Ronald Goodman a friend of mine and my husband's passed away several years ago. We met him on the Rosebud reservation in South Dakota. Ironically, we found he had known an artist/writer friend of ours, M.C. Richards, then living in Kimberton Hills Camphill Village (near our home). They both had been part of the Modernist intentional community, The Land, near Stony Point, NY. and Black Mountain College in North Carolina.
While living very simply in the town of Mission on Rosebud, Ron was teaching at Sinte Gleska Indian college and writing poetry. He had also worked for a number of years researching Lakota ways and then published Star Knowledge, how the Lakota relied on the stars for guidance in so many ways. He collaborated with Lakota elders, Stanley Red Bird and Albert White Hat (a consultant on Lakota language during the filming of Dances with Wolves).
Ron had an unassuming appearance, a bit disheveled, an intellectual, a cynic, an eternal idealist—a dark humorist, all of which made his poetry sardonic, profound, humorous--sometimes all at the same time, but he was human first.
While living very simply in the town of Mission on Rosebud, Ron was teaching at Sinte Gleska Indian college and writing poetry. He had also worked for a number of years researching Lakota ways and then published Star Knowledge, how the Lakota relied on the stars for guidance in so many ways. He collaborated with Lakota elders, Stanley Red Bird and Albert White Hat (a consultant on Lakota language during the filming of Dances with Wolves).
Ron had an unassuming appearance, a bit disheveled, an intellectual, a cynic, an eternal idealist—a dark humorist, all of which made his poetry sardonic, profound, humorous--sometimes all at the same time, but he was human first.
Ron grew up in Virginia, told by his father to “be American, ride your bike,” but his father had bought a 22 rifle in case the Nazis invaded Virginia, and then he said Ron "would have to fight.” Ron said that he “almost needed an anti-Semite to remind him, “I’m a Jew.” He remembered seeing a film of Hitler reading and “shrieking and shaking with rage," and wondered, "Is my name on that page?"
One of the last times we saw him was we were visiting in his little trailer during a storm, with greenish billowy tornado clouds all around. He said that when he died, there would be no one to sing Kaddish for him.
When he passed away a few years later, we and other friends made sure there was Kaddish for Ron in various places, along with other prayers, thoughts, wishes and remembrances of him--his striving mind, heart and soul, never giving up on humanity, despite our history of the inhumanity on display.
One of the last times we saw him was we were visiting in his little trailer during a storm, with greenish billowy tornado clouds all around. He said that when he died, there would be no one to sing Kaddish for him.
When he passed away a few years later, we and other friends made sure there was Kaddish for Ron in various places, along with other prayers, thoughts, wishes and remembrances of him--his striving mind, heart and soul, never giving up on humanity, despite our history of the inhumanity on display.
Over a few years in the early 90's, we visited South Dakota several times and kept in touch with Ron in between. He would send us letter, notes and poems from time to time. The little note to us below came with his last book of poetry:
Dear Friends,
I hope you are well and will find some of these poems to your liking. Each time I finish a poem, I think it will do something—like bring peace onto the earth, end pollution or domestic violence—later, I just hope it will give friends like you some small delight. Cheers, Ronald.
Dear Friends,
I hope you are well and will find some of these poems to your liking. Each time I finish a poem, I think it will do something—like bring peace onto the earth, end pollution or domestic violence—later, I just hope it will give friends like you some small delight. Cheers, Ronald.
His memory lives on in our hearts, and the poetry he left behind brings us much delight. We miss our friend Ron Goodman.
"May there be abundant peace from heaven, and life upon us and upon all Israel. Amen"
Mencius (the last poem in the collection he sent)
When I was twenty and twenty-one
I felt quite sure that justice
Would grow like radishes
And that equality and fraternity
Would be companion plants
Around which all of us
Would only need to dance
To bring them to fruition.
This was, I think now, a sweet
And virginal ignorance
But not stupidity
For ignorance is curable
And I am cured.
But not of hope. I found
That Mencius who lived in China
In the forth century B.C.
Agrees with me
That goodness is innate,
Inborn in us, our natural estate.
He also gave no reasons instead he told a story of a mountain
And I respected that
And then because the sacred is too real
For truth, he danced
A broken window hallelujah stomp
And I respect that, too,
For justice has jolly legs,
One wooden and one blue.
Here is one of my favorites from another collection.
Somebody’s Tears
Feast now, while the lark sleeps on this soft good hill, delight;
For these stars are the white seeds in the black ripe melon of the night
Something of the sky has been given to you,
This long blue word, so good to say and ringing,
That molecules leave home and chemical family
To shape the new and necessary life of which you now are singing.
Somebody’s tears are corn again, and soon will be bread
Somebody’s grief is becoming food; black white yellow and red.
So feast now, while the lark sleeps, on this soft hill, delight;
For these stars are the white seeds in the black ripe melon of the night.
