introducing Maggie to her Grandma Borgmann, who shares the same blessed birthday:
May 22nd!

Meeting Grandpa and Grandma Borgmann
Marguerite would not be here without the support of Doula Colette DeHarpporte

HELLO WORLD!

With Auntie Jody Tigges

Olga Nichols arriving to feed us and swoon over Baby K

Cousins Izzy and Sylvia make Mag's acquaintance

Doll introductions are in order!

The Borgmann-Johnson-Kiemde's convene over Memorial Day weekend

Auntie Toni comes for a squeeze

Introducing Geert to Marguerite. "Touch nicely." lol

Melissa and Marguerite...Who looks sleepy? :-)

Sr. Jill Underdahl makes our girl's acquaintance

Auntie Ann in the house!

Sister Joy on food detail for Mom and Dad. We love the dishes!

Word.

A favorite position for these two loves in my life!

What I see when I look down...

Patio Club Pal, Cynthia stops by...

bringing her daugher Iris, born just six weeks before Maggie...
They are sure to be pals! :-)

Our first family outing to church: The Visitation Sister's 400th Anniversary Mass
(Photo courtesy of Brian Mogren)

Introducing Marguerite Marie to Vis Sister (and Melissa's longtime spiritual director):
Sr. Mary Margaret!

"Ancestors:" A Meditation

It's my grandmother Borgmann's 95th birthday next week. Our family is gathering from all over the Midwest - and beyond - to celebrate this matriarch of our clan who resides in Osmond, Nebraska. Ninety five years. What has someone seen in 95 years? Whew. What have they lived through? Makes my head spin trying to imagine.

Grandma Adeline's youngest child, my aunt Marian, has been compiling memories of Grandma B. As the last in the brood of 11, Marian is sort of the family historian. She began a book project for her mother - that includes a chapter devoted to each of her eleven children. These pages swirl in my mind this morning. I can see the pictures and bios of all my aunts and uncles, each of my cousins making an attempt to document their lives. It's an act of deep regard, reverence, I think. The book is a way to honor Julia Adeline Schilling Borgmann's time on the planet. It's a way for each and everyone of us to take stock of where we come from. In the same vein, I think it is also an equal invitation to consider where we are going.

Where will we be at age 95? How many of us will be around? What will we have witnessed? What will we have created? What will we have let go? What will our homes and hearts, families, careers look like? Where will we reside?

Enter: Today's poem. Harvey Ellis' work, "ancestors," shared this day on "The Writer's Almanac," thrusts me smack dab into the middle of all these questions. I am surrounded by contemplations of not only Julia Adeline, but of her spouse, Johnny. I can see the sapia-hued photographs and skin tones of Edna Bell Arduser, Great Grandpa Liewer, the scads of boxed images of my mixed-German-ancestry. I wonder if a picture of Clara or Matthias is contained anywhere - as the original owners of my engagement diamond? I know Great Grandpa Henry is there -- the boxer who rode the train from Cincinnati. I return to Grandma B, and recall her own train ride tales over the US landscape. I can hear her deep, baritone voice, tell me about traveling from Reno and back, with a divorcee, (whose name was Rose?). I recall my own awe-struck silence listening to her first hand account of meeting Amelia Earhart at a Chicago Luncheon while visiting a cousin. I see her sewing and making sandwiches for a Jewish family she nannied for on the east coast, prior to her own married and mothering days. I try to fathom my own life, with her alongside me. Her blood and marrow in my own bones. Her parents - and all of my other Borgmann/ Schilling/ Liewer/ Arduser ancestors - filling out the sinews of my body. Their lives informing mine. Their steps, tracks, train rides, boat-rides, guiding mine.

It's something to consider, you know?

I invite you to read Ellis' poem copied below. Drink it in. Meditate on your own ancestry. Who is beside you? Who is breathing within? How are you moving and stretching and making things happen today? What parent, aunt, uncle, great-great, do you want to draw on in your journey at this moment? You know they are close by.

Happy Contemplating!

Melissa

ancestors

by Harvey Ellis

my ancestors surround me
like walls of a canyon
quiet
stone hard
their ideas drift over me
like breezes at sunset

we gather sticks
and make settlements
what we do is only partly
our own
and partly continuation
down through the chromosomes

my son
my baby sleeps behind me
stirring in the night
for the touch
that lets him continue

he is arranging
in his small form the furniture
and windows of his home

it will be a lot like mine
it will be a lot like theirs

"ancestors" by Harvey Ellis from Sleep Not Sleep. © Wolf Ridge Press, 2008. Reprinted with permission. (buy now)

On Anniversaries: Getting to the Fine Day of Walter McDonald's Poem

My recent writing about "swooning" ("Weak-in-the-Knees-at-Walgreens") triggered a whole series of responses from you. Included in these, were my own family's musings about the way many members made their way toward marriage. Our Borgmann-Family Blog was lit up with tales loosely given the title, "Melissa's Knees: Our Love Stories" by my Aunt Marian. It was great fun to read these narratives, and to glean other such moments of "swooning" and first encounters. It took me personally into the larger space of our individual and collective journeys toward commitment, and how messy and fun and hard and exciting that all is. Today's Writer's Almanac poem speaks to these journeys, from one poet's sweet, love-heartache-reflection perspective.

Enjoy!

Anniversary: One Fine Day
by Walter McDonald

Who would sit through a plot as preposterous as ours,
married after years apart? Chance meetings may work
early in stories, but at operas, darling, in Texas?
A bachelor pilot, I fled Laredo for the weekend,
stopping at the opera from boredom, music I least expected.
Of all the zoos and honky-tonks south of Dallas,
who would believe I would find you there on the stairs,

Madame Butterfly about to start? When you moved
four years before, I lost all hope of dying happy,
dogfighting my way through pilot training, reckless,
in terror only when I saw the man beside you.
I had pictured him rich and splendid in my mind
a thousand times, thinking you married with babies
somewhere in Tahiti, Spain, the south of France.

When I saw the lucky devil I hated—only your date,
but I didn't know—he stopped gloating, watching you wave,
turned old and bitter like the crone in Shangri La.
Destiny happens only in plays and cheap movies—
but here, here on my desk is your photo, decades later,
and I hear sounds from another room of our house,
and when I rise amazed and follow, you are there.

"Anniversary: One Fine Day" by Walt McDonald, from Blessings the Body Gave. © Ohio State University Press, 1998. Reprinted with permission. (buy now)

More Franti and Spearhead: "Sometimes" - It's a Dance Party!

"I love Michael Franti. I'm going to have Sylvie start listening to him… what great music for a dance party!" - Emily Borgmann*

It's a dance party in my apartment right now. I am in love with this guy at this moment. Woohoo!

*giggle*giggle*shake*snap*step*giggle*

*These words from my sister in law inspired me to post another Franti/ Spearhead video to my blog. The song is called "Sometimes." (See if you can recognize the "Rollercoaster" sample.) I appreciate Mr. Franti dancing on stage, rocking it out, around minute 1:20. Yes!

I feel so lucky to get to see such performers live! Love! I know a number of you will rock it out at your offices, at your desks, in your homes now. Enjoy!

LOVE!

Babies, Buddhas, Obama: Election Day, 2008

Here are some images and a bit of a story I logged on the Borgmann Family List-serve about this historic event in our nation's history... As I edited images this day, I started to note this theme of babies --adopted and biological -- images of Buddha in the evening, and the largeness of Love and Family in our local and global communities. Amen.

***

"In terms of happiness, this day has to rank with days like giving birth, getting married, graduating from college" - Lisa Cederlind Teet, Cousin

Birth. Marriage. Graduation. Yes!!!!

I was at several different parties last evening in St. Paul and Minneapolis. But when the news announced California's electoral votes coming in and declared Obama the President-Elect, I was with my friends Ann Shallbetter, Toni Bennaars Mawanda and Shannon Broderick at Tam Tam's,-- the African restaurant of the Mawanda clan on Cedar Riverside in Minneapolis. Francis Ssennoga, this lovely Ugandan fellow I've become friends with, organized a small gathering of people from the community to watch the election results and to document this historic occasion.

I loved being in this setting, to be interviewed and video taped by Francis, to share with the larger Ugandan American community thoughts on this time, but also to honor his own life and present circumstances....

On Monday, November 3rd, Francis became a father for the first time with his long-time partner Cecile Aguilar. Cecile is a French woman from the Southern region of France (and home of Francis de Sales and Jane de Chantal --who are like my spiritual parents).

Their baby boy was born on Monday as a French-Ugandan-American child. To hold space with Francis then as he captured this historic time in our country's history (our world's history) it was hard not to be overwhelmed for the hope and promise of not only our future, but of this small little boys'....

So much is possible!

I'm with you completely on this time being like a birth, marriage, graduation...The Birth, Marriage, Graduation of our nation to something that honors ALL of us. Yes.

Amen!

Love,

Melissa

****

Pre-Departure Prayer:
Hope of the Evening

I snapped this before I left...A picture of my Buddha candle, next to a recent photo of a friend's grandson...It tunes my eyes to hope, our future, families, peace as themes for the evening...

Ann Shallbetter and Antoinette Bennaars Mawanda

Early Evening Election Results...

First Party Hosts: Joe and Kate

Love the cookies!

Father and Son...

Mother and child...

Baby Oscar identifying the candidates..

More precious kids...

All eyes on the screen...

Still early...

Toni and Ann will express shock (awe?) a couple times this evening..

Antoinette, Ann, Melissa

Finding Buddha at Kate and Joe's house

Recalling Tim Russert

Taking this evening in with my girl Toni, originally from Kenya, is nothing short of pure privilege...

Political Peeps Ann and Shannon with the door prize...(A coffee mug whose red states turn blue with hot or cold liquid? funny!)

To Tam Tam's...

Francis interviews Peter...

Ecstatic over a Possibly Split Nebraska!?!

Seriously, the interviews are ongoing...

Mr. Mawanda taking in the results...

This news comes soooo fast...

What?

WOOHOO!!!!

Melissa Being interviewed by new Father, Francis Ssennoga

Downtown to the DFL Headquarters and the Crowne Royal Party...

You know it....

Downtown St. Paul was AMAZING! Signs, such enthusiasm,

happy, hooting people everywhere!

Former North High Student, a fellow documenter I last encountered at Desmond Tutu's visit...

Yes we Can...
You know we DID!
(Shannon, do I have your phrase correct here?)

Running into Northsider Sherman Patterson and friend in Downtown St. Paul..

Beautiful, Happy Shannon Broderick

Do you see the blend of faces and ages?

YES!

The prayer card from the Visitation Sisters that I carry in my pocket...

Ann and Melissa and Obama in the Background..

Ladies who rocked out this historic evening...

YES WE DID! AMEN!