Blessing the Dust

All those days
you felt like dust,
like dirt,
as if all you had to do
was turn your face
toward the wind
and be scattered
to the four corners

or swept away
by the smallest breath
as insubstantial --

did you not know
what the Holy One
can do with dust?

This is the day
we freely say
we are scorched.

This is the hour
we are marked
by what has made it
through the burning.

This is the moment
we ask for the blessing
that lives within
the ancient ashes,
that makes its home
inside the soil of
this sacred earth.

So let us be marked
not for sorrow.
And let us be marked
not for shame.
Let us be marked
not for false humility
or for thinking
we are less
than we are

but for claiming
what God can do
within the dust,
within the dirt,
within the stuff
of which the world
is made
and the stars that blaze
in our bones
and the galaxies that spiral
inside the smudge
we bear.

Jan Richardson, paintedprayerbook.com, February 8, 2013

I Cannot Sing

I cannot sing, because when a child,
My mother often hushed me.
The others she allowed to sing
No matter what their melody.

And since I've grown to manhood
All music I applaud,
But have no voice for singing,
So I write my songs to God.

I have ears and know the measures,
And I'll write a song for you,
But the world must do the singing
Of my sonnets old and new.

Now tell me, world of music,
Why I cannot sing one song?
Is it because my mother hushed me
And laughed when I was wrong.

Although I can write music,
And tell when harmony's right,
I will never sing better than when
My song was hushed one night.

Fond mothers, always be careful;
Let the songs be poorly sung.
To hush the child is cruel;
Let it sing while it is young.

Edward Nathaniel Harleston, public domain, published in Poem-a-Day, January 26, 2020, by the Academy of American Poets

Practicing Basketball in Farm Country

Dribbling around a wagon or a chair
was as good as having an opponent
except for the reach, but a broom
placed with wide end out could prove
an arm or hand meant to steal a ball.

I learned to dribble on the grass, on the gravel
of a grist mill with a hoop posted flat
against the board and batten, kept
a spare ball inside in warmth in winter
to trade for the first ball deflated by the cold.

My father told me to always work
on my passing, hitting the chalked-up silhouette
of a player on the side of the mill,
that I could assist many more times
in life than I would score.

Jeff Burt, yourdailypoem.com, January 21, 2020

Where's That Thing?

Where's that thing?
you ask me
looking in the cabinet above the stove.
The new one or old one, I reply,
fairly sure you know what I mean.
Old one.
It's under the sink.
It's not there.
Just look.
I'm looking.
Look under that stuff.
It's not here.
The other stuff.
Nope.
Wait. You mean the green one?
No. Blue. I think it's blue.
Oh. That's in the drawer.
I checked the drawer.
Did you look behind the plastic thing?
We're talking about the same thing right, the one
    with the weird top?
Of course.
Wait. Here it is.

John Kenney, Love Poems (for People with Children) (G. P. Putnam's Sons, 2019)

Ode to the Boy Who Jumped Me

You and your friend stood
on the corner of the liquor store
as I left Champa Garden,

takeout in hand, on the phone
with Ashley who said,
That was your tough voice.

I never heard your tough voice before.
I gave you boys a quick nod,
walked E 21st past dark houses.

Before I could reach the lights
on Park, you criss-crossed
your hands around me,

like a friend and I'd hoped
that you were Seng,
the boy I kissed on First Friday

in Octeber. He paid for my lunch
at that restaurant, split the leftovers.
But that was a long time ago

and we hadn't spoken since,
so I dropped to my knees
to loosen myself from your grip,

my back to the ground, I kicked
and screamed but nobody
in the neighborhood heard me,

only Ashley on the other line,
in Birmingham, where they say,
How are you? to strangers

not what I said in my tough voice
but what I last texted Seng,
no response. You didn't get on top,

you hovered. My elbows banged
the sidewalk. I threw
the takeout at you and saw

your face. Young. More scared
of me than I was of you.
Hands on my ankles, I thought

you'd take me or rape me.
Instead you acted like a man
who slipped out of my bed

and promised to call:
You said nothing.
Not even what you wanted.

Monica Sok, original publicstion in Poem-of-the-Day, February 20, 2020

Some Keep the Sabbath Going to the Church

Some keep the Sabbath going to the Church --
I keep it, staying at Home --
With a Bobolink for a Chorister --
And an Orchard, for a Dome --

Some keep the Sabbath in Surplice --
I just wear my Wings --
And instead of tolling the Bell, for Church,
Our little Sexton -- sings.

God preaches, a noted Clergyman --
And the sermon is never long,
So instead of getting to heaven, at last --
I'm going, all along.

Emily Dickinson

Personal

Don't take it personal, they said:
but I did, I took it all quite personal --
the breeze and the river and the color of the fields;
the price of grapefruit and stamps,

the wet hair of women in the rain --
and I cursed what hurt me

and I praised what gave me joy,
the most simple-minded of possible responses.

The government reminded me of my father,
with its deafness and its laws,

and the weather reminded me of my mom,
with her tropical squalls.

Enjoy it while you can, they said of Happiness
Think first, they said of Talk

Get over it, they said
at the school of Broken Hearts

But I couldn't and I didn't and I don't
believe in the clean break;

I believe in the compound fracture
served with a sauce of dirty regret,

I believe in saying it all
and taking it all back

and saying it again
while the air fills up with I'm-Sorries

like wheeling birds
and the trees look seasick in the wind.

Oh life! Can you blame me
for making a scene?

You were that yellow caboose, the moon
disappearing over a ridge of cloud.

I was the dog, chained in some fool's backyard;
barking and barking:

trying to convince everything else
to take it personal too.

Tony Hoagland, Poetry, July/August, 2009

Over the Edge

To tell a girl you loved her -- my God! --
that was a leap off a cliff, requiring little
sense, sweet as it was. And I have loved

many girls, women too, who by various fancies
of my mind have seemed loveable. But only
with you have I actually tried it: the long labor,

the selfishness, the self-denial, the children
and grandchildren, the garden rows planted
and gathered, the births and deaths of many years.

We boys, when we were young and romantic
and ignorant, new to the mystery and the power,
would wonder late into the night on the cliff's edge:

Was this love real? Was it true? And how
would you know? Well, it was time would tell,
if you were patient and could spare the time,

a long time, a lot of trouble, a lot of joy.
This one begins to look -- would you say? -- real?

Wendell Berry, New Collected Poems (Counterpoint, 2012)

Wife

I'm not yet comfortable with the word,
its short clean whoosh that sounds like
life. At dinner last night my single girls
said in admonition, "It's not wife-approved"
about a friend's upcoming trip. Their
eyes rolled up and over and out their
pretty young heads. Wife, why does it
sound like a job? "I need a wife," the famous
feminist wrote, "a wife who will keep my
clothes cleaned, ironed, mended, replaced
if need be." A word that could be made
easily into maid. A wife who does, fixes,
soothes, honors, obeys, Housewife,
fishwife, bad wife, good wife, what's
the word for someone who stares long
into the morning, unable even to fix tea
some days, the kettle steaming over
loud like a train whistle, she who cries
in the mornings, she who tears a hole
in the earth and can't stop grieving,
the one who wants to love you, but often
isn't good at even that, the one who
doesn't want to be diminished
by how much she wants to be yours.

Ada Limon, The Carrying (Milkweed Editions, 2018)

The People, Yes

Lincoln?
He was a mystery in smoke and flags
Saying yes to the smoke, yes to the flags,
Yes to the paradoxes of democracy,
Yes to the hopes of government
Of the people by the people for the people,
No to debauchery of the public mind,
No to personal malice nursed and fed,
Yes to the Constitution when a help,
No to the Constitution when a hindrance
Yes to man as a struggler amid illusions,
Each man fated to answer for himself:
Which of the faiths and illusions of mankind
Must I choose for my own sustaining light
To bring me beyond the present wilderness?

      Lincoln? Was he a poet?
      And did he write verses?
"I have not willingly planted a thorn
      in any man's bosom."
"I shall do nothing through malice: what
      I deal with is too vast for malice."

Death was in the air.
So was birth.

Carl Sandburg

Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809

Spending the Day at the Volleyball Tournament

       How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.
    -- Annie Dillard

I want to spend my life
cheering for young girls as they learn
what they are capable of, learn
to trust themselves and each other,
learn to become a team. I want
to spend my life looking for new ways
to say, "I am thrilled with who
you are becoming." I want to support
other women's daughters, all of them,
some of them with my own hands.
It's so easy, really. A glass of water,
a hug, a word, a shoulder, a nod.
And if days are our currency, let me
spend them giving as much love
as possible, though it sounds like
a cheer, though it feels like
a pat on the back, though it looks like
a bagel, a headband, a double thumbs up.

Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, wordwoman.com, February 10, 2020

Blackbirds

I am 52 years old, and have spent
truly the better part
of my life out-of-doors
but yesterday I heard a new sound above my head
a rustling, ruffling quietness in the spring air

and when I turned my face upward
I saw a flock of blackbirds
rounding a curve I didn't know was there
and the sound was simply all those wings,
all those feathers against air, against gravity
and such a beautiful winning:
the whole flock taking a long, wide curve
as if of one body and one mind.

How do they do that?

If we lived only in human society
what a puny existence that would be

but instead we live, and move, and have our being
here, in this curving and soaring world
that is not our own
so when mercy and tenderness triumph in our lives
and when, even more rarely, we unite and move together
toward a common good,

we can think to ourselves:

ah yes, this is how it's meant to be.

Julie Cadwallader Staub, Wing Over Wing (Paraclete Press, 2019)

False Teeth

Walking back to her sister's house,
woozy from relief and Novocain,
she nearly trips on the B&O tracks.
Then she sees it. A $20 bill.

Not crumpled. Folded between the ties,
pleated into a little fan, as if arranged
by whatever tooth fairy looks after
30-year old women who lose all their teeth.

When she walks into her sister's and grins,
she scares the baby -- her swollen face,
the gums still bleeding, her words clotted
like the cries of an animal --

They think she's gone crazy with pain until
she holds up the money. The men are laid off
again, but she can pay the dentist
what he's owed, she can buy false teeth.

They say, "For every child, a tooth,"
and this is a story for children
whose toothless mother lost
and found and came out even.

Patricia Dobler, Collected Poems, (Autumn House Press, 2005)

Silent God

This is my prayer --
That, though I may not see,
I be aware
Of the Silent God
Who stands by me.
That, though I may not feel,
I be aware
Of the Mighty Love
Which doggedly follows me.
That, though I may not respond,
I be aware
That God -- my Mighty, Silent God
Waits each day,
Quietly, hopefully, persistently,
Waits each day and through each night
For me.
For me -- alone.

Edwina Gateley, There Was No Path So I Trod One (Source Books, 1996)

To One Now Grown

If we could start over, I'd let you get dirtier.
Place your face in the food, it's okay.

In trade for great metaphors,
the ones you used to spout every minute,
I'd extend your bedtime,
be more patient with tantrums,
never answer urgency with urgency,
try to stay serene.

In one scene you are screaming
And I stop the car.
What do we do next?
I can't remember.
It's buried in the drawer of small socks.

Give me the box of time.
Let's make it bigger.
It's all yours.

Naomi Shihab Nye, Honeybee: Poems & Short Prose (Greenwillow Books, 2008)

Poor in Spirit

Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the realm of God.
                           Matthew 5:3

God, may I be an empty vessel for you.
Bless my willingness to have nothing to offer
except your presence in me,
and my trust in your grace in this world.

Bless my willingness to mourn for my losses,
to weep with those who suffer,
to lament the brokenness of the world.
I trust and await your consolation.

Give me courage to be powerless, to be inadequate,
to be weak, to depend on you,
and trust that in my emptiness
your grace is infinite and miraculous.

Give me faith to work for justice,
to be a peacemaker amid hate and anger,
to bear your spirit into fearful places,
for I am your child, your Beloved.

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