A little boy, no older than twelve

 

A little boy, no older than twelve

weaves throughout the crowd.

Palm branches brush his face as the throng cries aloud.

 

"Is this who comes in the name of the LORD?

Will the kingdom be now restored?"

 

The boy pushes ahead

to catch a glimpse of a man

no older than thirty

who holds the world in his hand.

 

His father deems him a prophet;

His mother, the Christ.

Might he be the star of Jacob,

who will light up the night?

 

"Is this who comes in the name of the LORD?

Will the kingdom be now restored?"

 

A little boy, no older than twelve

weaves throughout the crowd.

He hears shouts of "Crucify! Crucify!"

ring out aloud.

 

He pushes ahead

to catch a glimpse of a man

once welcomed, now forsaken.

He didn't quite understand.

 

"Is this who comes in the name of the LORD?

Will the kingdom be now restored?"

 

"Come, boy, let us be on our way.

No need to see what will soon take place."

For off in the shadows of the fortress

a rugged cross awaits.

 

Quinn R. Mosier, quinnmosier.com, April 5, 2020

Immortality

 

In Sleeping Beauty’s castle
the clock strikes one hundred years
and the girl in the tower returns to the world.
So do the servants in the kitchen,
who don’t even rub their eyes.
The cook’s right hand, lifted
an exact century ago,
completes its downward arc
to the kitchen boy’s left ear;
the boy’s tensed vocal cords
finally let go
the trapped, enduring whimper,
and the fly, arrested mid-plunge
above the strawberry pie,
fulfills its abiding mission
and dives into the sweet, red glaze.

As a child I had a book
with a picture of that scene.
I was too young to notice
how fear persists, and how
the anger that causes fear persists,
that its trajectory can’t be changed
or broken, only interrupted.
My attention was on the fly;
that this slight body
with its transparent wings
and lifespan of one human day
still craved its particular share
of sweetness, a century later.

Lisel Mueller, Alive Together: New and Selected Poems (LSU Press, 1996)

Sorrow Is Not My Name

—after Gwendolyn Brooks

No matter the pull toward brink. No

matter the florid, deep sleep awaits.

There is a time for everything. Look,

just this morning a vulture

nodded his red, grizzled head at me,

and I looked at him, admiring

the sickle of his beak.

Then the wind kicked up, and,

after arranging that good suit of feathers

he up and took off.

Just like that. And to boot,

there are, on this planet alone, something like two

million naturally occurring sweet things,

some with names so generous as to kick

the steel from my knees: agave, persimmon,

stickball, the purple okra I bought for two bucks

at the market. Think of that. The long night,

the skeleton in the mirror, the man behind me

on the bus taking notes, yeah, yeah.

But look; my niece is running through a field

calling my name. My neighbor sings like an angel

and at the end of my block is a basketball court.

I remember. My color's green. I'm spring.

 

 —for Walter Aikens

Ross Gay, Bringing the Shovel Down (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2011) 

The Money Changers

 

Dreamed my way into Church

Church built of colored paper

On silver-coated foundations

Normal unintelligeble rumble

Of muttered prayers

Barely audible above

The rustle of notes

And the clink of coins

Strange prayer indeed!

 

Our Father who art in – CLINK –

Hallowed be thy – CLINK –

Thy -CLINK – come

Thy will be – CLINK –

On earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily – CLINK –

And forgive us our CLINK –

As we – CLINK – them that trespass against us

And lead us – CLINK – into -CLINK –

But – CLINK CLINK CLINK – evil

A – CLINK – .

 

It was really a magnificent sight

Enough to inspire the most hardened sinner

But I couldn’t help trembling

And looking over my shoulder

Wondering

When

We would be driven out

With a whip.

Richard S. Mabala, hereharpo.wordpress.com, August 12, 2012

The Laughing Heart

your life is your life
don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.
be on the watch.
there are ways out.
there is light somewhere.
it may not be much light but
it beats the darkness.
be on the watch.
the gods will offer you chances.
know them.
take them.
you can’t beat death but
you can beat death in life, sometimes.
and the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
your life is your life.
know it while you have it.
you are marvelous
the gods wait to delight
in you.

Charles Bukowski, betterlivingthroughbeowulf.com, January 9, 2021 

Hurry Up and Wait

 Sir, permission to speak, major sir. Go ahead, private.

Sir, what time is the 10 o'clock inspection, major sir?
You mean the ten hundred hours inspection, private?
 
Sir, yes sir, I mean ten hundred hours inspection, sir.
The inspection will be at ten hundred hours, private.
Sir, yes sir, however we've been standing here since
 
ten hundred hours for thirty minutes now, major sir.
It will be ten hundred hours when I say it is, private,
as he checks his watch, waits for the colonel to arrive.
 
Will I ever get the military out of my mind, must each
situation become another army wrinkle in time? While
I wait thirty minutes past my 10 o'clock appointment,
 
ponder if I should be the private, ask the receptionist
how much longer until my 10 o'clock job interview or
take the role of major and wait for the colonel to arrive.

Carl Palmer, Proud to Be VII (October 2018) 

Notice

 

This evening, the sturdy Levi's

I wore every day for over a year

& which seemed to the end

in perfect condition,

suddenly tore.

How or why I don't know,

but there it was: a big rip at the crotch.

A month ago my friend Nick

walked off a racquetball court,

showered,

got into his street clothes,

& halfway home collapsed & died.

Take heed, you who read this,

& drop to your knees now & again

like the poet Christopher Smart,

& kiss the earth & be joyful,

& make much of your time,

& be kindly to everyone,

even to those who do not deserve it.

For, although you may not believe

it will happen,

you too will one day be gone.

I, whose Levi's ripped at the crotch

for no reason,

assure you that such is the case.

Pass it on.

Steve Kowit, The Dumbbell Nebula (Heyday Books, 2000)

How to Say Thank You

 I want to bring to the doorstep of your heart

a giant bouquet of soft-petalled words,
a lavish bouquet of gratitudes
grown from seed in which each bloom
remembers each time
I watered it, encouraged it,
pulled the weeds from around its stem.
I want to have amended the soil
in which these appreciations grew
with the mycelium of devotion,
the dark compost of love.
It matters, the ways we say thank you.
Those two words disappear from the air
in less than a second,
so is it any wonder, when you
with your love have changed me forever,
that I want to bring you
a whole garden of gratefulnesses
no, a whole field of eternal thank yous
in which every flower is astonishingly open
and the perfume fills
every room in your heart.

Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, wordwoman.com, March 17, 2021

Another Question

 

“How are you?” is a good question
to connect with someone's inner experience.
Make sure you ask it of yourself.

Take it seriously, and also leave it behind.
You live in a world that is bigger than you,
greater than how you're doing.

Once you've asked it,
ask what God is doing.
It will take more thought,

more wonder, more trust.
It might take a whole day watching
to begin to see.

Even amid gloom and disaster,
in the face of injustice and suffering,
God is doing something.

What? Wonder. Look. Be curious.
Spend your day like this
and how you're doing will change.

Steve Garnass-Holmes, unfoldinglight.net, August 5, 2020

They Dance through Granelli's

 

He finds her near the stack
of green plastic baskets waiting to be filled
and circles her waist with his left arm,
entwines her fingers in his, pulls her toward him, Muzak from the ceiling shedding a flashy Salsa, and as they begin to move, she lets
her head fall back, fine hair swinging
a beat behind as they follow
their own music—a waltz—past the peaches bursting with ripeness in their wicker baskets,
the prawns curled into each other
behind cold glass, a woman in a turquoise sari,
her dark eyes averted. They twirl twice
before the imported cheeses, fresh mozzarella
in its milky liquid, goat cheese sent down
from some green mountain, then glide past
ranks of bread, seeds spread across brown crusts, bottles of red wine nested together on their sides. He reaches behind her, slides a bouquet
of cut flowers from a galvanized bucket, tosses
a twenty to the teenaged boy leaning
on the wooden counter, and they whirl
out the door, the blue sky a sudden surprise.

Pat Hemphill Emile, American Life in Poetry, March 15, 2021

Hand Shadows

 

My father put his hands in the white light

of the lantern, and his palms became a horse

that flicked its ears and bucked; an alligator

feigning sleep along the canvas wall leapt up

and snapped its jaws in silhouette, or else

a swan would turn its perfect neck and drop

a fingered beak toward that shadowed head

to lightly preen my father's feathered hair.

Outside our tent, skunks shuffled in the woods

beneath a star that died a little every day,

and from a nebula of light diffused

inside Orion's sword, new stars were born.

My father's hands became two birds, linked

by a thumb, they flew one following the other.

Mary Cornish, Red Studio (Oberlin College Press, 2007)

A Little Girl Tugs at the Tablecloth

 

She’s been in this world for over a year,

and in this world not everything’s been examined

and taken in hand.

 

The subject of today’s investigation

is things that don’t move by themselves.

 

They need to be helped along,

shoved, shifted,

taken from their place and relocated.

 

They don’t all want to go, e.g., the bookshelf,

the cupboard, the unyielding walls, the table.

 

But the tablecloth on the stubborn table

—when well-seized by its hems—

manifests a willingness to travel.

 

And the glasses, plates,

creamer, spoons, bowl,

are fairly shaking with desire.

 

It’s fascinating,

what form of motion will they take,

once they’re trembling on the brink:

will they roam across the ceiling?

fly around the lamp?

hop onto the windowsill and from there to a tree?

 

Mr. Newton still has no say in this.

Let him look down from the heavens and wave his hands.

 

This experiment must be completed.

And it will.

Wislawa Szymborska, Poetry 180, Poem 051, Library of Congress

Wedding Poem

 

Friends I am here to modestly report

seeing in an orchard

in my town

a goldfinch kissing

a sunflower

again and again

dangling upside down

by its tiny claws

steadying itself by snapping open

like an old-timey fan

its wings

again and again,

until, swooning, it tumbled off

and swooped back to the very same perch,

where the sunflower curled its giant

swirling of seeds

around the bird and leaned back

to admire the soft wind

nudging the bird's plumage,

and friends I could see

the points on the flower's stately crown

soften and curl inward

as it almost indiscernibly lifted

the food of its body

to the bird's nuzzling mouth

whose fervor

I could hear from

oh 20 or 30 feet away

and see from the tiny hulls

that sailed from their

good racket,

which good racket, I have to say

was making me blush,

and rock up on my tippy-toes,

and just barely purse my lips

with what I realize now

was being, simply, glad,

which such love,

if we let it,

makes us feel.

Ross Gay, Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude (University of Pittsburg Press, 2015)

School Prayer

 

In the name of the daybreak
and the eyelids of morning
and the wayfaring moon
and the night when it departs,

I swear I will not dishonor
my soul with hatred,
but offer myself humbly
as a guardian of nature,
as a healer of misery,
as a messenger of wonder,
as an architect of peace.

In the name of the sun and its mirrors
and the day that embraces it
and the cloud veils drawn over it
and the uttermost night
and the male and the female
and the plants bursting with seed
and the crowning seasons
of the firefly and the apple,

I will honor all life
—wherever and in whatever form
it may dwell—on Earth my home,
and in the mansions of the stars.

Diane Ackerman, I Praise My Destroyer (Vintage Books, 2000)

Even in the Struggle

 

Even in the struggle, you are loved.
You are being loved not in spite of the hardship, but through it.
The thing you see as wrenching, intolerable, life’s attack on you,
is an expression of love.

There is the part of us that fears and protects and defends and expects,
and has a story of the way it’s supposed to turn out.
That part clenches in fear, feels abandoned and cursed.

There is another part, resting at the floor of the well within, that
understands:
this is how I am being graced, called, refined, by fire.

The secret is, it’s all love.
It’s all doorways to truth.
It’s all opportunity to merge with what is.

Most of us don’t step through the doorframe.
We stay on the known side.
We fight the door, we fight the frame, we scream and hang on.

On the other side, you are one with the earth, like the mountain.
You hum with life, like the moss.
On the other side, you are more beautiful:
wholeness in your bones, wisdom in your gaze,
the sage-self and the surrendered heart alive.

Tara Sophia Mohr, wisebrain.org, 2020, Vol. 14.1

Fast Break

 

In Memory of Dennis Turner, 1946-1984

A hook shot kisses the rim and

hangs there, helplessly, but doesn't drop,

 

and for once our gangly starting center

boxes out his man and times his jump

 

perfectly, gathering the orange leather

from the air like a cherished possession

 

and spinning around to throw a strike

to the outlet who is already shoveling

 

an underhand pass toward the other guard

scissoring past a flat-footed defender

 

who looks stunned and nailed to the floor

in the wrong direction, trying to catch sight

 

of a high, gliding dribble and a man

letting the play develop in front of him

 

in slow motion, almost exactly

like a coach's drawing on the blackboard,

 

both forwards racing down the court

the way that forwards should, fanning out

 

and filling the lanes in tandem, moving

together as brothers passing the ball

 

between them without a dribble, without

a single bounce hitting the hardwood

 

until the guard finally lunges out

and commits to the wrong man

 

while the power-forward explodes past them

in a fury, taking the ball into the air

 

by himself now and laying it gently

against the glass for a lay-up,

 

but losing his balance in the process,

inexplicably falling, hitting the floor

 

with a wild, headlong motion

for the game he loved like a country

 

and swiveling back to see an orange blur

floating perfectly through the net.

Edward Hirsch, Wild Gratitude (Alfred A. Knopf, 1990)