Starfish

Monday night I had a crazy idea. 

I have been thinking that I wanted 10 starfish on my Christmas tree, for some time now.

But on Monday, I decided I wanted to sit down and actually order them for my tree.

While surfing the internet in my usual state of stupor/interest my brain kept processing the connection.

Why Starfish on a Christmas tree? Many of you are probably familiar with some version of the "Star Thrower/Starfish Story". My favorite youtube explanation complete with motivational background music can be found here: 

I wanted to have 10 for my tree. One for every refugee has come through Sacred Heart since we started our unique partnership with the Archdiocese of Newark Catholic Charities Refugee Initiative.

Anyway, then I thought... what if we could get the starfish to be the symbol of Catholic Charities Refugee Initiative and convince everyone to get a starfish for their tree. And then I called Maria at Catholic Charities and she loved the idea and thought we could get volunteers and maybe do it larger... and she told me that we need to find an ethical source for starfish.

The next morning, I asked my incredibly crafty friend Ana for help, I was overwhelmed in google and pinterest wormholes. Ana cut through to the core of what I was asking. Fast, cheap, handmade, something that anyone could have a hand in creating.

She found a salt dough recipe and a cookie cutter. I tracked down 10 cookie cutters at my local mall for $1.50 each. I have 8 more for use by anyone in NNJ who wants them.

Salt Dough: Mix 2 Cups All-Purpose Flour, 1 Cup Salt, and 3/4 to 1 Cup of Water .

When the dough resembles pizza dough, roll it out and use your favorite cookie cutter. 

Starfish cookie cutter from Sur la Table 

And then the director of Religious Education at Sacred Heart asked me to make enough for the CCD families to decorate and talk about refugees and the empty manger during Advent wreath workshop and have kids decorate starfish.

So, now I have made 22 starfish and am thinking of making 978 more and there are volunteers from at least one other parish helping us on Sunday November 26 at 1:30pm and there may be more, and there is a meeting tonight about getting local nuns to help us...

Cut out starfish drying

Last night, I bought acrylic paint with a gift card that some of my choir members gave me to Target over the summer, and some tags for the words "It matters to this one" and "Thank you for Supporting Archdiocese of Newark Catholic Charities Refugee Initiative"

The tags come in packages of 30 for $1.

And then I thought, well maybe a little holly and berries would bring the season effect without being too overly decorated to the whole thing and A.C. Moore had sprigs of tiny holly for $0.50 per spring (enough for 11 ornaments)

This morning, the starfish were still a little less than fully dried out, so i put them in the oven and cranked it to 200degF for about an hour and presto... done and the impressions from the toothpicks looked more distinct.

The first prototype in 20K gold acrylic paint.

One in each color:


Additionally, my daughter took the last of the end of the first batch and made a Sanddollar "so that people 'Sand more dollars' for the refugees, mommy."
















And we can drink wine and make starfish for less than $1.15 and sell them for $5 and give the money to CC? And maybe get the Cardinal to talk about starfish... and see this is what happens when I get 8 hours of sleep.

After the Funeral

Loneliness
Like the bitter cold
Seeps
Under the door sills
And fingernails
And window frames
And eyelids
And settles
Deep
Into the marrow of my bones.

And good deeds
Of the day
blown
Like the dried leaves
And prayers
And bare branches
And tears
Away
From the recess of my heart.

At midnight
I have nothing to offer you,
Nothing that I can give back.
I am a dry well,
And an abandoned cellar.

So, fill me Lord.
Pour out Your Spirit on me,
And make me Your vessel.

For of myself,
I am nothing.

All is gone out of me,
Like the guttering flame
Of a single taper.
One
last gasp,
And
Darkness.

Jennifer D. Behnke - March 5, 2017

Flint - Christina Rossetti - (1830 - 1894)

"An emerald is as green as grass; 
A ruby red as blood; 
A sapphire shines as blue as heaven; 
A flint lies in the mud.

A diamond is a brilliant stone, 
To catch the world's desire; 
An opal holds a fiery spark; 
But a flint holds fire."  

Christina Georgina Rossetti

Hunting the Phoenix - by Denise Levertov

Leaf through discolored manuscripts,
make sure no words
lie thirsting, bleeding,
waiting for rescue. No:
old loves half-
articulated, moments forced
out of the stream of perception
to play “statue,”
and never released —
they had no blood to shed.
You must seek
the ashy nest itself
if you hope to find
charred feathers, smoldering flightbones,
and a twist of singing flame
rekindling.

Fábula De La Sirena Y Los Borrachos - Pablo Neruda (1904 - 1973)

Todos estos señores estaban dentro
cuando ella entró completamente desnuda
ellos habían bebido y comenzaron a escupirla
ella no entendía nada recién salía del rio
era una sirena que se había extraviado
los insultos corrían sobre su carne lisa
la inmundicia cubrió sus pechos de oro
ella no sabía llorar por eso no lloraba
no sabía vestirse por eso no se vestía
la tatuaron con cigarrillos y con corchos quemados
y reían hasta caer al suelo de la taberna
ella no hablaba porque no sabía hablar
sus ojos eran color de amor distante
sus brazos construídos de topacios gemelos
sus labios se cortaron en la luz del coral
y de pronto salió por esa puerta
apenas entro al rio quedó limpia
relució como una piedra blanca en la lluvia
y sin mirar atrás nadó de nuevo
nadó hacia nunca más hacia morir.



All those men were there inside,
when she came in totally naked.
They had been drinking: they began to spit.
Newly come from the river, she knew nothing.
She was a mermaid who had lost her way.
The insults flowed down her gleaming flesh.
Obscenities drowned her golden breasts.
Not knowing tears, she did not weep tears.
Not knowing clothes, she did not have clothes.
They blackened her with burnt corks and cigarette stubs,
and rolled around laughing on the tavern floor.
She did not speak because she had no speech.
Her eyes were the colour of distant love,
her twin arms were made of white topaz.
Her lips moved, silent, in a coral light,
and suddenly she went out by that door.
Entering the river she was cleaned,
shining like a white stone in the rain,
and without looking back she swam again
swam towards emptiness, swam towards death.

The Mermaid and the Ranger

Entombed in a glacier,
The mermaid hung suspended,
Gazing out over her cerulean prison,
locked away from the very thing that brings her life.

A blizzard had come an October day,
It's wild winds and tempest waves,
Icily crackled through her taut muscles,
unaccustomed to the cold, native to balmy climbs so far hence.

Against her will, the chill seeped into scales
and gnawed at her golden tresses,
her strong arms grew slack with the encapsulating frost.

A tear still frozen in her widened eye, she waited three long years.
The flutter of a pulse growing dimmer,
as mutely she floated immured in the impending doom
of an eternity of this ice tomb.

At the solstice, when the long nights ceded to the silent march of the sun,
A single faint sun's ray chanced to fall across her gelid face,
as a solitary ranger noticed her from a distant mountain.

Picking his way slowly towards her across the expansive seaway struck solid,
he lifted his oil lamp to shine toward the stoic beauty,
so strangely posed as if in mid-drift.

The warmth of the lamp, or was it his smile, melted the tear from her eye,
brought the chance to blink. The opportunity to be seen
and gazed upon and admired ignited the pulse within her once more.

Her flagging heartbeat crescendoed to a cascading drum,
though she had thought it beyond hope.
Little cracks ran and dislodged around her fingers,
and near her cheek the ice splintered.

Revived, her arms grew stronger, her smile wider, and yes,
her laugh began to tinkle through her lungs.
The foreign sound created a cascade of tiny balls of ice
like a tempered glass window breaking.

Hair yet wild with snow, her eyes blazing for hope renewed,
she stared amazed at the ranger, his wooly cloak,
his twinkling eyes, his kind smile.

She moved forward towards him and realized her tail had become legs,
her nubile knees weak, she stumbled into his arms, then pulled away.
Too soon, she feared...

She had never had relied on anyone,
and yet she reached out first and he had caught her.
Curious. How can she trust herself to fall into a man's arms,
 and yet... isn't it what she has always wanted?

Will he vanish? Will the ice pull her back again?
Or will the waxing sunlight be enough for her to walk forward into life?
Will she allow herself to trust the ranger?
Her heart beats like a drum for this new dawn and a sincere friendship.

Jennifer D. Behnke - February 11, 2017 - 1:30 am

What if?

What if
I don't have the strength
To stand in front of another man
And say
"Here it is.
See the scars?
See the bruises
and the dark patches?
The parts that look
deflated?
The parts that
may never heal?
See what it is?
A swirly
gushing
overactive
bleeding,
leaking
exhausted muscle?
This vault of the dreams and needs
of those who came before you.
Who promised to take care of it,
and instead
poured in their pains,
their lies and their fears,
and took all it's
vitality and
warmth,
until it almost collapsed.
It's a mess.
It is healing.
It is still beating,
because it is absolutely
unstoppable.
But it is very fragile.
So, do you want it?"

What if I can't do that?

August 27,  2016

As I continue to heal, I am slowly posting old
Poems from the past year. Especially as they become more and more a part of my past.