Ready to Make Friends with Poetry? ⟶
July 14th is Bastille Day, the French National Day commemorating the beginning of the French Revolution in 1789. (I believe the folks mark the occasion with fireworks.) One hundred eighty four years later, in l973, my husband and I were married. There are still a few fireworks. That was forty-two years ago; by God’s grace…
A mountain so wide the horizon could not contain it The path rough and boulder-strewn, here a plain, then stumbling again through the dark undergrowth towards the top. We left for this journey in the light— someone keeps stealing it away. Sun rays appear in glimmers through the trees, a flutter here and there Revealing life,…
Doors are like plans. . Sometimes people hold a door open for you when your hands (your life) are full. You also use them to leave and head out into the world. Doors open/close, open/close–traffic comes and goes, we come and go in and out to find pasture. Sometimes they are closed for a…
Words like water poured out reflect my wide world, contained in pieces, paragraphs of pain and power and the past, puzzles to put into place. I long to be known heard, seen, reflected in the pool you hold in your heart showing me the “me” that I am. Instead of a mirror, you hand me…
The family of goldfinches crest over the roof above my head. Their -V- of flight dismantles as they land branch by branch in the green, bright yellow coloring invisible to my eye. Morning has begun. The world wakes up and it is always the birds’ job to tell me so, messengers flinging notes aloft–I catch…
Overcome by the quaking power of God’s sweet presence Around the shoulders of friend-draped worshippers Across the room to the children raising, praising, lifting small hands Surrounded by incarnations of God in these multi-colored people Next to sweet-voiced sisters and deep-throated men, I’m looking~~eyes up and over and through the windows, past the summer-waving trees…
One of the best things about teaching Elementary School as a substitute teacher is hanging out with second graders (my favorite grade–innocent, love their teachers, AND they can usually tie their shoes). The other thing about Second Grade is that every February pretty much every teacher talks about penguins. Were it not for this exposure…
Feeling the rain come cave-cool air, white and empty but for the breeze. Still water rushing the trees, sleepy birds sitting at rest call out the change while tone on tone chimes echo from far below. The drops fall – spare, invisible, too few. My dry, gray lawn is thirsty and longs for a drenching, healing…
They shimmer and sway in the breeze branchy partners against a Danube blue sky. Glassy diamonds on the green– arrow fragments, light glimmering in an anthem song. The play a tune for my eyes, loudly announcing the beauty of dusk, a message in light music reflecting in emerald on the velvet evening. The leaves bend…
I avoided it as long as I could, skirted the issue like a wallflower at my first dance. Curious from afar about such beauty and grace, wondering at the words. I felt unequal to the task conversing with verse– or worse–writing it… why? What if I was wrong? I hesitated as long as I could,…