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Cocoon-{a #poem}
I slip on this chosen shelter, hide within silken walls and wonder— How long will these layers hold? Fragile pearlescence surrounds me- who’s to say? My shattered self is still, waiting. Gauzy quiet and singular, barren days envelop me by the hour. I take pains with my words, listen more, defy the urgency of unnecessary things. Spinning a private insulation preserves me heart and mind, a soundless cushion while my soul heals. —– No one can chart a butterfly’s birth. Not really. Skin is shed, the surprise of color shocks as wings unfurl, breathing life into deep- down cells. Chrysalis—gold. All that remains when death is past and days have…
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Finding Life in Fissures of Glory
“These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.” 1 Peter 1:7 NIV I’ve begun this post at least three times in the last three days. It’s been awhile since I’ve written anything in this space and my thoughts don’t coalesce as well. It seems a great number of things slip through the cracks, what with the energy it takes simply to manage…
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Gilt Gift {a #poem}
Sometimes I guilt myself right out of joy. Like the surprise of an iridescent butterfly from an unsightly cocoon, who would expect this shimmering show in morning sunlight? Eyes are trained on Northwest firs framed in blue, frosted feeders, feathered presents hidden among the trees. I’ve held my breath, wondering. Did my mother ever ponder stilling herself, take a moment with the birds in her California garden? Gaze restful at morning fog carried in on marine air? Was she ever at ease in her troubled life, as she parented us alone? I will never know. I cannot ring her up to ask, there is no email to send, no letter…
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Plating the Bread of Life {a #poem}
Bed askew with straw, rummaged leftovers of the menageries’ last meal. A stone space quarried like the heart of a small ark, opening just enough to cradle the straw. The stall, open planks no match for the midnight chill, gaps lasering light, streaming in on stone. Mother draped in simple cloth, teenaged hands trembling as she lays her infant in the place of the animals’ meal. Suckling sounds as He stares, still, into the sky where the host of Heaven lift voices through the spheres Announcing His presentation, which, as the young father recalls, would at last be everything. Merry Christmas, friends.
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Anna Waits {a #poem}
Light is coming she’d heard and read, and widowed, she had nothing calling her name but His across the years like an echo from The Garden so long ago. She’d been seeking (was He hiding?), steadfastly determined, for what else was her life but this–an always looking in the temple courts, trusting the doorway would be darkened some day when Light came into the room. (sharing from the Archives)
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Female Faith Poet-Susan Cowger
Susan Cowger confesses she was the ‘black sheep’ in the family, not quite fitting into the mold of family vocations–nurses, pharmacists, sensible people. Instead, her first language was art, a calling that led to a BA in Fine Art (1977) from Montana State University and subsequent MFA in Poetry with a secondary emphasis in Art from Eastern Washington University in 1997. Susan is a sculptor, visual artist (oils and watercolor) and a writer. What made her take the leap from two dimensional and three-dimensional work to words? “Art is often abstract. I wanted to help people enter into the art, so I started writing little poems. It seemed to help,”…
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No Anchor But Jesus {{#backtochurch}}
“Where do people put such things when they live by Plan? Our entire plan is simply Miscellaneous.” -Gladys Taber, Stillmeadow Seasons, 1950 Last Sunday was our first time back in a building to gather and worship for church since March of this year. I refer to that time as “2020 B.C.” as in Before Coronavirus. Guided by our pastor and staff, we were properly spaced in family or couple groups, masked up and elbow-bumping our hellos to one another. It was….. weird. And it was somehow wonderful at the same time. Why? Because we were together again with our brothers and sisters, standing in the same room with live music.…
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Contemplate {a #poem}
I’ve no chisel but this pen chipping at paper like stone, carving words, not to build but bend graphite like steel, curve the bones (Dear God, not break) but lay in place and then form a space to hold a new edifice, sculpt and rest and tap some more while You hand me bricks to begin, restore. *** The word contemplate is from the Latin, and literally means to carve out a temple, from the two parts-‘com’ and ‘templum,’ i.e. an “intensive space.” Words are swirling everywhere lately and the voices are l o u d. Seems no matter where I turn there is something to fear whether it’s danger,…