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