Rock the Child

 

 When the parents brought in the child Jesus,
            to do for him what was customary under the law,
            Simeon took him in his arms and praised God.
                                    —Luke 2.27-28

The Christ child is no longer in the manger.
The Holy Infant is in your heart now—
beloved, full of God's possibilities,
warm with God's gentle presence,
God's tender newness within you.
Love the Christ child.
And how do you do that?
Sit there, mostly.
Hold the child.
Let the mystery of love flow
between your heart and the child's.
Like a new parent,
let this become part of your routine.
Give time to simply sit
and hold the divine child in your heart.
Rock the child,
                        rock the child,
                                                rock the child.

 

Steve Garnass-Holmes, unfoldinglight.net, December 28, 2020

Refugee King

When the magi had departed, an angel from the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, "Get up. Take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod will soon search for the child in order to kill him." (Matthew 2:13)  

Away from the manger they ran for their lives
The crying boy Jesus, a son they must hide
A dream came to Joseph, they fled in the night
And they ran and they ran and they ran

Ooh

No stars in the sky but the Spirit of God
Led down into Egypt from Herod to hide
No place for his parents no country or tribe
And they ran and they ran and they ran

Ooh

Stay near me LORD Jesus when danger is nigh
And keep us from Herods and all of their lies
I love the LORD Jesus, the Refugee King

And we sing and we sing and we sing x2

Hallelujah

Liz Vance, Image, December 10, 2019

May Today There Be Peace Within

 May you trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be.

May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith.
May you use those gifts that you have received, and pass on
      the love that
has been given you. . . .
May you be content knowing you are a child of God. . . .
Let this presence settle into your bones, and allow your soul the
      freedom to
sing, dance, praise, and love.
It is there for each and every one of us.

St. Teresa of Avila

Christmas Blessing

 May the coming of Christ

deepen your wonder
and widen your gratitude.

May the helpless child
bring forth your tenderness
and strengthen your love.

May the gentle mother
give you courage to embrace the holy
and find the divine within yourself.

May the child who shares our death
bring light into your darkness
and hope to your weariness.

May the holy family in the stable
open your heart to the poor,
the homeless, the refugee.

May the child sought by soldiers
embolden you to cry out
and empower you to resist injustice.

May the angels who sing above you
awaken your heart
and surround you with beauty.

May the One Who Comes
remind you of your belovedness
and fill you with kindness and mercy
and give you joy.

The World War I Christmas Truce, December 24, 1914

It was on this day in 1914 that the last known Christmas truce occurred along the Western Front during World War I. In the week leading up to Christmas, soldiers all over the battlefields had been decorating their trenches with candles and makeshift trimmings when groups of German and British soldiers began shouting seasonal greetings and singing songs to each other. On occasion, a soldier or two would even cross the battlefield to take gifts to the enemy. Then, on Christmas Eve, the men of the Western Front put the war on hold and many soldiers from both sides left their trenches to meet in No Man's Land, where they mingled and exchanged tobacco, chocolate, and sometimes even the buttons from their own uniforms as souvenirs. They played games of football, sang carols, and buried fallen comrades together as the unofficial truce lasted through the night.

The most remarkable part is the group of soldiers who, after having met the enemy between the trenches, started thinking about all they had read and heard about them.

For many, the former hatred vanished. They now recognized the soldiers from the other side of the trenches as human as themselves. They were not mercenaries, no inhuman monsters eager for war, just humans. The stereotypes they knew from the time before the war and before they met their enemies did not fit after meeting their enemies. Not all Germans acted like it was described in the newspaper and were not as arrogant as the German Kaiser. On the other hand, not all the English soldiers were mercenaries fighting for material well-being.

These soldiers started to reflect on their own experiences and started to compare their experiences with what they knew before about their enemies. The conclusion they made was that their prefabricated picture and the experiences they gained did not fit together. It was hard for the soldiers, faced with the reality of the war, to keep the black and white picture. The reality they saw was a grey picture with blurry boundaries.

"The World War I Christmas Truce, December 24, 1914" published in beautywelove.blogspot.com, December 24, 2014

A Carol from Flanders

In Flanders on the Christmas morn
The trenched foemen lay,
The German and the Briton born,
And it was Christmas Day.

The red sun rose on fields accurst,
The gray fog fled away;
But neither cared to fire the first,
For it was Christmas Day!

They called from each to each across
The hideous disarray,
For terrible has been their loss:
“Oh, this is Christmas Day!”

Their rifles all they set aside,
One impulse to obey;
’Twas just the men on either side,
Just men—and Christmas Day.

They dug the graves for all their dead
And over them did pray:
And Englishmen and Germans said:
“How strange a Christmas Day!”

Between the trenches then they met,
Shook hands, and e’en did play
At games on which their hearts were set
On happy Christmas Day.

Not all the emperors and kings,
Financiers and they
Who rule us could prevent these things—
For it was Christmas Day.

Oh ye who read this truthful rime
From Flanders, kneel and say:
God speed the time when every day
Shall be as Christmas Day.

Frederick Niven, public domain 

I Want to Walk as a Child of the Light

I want to walk as a child of the light.
I want to follow Jesus.
God set the stars to give light to the world.
The star of my life is Jesus.
     Refrain:
     In him there is no darkness at all.
     The night and the day are both alike.
     The Lamb is the light of the city of God.   
     Shine in my heart, Lord Jesus.

I want to see the brightness of God.
I want to look at Jesus.
Clear Sun of Righteousness shine on my path.
Show me the way to the Father.

I'm looking for the coming of Christ.
I want to be with Jesus.
When we have run with patience the race,
we shall know the joy of Jesus.

Kathleen Tomerson, The United Methodist Hymnal #206 (The United Methodist Publishing House 1989) 

Favor

 

My soul magnifies the Holy One,
for God, you have looked with favor
on the lowliness of your servant.
                                       Luke 1:46

What if there was nothing special about Mary at all?
What if she was not particularly pious or virtuous,
but simply willing to hear the Word:
"You have found favor with God."

What if all that's needed to ignite a miracle
is the willingness to accept God's favor?
What if to bring salvation to the world all God needs of us
is to receive God's delight in us?
To imagine God's saving grace growing within us.
To trust God's tender regard for us
despite our lowliness, despite our undeserving;
despite all the hardships and struggles,
even the sin and despair, to trust God's joy?
Not that we are better, only that we are beloved.
What if all God asks of us is
to say Yes to God's Yes?
To hear God's hope for us
and to reply with all our hearts,
"Let it be to me according to your word."

Steve Garnass-Holmes, unfoldinglight.net, December 12, 2019

Finding Our Kneeling Places

In each heart lies a Bethlehem,
      an inn where we must ultimately answer
          whether there is room or not.
When we are Bethlehem-bound
      we experience our own advent in his.
When we are Bethlehem-bound
      we can no longer look the other way
          conveniently not seeing stars
              not hearing angel voices.
We can no longer excuse ourselves by busily
      tending our sheep or our kingdoms.
    
This Advent let's go to Bethlehem
      and see this thing that the Lord has made known to us,
In the midst of shopping sprees
      let's ponder in our hearts the Gift of Gifts.
Through the tinsel
      let's look for the gold of the Christmas Star.
In the excitement and confusion, in the merry chaos,
      let's listen for the brush of angels' wings.
This Advent, let's go to Bethlehem
      and find our kneeling places.

Ann Weems, Kneeling in Bethlehem, (The Westminster Press, 1987)    

Light the Festive Candles (A Hanukkah Poem)

 

Light the first of eight tonight –

the farthest candle to the right.

Light the first and second, too,

when tomorrow’s day is through.

Then light three, and then light four –

every dusk one candle more

till all eight burn bright and high,

honoring a day gone by

when the Temple was restored,

rescued from the Syrian lord,

and an eight-day feast proclaimed –

The Festival of Lights – well named

to celebrate the joyous day

when we regained the right to pray

to our one God in our own way.

Aileen Lucia Fisher, romper.com, December 22, 2016

Rejoice Always

 

             Rejoice always, pray without ceasing,
             give thanks in all circumstances.
                                     —1 Thessalonians 5.16-18

Seriously? Even with all the crud in the world?
Yes. In the rock-paper-scissors of life
joy cuts sorrow, crushes despair and swallows crud.
Grieve first... and joy comes with the morning.

These are hard days. But joy is bigger than these days.
Joy is not happiness with present circumstances,
but harmony with the goodness of God
and the overflowing of God's delight in us.
Joy includes the universe,
and all its beauty and sorrow.
Joy dances with gratitude.
Joy plays with hope, which is trust in the unseen.
Joy sings with love, which is self-giving for another,
who is the self—a return to wholeness. What joy!

Yes, people are suffering, and others don't care.
But some do. Rejoice!
You can rejoice during a pandemic.
You can give thanks at a funeral.
You can be joyful in prison.
You can lament suffering and injustice, and rejoice.
For joy is the healing of broken hearts,
the breaking of chains, the opening of graves,
the coming of God.

Christ does not come to make us happy,
but to stand with us in the pain of life
until joy like a seed rises.

All is swallowed up in joy.

Steve Garnass-Holmes, unfoldingjoy.net, December 10, 2020

For My Daughter

 

When I die choose a star

and name it after me

that you may know

I have not abandoned

or forgotten you.

You were such a star to me,

following you through birth

and childhood, my hand

in your hand.

 

When I die

choose a star and name it

after me so that I may shine

down on you, until you join

me in darkness and silence

together.

David Ignatow, Poetry 180, Poem 064 December 9, 2020

Adult Advent Announcement

 

O Lord,
Let Advent begin again
In us,
Not merely in commercials;
For that first Christmas was not
Simply for children,
But for the
Wise and the strong.
It was
Crowded around that cradle,
With kings kneeling.
Speak to us
Who seek an adult seat this year.
Help us to realize,
As we fill stockings,
Christmas is mainly
For the old folks —
Bent backs
And tired eyes
Need relief and light
A little more.
No wonder
It was grown-ups
Who were the first
To notice
Such a star.

David Redding, If I Could Pray Again (Word, 1965)

My House

i only want to

be there to kiss you

as you want to be kissed

when you need to be kissed

where i want to kiss you

cause its my house and i plan to live in it

 

i really need to hug you

when i want to hug you

as you like to hug me

does this sound like a silly poem

 

i mean its my house

and i want to fry pork chops

and bake sweet potatoes

and call them yams

cause i run the kitchen

and i can stand the heat

 

i spent all winter in

carpet stores gathering

patches so i could make

a quilt

does this really sound

like a silly poem

 

i mean i want to keep you

warm

 

and my windows might be dirty

but its my house

and if i can't see out sometimes

they can't see in either

 

english isn't a good language

to express emotion through

mostly i imagine because people

try to speak english instead

of trying to speak through it

i don't know maybe it is

a silly poem

 

i'm saying it's my house

and i'll make fudge and call

it love and touch my lips

to the chocolate warmth

and smile at old men and call

it revolution cause what's real

is really real

and i still like men in tight

pants cause everybody has some

thing to give and more

important need something to take

 

and this is my house and you make me

happy

so this is your poem

Nikki Giovanni, theatlantic.com, November 20, 2020 

No Losers, No Weepers

 

“I hate to lose something,”
               then she bent her head,
“even a dime, I wish I was dead.
I can’t explain it. No more to be said.
’Cept I hate to lose something.
“I lost a doll once and cried for a week.
She could open her eyes, and do all but speak.
I believe she was took, by some doll-snatching sneak.
I tell you, I hate to lose something.
 
“A watch of mine once, got up and walked away.
It had twelve numbers on it and for the time of day.
I’ll never forget it and all I can say
Is I really hate to lose something.
 
“Now if I felt that way ’bout a watch and a toy,
What you think I feel ’bout my lover-boy?
I ain’t threatening you, madam, but he is my evening’s joy.
And I mean I really hate to lose something.”

Maya Angelou, The Complete Poetry (Random House, 2005)

Making the House Ready for the Lord

 

Dear Lord, I have swept and I have washed but
still nothing is as shining as it should be
for you. Under the sink, for example, is an
uproar of mice — it is the season of their
many children. What shall I do? And under the eaves
and through the walls the squirrels
have gnawed their ragged entrances — but it is the season
when they need shelter, so what shall I do? And
the raccoon limps into the kitchen and opens the cupboard
while the dog snores, the cat hugs the pillow;
what shall I do? Beautiful is the new snow falling
in the yard and the fox who is staring boldly
up the path, to the door. And still I believe you will
come, Lord: you will, when I speak to the fox,
the sparrow, the lost dog, the shivering sea-goose, know
that really I am speaking to you whenever I say,
as I do all morning and afternoon: Come in, Come in.

Mary Oliver, Thirst (Beacon Press, 2006)

For Life

For the empty seat, we hold silence.
         Love, have mercy.
For the two hundred thousand, we weep.
         Love, have mercy.
For the homes incinerated, we mourn.
         Love, have mercy.
For the rule of law, we lament.
         Love, have mercy.

For kindness and nonviolence, we pray.
         Love, have mercy.
For courage to stand, to speak, to act, we pray.
         Love, have mercy.
For faith in one another,
that we still hold the future in our hands, we pray.
         Love, have mercy.

For justice that dismantles oppression,
hope that overcomes despair,
for faith that overpowers dread,
for love that defeats fear,
for joy that will not be taken from us, we pray.
         Love, have mercy.
In the face of all that oppresses,
give us trust in grace unseen;
give us hearts to rise, to serve,
yes, even to sing
         for life,
         for life.

Steve Garnass-Holmes, unfoldinglight.net, September 22, 2020 

Salvation Army Vibes

 

Outside the local supermarket in my small town, Salvation Army volunteers sit beside the Red Kettle, ringing their red bells, playing recorded Christmas carols. Mostly older, they work their shift, wait for a replacement, greet neighbors, chat with friends.   In Midtown Manhattan in early December,  the Army deploys a different vibe, two young people, on a busy street corner, boom box blaring hip-hop music. In red costumes, they dance with wild athleticism, sing loudly, attract lots of attention.  They call out to strangers walking by, urging them to give.   The elderly volunteers with their tinkling bells would be swallowed up in the street noise of Manhattan. The cacophony of the hip-hop duo would cause consternation at the entrance to Vons.   But the generosity of the season lives everywhere. Juliane McAdam, yourdailypoem.com, December 1, 2020

I Am Rosa Parks

There’ve been many before me.
Brave women who decided they would not allow themselves
To be pushed around.
However, it is me
They call a heroine.
A term I do not deserve more than the others.

‘That’s the lady who dared’

I hear my name in whispers around corners,
As people squeeze themselves in small cars,
And take long walks to workplaces and schools.

I have never felt more overwhelmed.
To see a community stand tall, strong and proud as one
regardless of color?
Breathtaking.

There shouldn’t be glory in standing up for oneself.
However, if it is what shall move the nation,
I shall gladly allow it.

For the right to speak one’s mind, should be a right for all.

The fire has been lit and it shall keep burning.
We shall not stop
Until we can all walk hand in hand, as one
And sit side by side, as one.

Temidayo Olayide, poetryandproze.com, December 3, 2017 

A Thanksgiving Prayer for 2020

 

Gracious God, this Thanksgiving

we gather full of both gratitude and grief.

We are grateful for the food on our table

and grieve the empty chairs around it.

We are grateful for technology that connects us

and grieve the loss of a simple human touch.

We are grateful for seasons of abundant harvest

and understand that fields must sometimes lie fallow.

We humbly ask that you feed our hungering hearts,

weary spirits and beleaguered bodies

with generous helpings of your sacred strength,

extravagant love and radical resilience.

Thank you, O God, for this gift of life

and the privilege of living it.

Amen.

Sharon Seyfarth Garner - November 21, 2020

Benediction

 

For what we are given.
For being mindful of what we are given.

For those who grieve and those who celebrate.
For those who remain grateful in the face of everything.

For the assembly of words that links us together.
For individual speech that becomes speech shared.

For the transformations a written page may effect in us.
For those who pay attention.

For the teachers who gave us the chrysalis of language.
For the comrades of the heart who left us signposts.

For the parent who gave us the one ethic of discipline.
For ourselves who may take discipline to heart, and not resent it.

For the second chance that is the writing down.
For those who know that half of poetry is silence.

For the language of breath, and the breath that is prayer.
For those who wake to light, and know the depths of sacrament.

For this common meal, and us who bow our heads and partake.
For those who remember that "so be it" is also written

Amen.

Nicholas Samaras, Before the Door of God: An Anthology of Devotional Poetry, Jay Hopler and Kimberly Johnson, editors (Yale University Press, 2013)

Newtonian Nocturne

 

I am sitting next to him in the front seat of his pickup
looking at the stars and trying to remember the laws of motion:
how a body in motion will remain in motion. And a body at rest
will remain at rest, until, or unless....And whenever one body
exerts a force onto a second body, etc., etc. and so on. I can smell
the frayed remainder of his cologne, feel the warmth of his knee
not quite touching mine. Moonlight lays itself along the field
and something stirs in the shadows. I can't help wondering
how one body might act upon another—though I have a feeling
we'll both keep minding the empty space between his right thigh,
my left, our bare arms, the heavy air that separates our lips.
I wish I could turn on the radio and listen to some crooner croon
about what we won't say. But there's only the drone of cars
passing on the main road and crickets singing in the dark grass.
He rolls down the windows and we breathe in the cool night air,
looking up at our galaxy of milk, that wash of luminaries
spilled across the sky, which, however bright they seem,
are moving—even now—farther and farther away.

Danusha Lameris, Bonfire Opera (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2020)

Unwise Purchases

 

They sit around the house
not doing much of anything: the boxed set
of the complete works of Verdi, unopened.
The complete Proust, unread:

The French-cut silk shirts
which hang like expensive ghosts in the closet
and make me look exactly
like the kind of middle-aged man
who would wear a French-cut silk shirt:

The reflector telescope I thought would unlock
the mysteries of the heavens
but which I only used once or twice
to try to find something heavenly
in the windows of the high-rise down the road,
and which now stares disconsolately at the ceiling
when it could be examining the Crab Nebula:

The 30-day course in Spanish
whose text I never opened,
whose dozen cassette tapes remain unplayed,

save for Tape One, where I never learned 
whether the suave American 
conversing with a sultry-sounding desk clerk
at a Madrid hotel about the possibility
of obtaining a room
actually managed to check in.

I like to think
that one thing led to another between them
and that by Tape Six or so
they're happily married
and raising a bilingual child in Seville or Terra Haute.

But I'll never know.
Suddenly I realize
I have constructed the perfect home
for a sexy, Spanish-speaking astronomer
who reads Proust while listening to Italian arias,

and I wonder if somewhere in this teeming city
there lives a woman with, say,
a fencing foil gathering dust in the corner
near her unused easel, a rainbow of oil paints
drying in their tubes

on the table where the violin
she bought on a whim
lies entombed in the permanent darkness
of its locked case
next to the abandoned chess set,

a woman who has always dreamed of becoming
the kind of woman the man I've always dreamed of becoming 
has always dreamed of meeting.

And while the two of them discuss star clusters
and Cézanne, while they fence delicately 
in Castilian Spanish to the strains of Rigoletto,

she and I will stand in the steamy kitchen,
fixing up a little risotto,
enjoying a modest cabernet,
while talking over a day so ordinary
as to seem miraculous.

George Bilgere, Haywire (Utah State University Press, 2006)

In the Basement of the Old Stone Library

Off the hot street and down
the narrow stairwell,
I entered the smell of books—
a musty scent of paper and ink.
How I loved entering the stacks,
shelves taller than I was.
Loved running my hands
along hardcover spines
wondering at the worlds inside.
I was allowed twelve thin books,
that meant twelve chances
to travel to realms where monkeys
stole hats and the Whangdoodle snoozed.
Twelve chapters in which I
was no longer an awkward girl
but a baker in an old village
or a mouse in an attic befriending a girl
who was something like me,
or at least like the girl I wished I could be,
a girl who was brave, a girl
who couldn’t help but stumble
every single time
into happily ever after.

Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, wordwoman.com, November 17, 2020 

Domestic Work, 1937

All week she's cleaned

someone else's house,

stared down her own face

in the shine of copper—

bottomed pots, polished

wood, toilets she'd pull

the lid to—that look saying

 

Let's make a change, girl.

 

But Sunday mornings are hers—

church clothes starched

and hanging, a record spinning

on the console, the whole house

dancing. She raises the shades,

washes the rooms in light,

buckets of water, Octagon soap.

 

Cleanliness is next to godliness ...

 

Windows and doors flung wide,

curtains two-stepping

forward and back, neck bones

bumping in the pot, a choir

of clothes clapping on the line.

 

Nearer my God to Thee ...

 

She beats time on the rugs,

blows dust from the broom

like dandelion spores, each one

a wish for something better.

 

Natasha Trethewey, Poetry 180, Library of Congress 

Come Forth

 

I dreamed of my father when he was old.

We went to see some horses in a field;

they were sorrels, as red almost as blood,

the light gold on their shoulders and haunches.

Though they came to us, all a-tremble

with curiosity and snorty with caution,

they had never known bridle or harness.

My father walked among them, admiring,

for he was a knower of horses, and these were fine.

 

He leaned on a cane and dragged his feet

along the ground in hurried little steps

so that I called to him to take care, take care,

as the horses stamped and frolicked around him.

But while I warned, he seized the mane

of the nearest one. "It'll be all right,"

he said, and then from his broken stance

he leapt astride, and sat lithe and straight

and strong in the sun's unshadowed excellence.

Wendell Berry, thebeautywelove.blogspot.com, November 6, 2020

Wide Receiver

In the huddle you said "Go long -- get open"
and at the snap I took off along the right sideline
and then cut across left in a long arc
and I'm sure I was open at several points --
glancing back I saw you pump-fake more than once
but you must not have been satisfied with what you saw downfield
and then I got bumped off course and my hands touched the turf
but I regained my balance and dashed back to the right
I think or maybe first left and then right
and I definitely got open but the throw never came --

maybe you thought I couldn't hang on to a ball flung so far
or maybe you actually can't throw so far but in any case I feel quite open now,
the defenders don't seem too interested in me
I sense open air all around me
though the air is getting darker and it would appear
by now we're well into the fourth quarter
and I strongly doubt that we can settle for
dinky little first downs if the score is what I think it is

so come on, star boy, fling a Hail Mary
with a dream-coached combination of muscle and faith
and I will gauge the arc and I will not be stupidly frantic
and I will time my jump and -- I'm just going to say
in the cool gloaming of this weirdly long game
it is not impossible that I will make the catch.

Mark Halliday, Thresherphobe (The University of Chicago Press, 2013)

Believing Things that Seem Impossible

Like the giant rock, balancing in the desert
on a slender piece of sand. Like the way
the full moon seems so much larger
when it first rises. Like how the bluebird,
smaller than my open hand, migrates
up to two-thousand miles in the spring.

Every day, the world bewilders me,
as if daring me to believe in other
impossible things. Like how closeness
to death makes us more alive.
Like people all over the world
choosing kindness over chaos.
Like love, that against all odds,
continues to grow.

Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, wordwoman.com, Aprol 8, 2020

The Aisle Not Taken

 (With apologies to Robert Frost)

 

Two aisles diverged in a grocery store.

And sorry I could not travel both

And being one shopper, long I stood,

And looked down Aisle 1 as far as I could

To cookies, chocolates, candies and more.

 

Then took the other, as just as good

And perhaps the better for my health;

With low-calorie foods on the shelf,

And no sugar laden goodies anywhere,

So I'll look better in underwear.

 

And yet both aisles that morning lay

In front of me and my cart.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Knowing I would be tempted back

To all those sweet things, stack after stack.

 

I shall be telling this with a (heavy) sigh

Somewhere pounds and pounds hence:

Two aisles diverged in a grocery store, and I,

I once took the one better for my thigh,

Not that it ultimately made any difference.

Karen Poppy, "The Slowdown," August 5, 2020

In The Steps of RBG

 

Real change, enduring change, happens one step at a time.
—Ruth Bader Ginsburg, as quoted in Notorious RBG

So let me take one step right now,

one step toward respect.

And give me strength to take another

toward clarity. And though

my feet might feel like stones, let

me take another step toward justice.

And another toward equity. And another

toward truth. And though my legs

may feel leaden and slow, though someone

else may step on my toes, may I inch

toward forgiveness. May every step

be toward a bridge. Enough divisiveness.

And as I go, may I find joy in the stepping,

grace in the edging toward great change.

But if there’s little joy, let me step anyway.

Then take another step. And another. And another.

Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, ‘Poets Respond’ September 20, 2020

Pandemic

 

What if you thought of it
as the Jews consider the Sabbath—
the most sacred of times?
Cease from travel.
Cease from buying and selling.
Give up, just for now,
on trying to make the world
different than it is.
Sing. Pray. Touch only those
to whom you commit your life.
Center down.
 
And when your body has become still,
reach out with your heart.
Know that we are connected
in ways that are terrifying and beautiful.
(You could hardly deny it now.)
Know that our lives
are in one another’s hands.
(Surely, that has come clear.)
Do not reach out your hands.
Reach out your heart.
Reach out your words.
Reach out all the tendrils
of compassion that move, invisibly,
where we cannot touch.
 
Promise this world your love–
for better or for worse,
in sickness and in health,
so long as we all shall live.

Lynn Ungar, lynnungar.com, March 11, 2020

If Life Were Like Touch Football

Driving north on Route 2A
from Vermont to Maine
listening to the news:
—the New England Patriots coach was caught
trying to videotape the handsignals of the New York
Giants—

I remember how we six sisters
would recruit a few boys from the neighborhood
for a pick-up game of touch football in the street,
how we'd break into teams,
huddle around whomever was chosen to be qb,
how the qb would extend her left palm, flat,
into the middle of the huddle,
plant the index finger of her right hand in the center of her
palm, and then
with finger motions and whispers,
she would diagram who was to go where and when,
in order to so confuse and fool the other team
that one of us could break free
and go long.

Oh that feeling
of running as fast as I could
extending my arms, my hands, my fingers
as far as I could
watching that spiraling bullet of a football,
reminding myself:
if you can touch it,
you can catch it.
If you can touch it,
you can catch it.

Julie Cadwaller-Staub, Face to Face (DreamSeekers Books, 2010) 

The Hero of Imogene Pass Race

 

When I think of encouragement,
I think of Jack Pera,
who stood every year
at the top of Imogene Pass—
in snow, in sun, in sleet, in fog.
On race day, a thousand plus runners
would reach the top,
weary, having climbed
over five thousand feet in ten miles,
and Jack, he would hold out his hand
and pull each of us up the last foot,
launching us toward the long downhill finish.
I remember how surprised I was
the first time, and grateful,
grateful to feel him reaching for me,
grateful to feel his powerful grip
yanking me up through the scree.
“Good job,” he’d say to each one of us,
cheering us though we were sweaty
and drooling and panting and spent.
After that first race, I knew to look for him
as I climbed the last pitch,
trying to make out his form
at the top of the ridge.
And there he was. Every time.
“Good job,” he’d say
as he made that last steep step
feel like flight.
There are people who do this,
who hold out their hand,
year after year,
to help those who need it.
There are people who carry us
when we most need it,
if only for a moment.
When I heard today
Jack had died, I couldn’t help but imagine
an angel waiting there above him
as he took his last breath,
an angel with a firm grip and a big smile
holding out a hand, pulling him through that last breath,
telling him, “Good Job, Jack. Good job.”
And may he have felt in that moment
the blessing of that encouragement,
totally ready to be launched into whatever came next.
Good job, Jack Pera. Good job.

Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, wordwoman.com, October 24, 2020

Splits

The world of my youth was divided
into girls who could and girls who couldn’t
slide casually to the floor,
one leg aft and one fore, while their faces
retained a sprightly cheer.
All summer, all year
they stretched the critical tendons,
descending in increments
the way the willful enter a frigid lake,
their arms folded across their chests,
their backs burning in the sun
as their legs numb.
Yet the splits seemed less a skill
than a gift of birth: Churchillian pluck
combined with a stroke of luck
like a pretty face with a strong chin.
One felt that even as babies
some girls were predispositioned.

Connie Wanek, Poetry August 2004 

Bell Bottoms and Platform Shoes

 

A friend sends me a picture of herself
from the 70s—bell bottoms, platform shoes
a patterned button down shirt,
hair puffed up from a perm.

I can see the outline of the person she is now
and she reminds me of myself in the 70s—
married for eight years to a man
I knew I loved the moment I saw him,
two children who seem to me exquisitely
beautiful because they look like my husband
and not me.

The picture reminded me of all those evenings
When I dressed in bell bottoms and silky patterned shirts
and shoes with chunky heels. Those evenings
we’d invite friends over for drinks and conversation,
our children asleep upstairs. Those clothes, the perm
I got, because I wanted to be cool, though my hair
was already kinky, so the perm made me look
like I’d stuck my finger in a light socket.

I look at a picture of us from that time—Dennis and I
standing together at the head of the dining room table,
friends seated around us. Dennis’s face is flushed,
his eyes shining. I wonder if he is tipsy.
He is wearing a fitted shirt with little flowers on it.
I am grinning and looking up at him. I might as well be
wearing a neon sign that says I love you.

Looking back at us. I would like to tell
my younger self—look how fortunate you are,
the man you love beside you, your children sleeping
in their safe beds, your friends around you.
Listen, be grateful for the moments
caught in these photographs,
the world full of possibility,
the sky not yet darkened.

Maria Mazziotti Gillan, What Blooms in Winter (NYQ Books, 2016)

Grandfather's Heaven

My grandfather told me I had a choice.

Up or down, he said. Up or down.

He never mentioned east or west.

 

Grandpa stacked newspapers on his bed

and read them years after the news was relevant.

He even checked the weather reports.

 

Grandma was afraid of Grandpa

for some reason I never understood.

She tiptoed while he snored, rarely disagreed.

 

I liked Grandma because she gave me cookies

and let me listen to the ocean in her shell.

Grandma liked me even though my daddy was a Moslem.

 

I think Grandpa liked me too

though he wasn’t sure what to do with it.

Just before he died, he wrote me a letter.

 

“I hear you’re studying religion,” he said.

“That’s how people get confused.

Keep it simple. Down or up.”

Naomi Shihab Nye, Different Ways to Pray: Poems (Breitenbush Publications, 1980)

Advent of Midlife

 

I am no longer waiting for a special occasion;

I burn the best candles on ordinary days.

I am no longer waiting for the house to be clean;

I fill it with people who understand that even dust is Sacred.

I am no longer waiting for everyone to understand me;

It’s just not their task.

I am no longer waiting for the perfect children;

my children have their own names that burn as brightly as any star.

I am no longer waiting for the other shoe to drop;

It already did, and I survived.

I am no longer waiting for the time to be right;

the time is always now!!

I am no longer waiting for the mate who will complete me;

I am grateful to be so warmly, tenderly held.

I am no longer waiting for a quiet moment;

my heart can be stilled whenever it is called.

I am no longer waiting for the world to be at peace;

I unclench my grasp and breathe peace in and out.

I am no longer waiting to do something great;

being awake to carry my grain of sand is enough.

I am no longer waiting to be recognized;

I know that I dance in a holy circle.

I am no longer waiting for Forgiveness.

I believe, I believe.

Mary Anne Perrone, National Catholic Reporter December 15, 2006

Together

We are in this together.

Everything belongs to all of us: rough days
and rainbows, dirty wash and sun-drenched skies,
hungry hearts and fall harvests, angry words
and healing prayers. Whether you put your
foot in the water or not, the waves will roll
in and out. The starling in the snow finds
the squirrel’s discarded stash.
Smile. Breathe. Life goes on.
Be grateful.
We are in this together.

Arlene Gay Levine, Gratitude Prayers ( Andrews McMeel, 2013)

Pigeon and Hawk

 A new grad student far away from home,

I took every step on trembling ground.

I knew no one. Who were my friends?

The other black student in the program

ducked and rushed away when our eyes met.

Seminar rooms were full of hungry dogs

snapping up scraps of nodding approval.

At the end of a campus reception

I accepted the offer of a ride

from campus to my downtown room-with-bath.

 

October. Evenings were getting cool.

The walk over the bridge downtown

felt dangerously long when it was dark.

Did the young man who offered me a ride

tell me his name? What was it about him

that made me say Yes thanks, like a damn fool?

When we were in his car and he said oops,

he had forgotten something at his place

he had to pick up, and asked if I’d mind

if we stopped there, why did I say O.K.?

 

Did we talk during the drive? Was the radio on?

Did I just watch the businesses,

in thinning traffic, become a suburb

where his apartment complex was in a woods

already splendid in autumn colors

so beautiful they took my words away?

When he pulled up and said I should come in,

it would only take a minute, why did I go

upstairs with him, wait as the key unlocked

his apartment, and go inside?

 

The building was silent. A big window

in the living room looked at parking lots

with a few parked cars, and the glowing trees.

He said I’ll be right back, and disappeared

into the bedroom. I turned to the view,

thinking of nothing, my mind a blank page

that grew emptier as the minutes passed.

What was he doing during those minutes,

as I stood dreaming like a fat pigeon

in the keen purview of a circling hawk?

 

What could he have needed to go home for,

that was so important he had to go

there first, before he drove me home? Was he

wrestling with opportunity?

                                       Human horrors

are not inevitable. Some people stop

themselves, before they cross moral divides.

A drinking buddy might say Cool it, bro.

A cop might take his knee off a black man’s throat.

A young man might come out and say O.K.,

let’s go, and drive you home. What was his name?

 

Marilyn Nelson, The New Yorker June 15, 2020