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2021 AT LAST
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2021 AT LAST

Esther Cohen
Jan 3, 2021
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2021 AT LAST
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Dear ALTES

Happy 2021. We are grateful to have MADE IT OUT

of the Worst Year Ever. Here’s Marge Piercy.

The birthday of the world

BY MARGE PIERCY

On the birthday of the world

I begin to contemplate

what I have done and left

undone, but this year

not so much rebuilding

of my perennially damaged

psyche, shoring up eroding

friendships, digging out

stumps of old resentments

that refuse to rot on their own.

No, this year I want to call

myself to task for what

I have done and not done

for peace. How much have

I dared in opposition?

How much have I put

on the line for freedom?

For mine and others?

As these freedoms are pared,

sliced and diced, where

have I spoken out? Who

have I tried to move? In

this holy season, I stand

self-convicted of sloth

in a time when lies choke

the mind and rhetoric

bends reason to slithering

choking pythons. Here

I stand before the gates

opening, the fire dazzling

my eyes, and as I approach

what judges me, I judge

myself. Give me weapons

of minute destruction. Let

my words turn into sparks.

We will be glad to SEE EVERYONE in 2021.

love from your Alte Friends

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Jane Alex Mendelson
Jan 3, 2021

Most timely! I was introduced to Marge Piercy via a Philosophy class at Smith College in 1976-77.

Woman on The Edge of Time was among the selection of books to be read and provoke our thoughts. It was powerful, illuminating and spoke to the societal webs we seem to never manage to break free of. We ride a pendulum, up toward the light.... rising.... only to miss the crest and slip back with a momentum that wretchedly pushes us toward the opposite extreme.

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