Hope Is the Thing with Feathers

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
and never stops at all.

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb from me.

Emily Dickinson, public domain

Frontline Warriors

when we are
simply getting bored
from staying at home

you are out there
in the frontline
to fight this fatal virus

you're preventing it
from engulfing
the entire humankind

you are putting us before yourself
risking your own life
you made it your business to fight
the battle for us, to win
the war for all

begging us to stay at home
you're trying to make sure
we are okay

like a parent, you have enclosed
us in a cocoon
of warm safety

You're the one who is
taking care of us

you're the selfless,
the generous,
the brave

the frontline,
the frontline warriors

Christiana Sasa, The Pangolin Review, April 2020

Remember

There is no such thing as quantity in love
my mother said, correcting me.

No such thing as "much" love.
You can't count it.

No such thing as "all my love."
You can't contain it.

Love expands.
There's an endless supply.

I love you, she said.
That's sufficient.

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

Low Blow to the Ego

My husband and son are kind, sensitive men.
I don't understand how this happened:

We return to our car after walking off the ferry
following a trip to Port Townsend.

I choose the back seat, but find the back door locked.
While tapping on the window, trying to get their attention,

they take off. I'm left standing in the parking space
four miles from home.

Surely one of those thoughtful men will notice
I'm not in the car.

Didn't happen that way. They drove home, only then,
surprised I didn't respond when they spoke to me.

Where is your mother?
I don't know. Maybe she is getting the mail.
I didn't stop there.

I was told my husband leaned over the seat to check
the floor as if I was somehow hidden from view.

Driving back to pick me up, my son, who has always
admired his father, said, I'm glad I'm not you.

Lois Parker Edstrom, Glint (Moonpath Press, 2019)

The Road to Emmaus

Our eyes falling down to the ground,

Our hearts dry as the dust we trample.

A stranger joins our journey to despair.

Teasing out the details of what our hope had been,

He listens on and on until our grief can tell no more,

Only then can his words water our withered spirits.

Gently chiding, strongly guiding, weaving a story

Of glory hidden within fabled prophecies of faith.

Later will we recall how fiercely our hearts did burn.

But now it is our turn, the time to beg him to linger,

A request he can never refuse, for his very presence

Is sacred space, every home he visits his sanctuary.

For those who have eyes to see, his bread blessed,

Broken and shared -- so much more than merely a meal.

His visitation no longer confined to history.

This road we walked with him still beckons --

To journey back from where we once despaired,

Our hearts now open in hopeful recognition.

J. Michael Sparough, S. J., Hearttoheart.org, 2017

Remember

Remember the sky you were born under,
know each of the star's stories.

Remember the moon, know who she is.
Remember the sun's birth at dawn, that is the
strongest point of time. Remember sundown
and the giving away to night.


Remember your birth, how your mother struggled
to give you form and breath. You are evidence of
her life, and her mother's, and hers.
Remember your father. He is your life, also.

Remember the earth whose skin you are:
red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth,
brown earth, we are earth.

Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their
tribes, their families, their history, too. Talk to them,
listen to them. They are alive poems.

Remember the wind. Remember her voice.
She knows the origin of this universe.
Remember you are all people and all people are you.

Remember you are this universe and this universe is you.
Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you.

Remember language comes from this.
Remember the dance language is, that life is.

Remember.

Joy Harjo, She Had Some Horses (W. W. Norton & Company, 1983)

"Important"

"We hurry through the so-called important things
in order to attend to that which we deem
more important, interesting.
Perhaps the final freedom will be a recognition that
everything in every moment is 'essential'
and that nothing at all is 'important.'"

Helen M. Luke, medschool.uscd.edu

Keeping Quiet

Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still.
For once on the face of the earth,
let's not speak in any language,
let's stop for a second,
and not move our arms so much.

It would be an exotic moment,
without rush, without engines;
we would all be together
in a sudden strangeness.

Fishermen in the cold sea
would not harm whales
and the man gathering salt
would not look at his hurt hands.

Those who prepare green wars,
wars with gas, wars with fire,
victories with no survivors,
would put on clean clothes
and walk about with their brothers
in the shade, doing nothing.

What I want should not be confused
with total inactivity.
Life is what it is about;
I want no truck with death.

If we were not so single-minded
about keeping our lives moving,
and for once could do nothing,
perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves
with death.
Perhaps the earth can teach us
as when everything seems dead in winter
and later proves to be alive.

Now I'll count up to twelve
and you keep quiet and I will go.

Pablo Neruda, Extravagaria: A Bilingual Edition (Noonday Press, 2001)

Aphorisms at Seventy

Now "when" becomes "if."
The horizon starts to lower.
You realize you have a sell-by date.
And the deer are always going to win
        the battle of the garden.
You will never be reconciled
        to losing friends.
You are not going to lose the weight
        from that last baby.
Or finish your reading list.
Still, red wine goes with everything.
There is always chocolate.
Spring never gets old.
You don't need a partner to dance.

Barbara Crooker, poem first appeared in The Paterson Literary Review

Dear Death

Death no longer has dominion.
                              Romans 6:9

Ah, Death, poor Death, we respect you
and the empire which you have established;
we honor your wide jurisdictions
and observe your feasts and seasons.
But we don't belong to you.
We don't believe in you.

We don't fear you or your armies
and their horrible weapons, their wars,
their plagues and pandemics.
For Jesus, bearing our souls,
has walked through you like smoke
and out the other side.
Our Christ, in love, has taken you in chains.

With him we have already died --
we have already died -- and been raised,
and passed beyond your power.
Come early as you may, you are too late for us!
Our funerals are acts of happy sedition
in your sad, decaying empire:
for every funeral we hold, dear death, is yours.
We live not under your sway, but life's
and love's eternal breadth
crammed into this brief span.

We mean no disrespect
when we sing joyous songs at your wake,
when we dance on your grave,
our precious, departed Death.
We tell you plainly our power:
in love, poured out in us,
we are free even in your pallid grip
to love, to sing, to rejoice.
Ah, Death, dear Death, come take our hands
and join the dance of life.

Steve Garnass-Holmes, unfoldinglight.net, April 13, 2020

Schwinn

One day my mother astonished me
by getting astride my bike,
the heavy old balloon-tired Schwinn
I used for my afternoon paper route,
and pedaling away down the street,

skirt flying, hair blown back,
a girl again in the wind and speed
that had nothing to do
with pulling double shifts at the hospital,
or cooking meatloaf, or sewing up my jeans,

the old bike carrying her away
from my father dead of booze,
and her own nightly bottle
of red wine in front of the news.

She flew down the road so far
I could barely see her,
then slowly pedaled back to me,
and stepped off the bike, my mom again.

George Bilgere, Blood Pages (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2018)

Alone

Lying, thinking
Last night
How to find my soul a home
Where water is not thirsty
And bread loaf is not stone
I came up with one thing
And I don't believe I'm wrong
That nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

There are some millionaires
With money they can't use
Their wives run round like banshees
Their children sing the blues
They've got expensive doctors
To cure their hearts of stone.
But nobody
No, nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Now if you listen closely
I'll tell you what I know
Storm clouds are gathering
The wind is gonna blow
The race of man is suffering
And I can hear the moan
'Cause nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Maya Angelou, Oh Pray My Wings Are Gonna Fit Me Well (Random House, Inc., 1975)

The Lilies

When I learned I might have cancer,

I bought fifteen white lilies. Easter was gone:

the trumpets were wilted, plants crooked with roots

bound in pots. I dug them into the garden,

knowing they would not bloom for another year.

All summer, the stalks stood like ramshackle posts

while I waited for results. By autumn, the stalks

had flopped down. More biopsies, laser incisions,

the cancer in my tongue a sprawling mass. Outside,

the earth remained bare, the rhizomes shrunkened

below the frost line. Spring shoots appeared

in bright green skins, and lilies bloomed

in July, their waxed trumpets pure white,

dusting gold pollen to the ground.

                                                                   This year,

tripled in number, they are popping up again. I wait,

a ceremony, for the lilies to open, for the serpentine length

of the garden to bloom in the shape of my tongue's scar,

a white path with one end leading into brilliant air,

the other down the throat's canyon, black

and unforgiving. I try to imagine

what could grow in such darkness. I am waiting

for the lilies to open. 

Karenne Wood, Markings on Earth (University of Arizona Press, 2001)

A Sonnet for Holy Thursday

Here is the source of every sacrament,
The all-transforming presence of the Lord,
Replenishing our every element,
Remaking us in his creative Word.
For here the earth herself gives us bread and wine,
The air delights to bear his Spirit's speech,
The fire dances where the candles shine,
The waters cleanse us with his gentle touch.
And here he shows the full extent of love
To us whose love is always incomplete.
In vain we search the heavens high above,
The God of love is kneeling at our feet.
Though we betray him, though it is the night,
He meets us here and loves us into light.

Malcolm Guite

Viola Tricolor

Into the shade by the porch
bloomed the first wild pansy,
its small yellow face sunny
and eager and open.

The Athenians used to make
the tiny flowers into syrup
to moderate anger and
to comfort and strengthen the heart.

And here it is today,
small volunteer beauty,
growing in this patch of dirt
where nothing else wants to grow.

This tiny garden is but one of many
concurrent realities -- others involve
hospitals short of beds, loved ones
gone, doctors scared to go home.

Our hearts need strengthening.
Little violet, we're learning, too,
how to be surrounded by death
and still rise up, bringing beauty.

Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer,  wordwoman.com, April 1, 2020

For the Hurting

God, I confess how much of my faith is for me alone,
and does not care for the poor and the lonely.

Burn a place in my heart for the hurting.
Take my prayer and give it to them.

Divide my faith between me and those who doubt.
Split my assurance with those who despair.

Share my joy with the oppressed,
and my hope with the abused.

May all I believe, all I do, all I pray
be for the sake of your beloved who hurt the most.

May my prayer disturb me until it leads to action,
to work and witness for justice, to change the world.

God of love and justice, give me courage rather than peace,
compassion rather than comfort, earth rather than heaven.

With Christ, I ask you, God:
save me last.

Steve Garnass-Holmes, unfoldinglight.net, accessed on March, 27, 2020

Beckoning Benches

Coronavirus or not

I still enjoy
the daily circuit
of the sun
the gradual changes
the way the seasons run --

the way light
filters through maple leaves --
the art that God arranges
the arms of she
who welcomes me . . .

I sit among all of these
and whisper a prayer of thanks
that there remain
so many things
no plague can take away

Michael Escoubas, yourdailypoem.com, March 30, 2020

The Courtesy of the Blind

The poet reads his lines to the blind.
He hadn't guessed that it would be so hard.
His voice trembles.
His hands shake.

He senses that every sentence
is put to the test of darkness.
He must muddle through alone,
without colors or light.

A treacherous endeavor
for his poems' stars,
dawns, rainbows, clouds, their neon lights, their moon,
for the fish so silvery thus far beneath the water
and the hawk so high and quiet in the sky.

He reads -- since its too late to stop now --
about the boy in a yellow jacket on a green field,
red roofs that can be counted in the valley,
the restless numbers on soccer players' shirts,
and the naked stranger standing in a half-shut door.

He'd like to skip -- though it can't be done --
all the saints on that cathedral ceiling,
the parting wave from a train,
the microscope lens, the ring casting a glow,
the movie screens, the mirrors, the photo albums.

But great is the courtesy of the blind,
great is their forbearance, their largesse.
They listen, smile, and applaud.

One of them even comes up
with a book turned wrongside out
asking for an unseen autograph.

Wislawa Szymborska, Monologue of a Dog: New Poems (Houghton, Mifflin, Harcourt Publishing Company, 2006)