I Want to Love the World

I want to love the world but I’m tired of it

walking by me on the street and not

even waving. And making so much noise

 

late at night. It’s a parked car with closed-

tight windows and the radio thumping.

It’s been outside my house for weeks. How

 

can you think of anything else with all

that artillery? I want to love the way early

afternoon looks on the stone floor of my

 

office, how pollen’s dust on my windows

casts a golden shadow. But that only

reminds me it’s getting later and now I

 

can’t tell you what I was trying to say. The

world has interrupted me. And why should

it care about that? I want to love the world

 

but I’m tired. In Kyiv, the coroner burns

church incense. To each face he uncovers,

he says, How? How did this happen to you?

 

Christine Potter, “Poets Respond” rattle.com April 24, 2022

 

Christine Potter: “The war in Ukraine continues to haunt me. I can’t remember a time in my life when I have felt quite so oppressed by the sheer hell people can unleash upon one another. Except for writing poetry, I feel helpless against it.” 

Disappearing Fathers

Sometime after I turned forty the fathers from my childhood
began disappearing; they had heart attacks
during business dinners or while digging their shovels
into a late April snow. Some fathers began forgetting things:
their phone numbers, which neighborhoods belonged
to them, which houses. They had a shortness of breath,
the world’s air suddenly too thin, as if it came
from some other altitude. They were gone:
the fathers I had seen dissecting cars
in garages, the fathers with suits
and briefcases, the fathers who slipped down
rivers on fishing boats and the ones
who drank television and beer. Most of my friends
still had mothers but the fathers
were endangered, then extinct.
I was surprised, though I had always known
the ladies lasted longer; the fathers fooled me
with their toughness; I had been duped
by their jogging and heavy lifting, misled
by their strength when they slapped
me on the back or shook my hand. I kept imagining
I would see them again: out walking their dogs
on the roads near my childhood house,
lighting cigars on their porches, waving to me
from their canoes while I waited on shore.

Faith Shearin, Telling the Bees (Stephen F. Austin University Press, 2015)

For Those Who Have Died

‘Tis a fearful thing
to love
what death can touch.
To love, to hope, to dream,
and oh, to lose.

A thing for fools, this,
love,
but a holy thing,
to love what death can touch.

For your life has lived in me;
Your laugh once lifted me;
Your word was a gift to me.

To remember this brings painful joy.

‘Tis a human thing, love,
a holy thing,
to love
what death can touch.

Rabbi Chaim Stern, otherpeoplespoemstoo.blogspot.com April 3, 2022)

Yarn Over -- Knitting for Three

 They are close

this husband and wife

tightly knit

but comfortable

like old pair of mittens

 

He holds her grey wool

coarse and scratchy

in a skein looped around and

around the back of his two hands

 

She gently pulls the strand

like an umbilical cord

this lifeline from her partner

wrapping his warmth

around and around

her fetus ball

 

There is no need to speak

their breath, a faint whisper,

against the crackle of flames

 

Their fieldstone hearth

more than a foundation

 

Tomorrow she will

click and clack

knit click, purl clack

yarn over, knit for three

and he will smell

the scent of lavender

watch how her rosy cheeks

might shimmer glow

 

her sweater stretched

as her stomach grows

 

Debbie Okun Hill, Ropedancer: The Ontario Poetry Society 2012 Member Anthology (Beret Days Press, 2012)

Resurrection

Long, long, long ago;
Way before this winter’s snow
First fell upon these weathered fields;
I used to sit and watch and feel
And dream of how the spring would be,
When through the winter’s stormy sea
She’d raise her green and growing head,
Her warmth would resurrect the dead.

Long before this winter’s snow
I dreamt of this day’s sunny glow
And thought somehow my pain would pass
With winter’s pain, and peace like grass
Would simply grow.  (But) The pain’s not gone.
It’s still as cold and hard and long
As lonely pain has ever been,
It cuts so deep and fear within.

Long before this winter’s snow
I ran from pain, looked high and low
For some fast way to get around
Its hurt and cold.  I’d have found,
If I had looked at what was there,
That things don’t follow fast or fair.
That life goes on, and times do change,
And grass does grow despite life’s pains.

Long before this winter’s snow
I thought that this day’s sunny glow,
The smiling children and growing things
And flowers bright were brought by spring.
Now, I know the sun does shine,
That children smile, and from the dark, cold, grime
A flower comes.  It groans, yet sings,
And through its pain, its peace begins.

from Rueben Job and Norman Shawchuck, A Guide to Prayer (The Upper Room, p. 144)

Strawberry

 When I got my period, there wasn’t any sweetness 

in sitting on the toilet waiting for my mother 

to return from the store with the white rowboat 

I’d have to wear between my legs once a month 

for the next 38 years. It was summer, the strawberries 

ripe in the backyard where my father was sweeping the patio, 

walking over to the bathroom window to say, “Okay in there?”

“Uh-huh,” I said, shuddering in embarrassment

& lying, but who told the raw sodden biological truth?

My mother, my father, my older sister, at least one of them

might have let me in on the devastation of menstruation.

I mean, I’d heard of it like I’d heard of death—

a vague rumor or something that happened  

to anyone other than me. I wasn’t even sure yet

if I wanted to be a girl. Being female was a truth

I couldn’t escape, but that didn’t keep me from trying. 

I left the baby dolls my aunts & grandmothers gave me 

in the dirt while I tore around the neighborhood

with Carl & Doug, riding bikes with our shirts off & throwing 

Swiss Army knives at each other’s feet, seeing how close we could get. 

I disliked curlers & cooking & sewing & women 

in movies looking stupid as drool, crying when some douche 

gave them a diamond ring in a glass of champagne with a strawberry in it.

I hated strawberries. Everybody making a big deal about how good 

they tasted when I thought they were way too sugary & sticky 

& the seeds got stuck in your teeth

& now they reminded me of my period, a word I couldn’t stand,

why the hell blood dripping out of a body  

was called a punctuation mark. Oh yeah, it was something about time 

& here I was at the beginning of this cycle that would ruin every season, 

including my favorite. How could I go swimming, wear a bathing suit

was all I could think about as my mother arrived & helped me strap on 

the contraption of doom. She, to my great relief, did not say anything 

as horrifying as you’re a woman now. I would have stabbed her 

with my Swiss Army knife. She tip-toed away as I sat in my bedroom,

my insides cramping like I’d swallowed a pitchfork, the sun blaring 

in the window & blowing strawberries at me. A few years later, I was allowed

to use a tampon, but no one told me how that worked, so I jammed it in 

with the cardboard still on & hobbled out of the bathroom, my legs bowed.

When I asked my sister & her friend why it didn’t fit, they laughed so hard,

rolling around on the floor. Another soggy kind of hell while I tried 

to get it out & they left for the beach.  

When they returned, eating strawberry Frosty cones, I was reading a novel 

& recovering from PTSD. I’m lying about the cones, but let’s say 

I took a taste anyway. I’d met a boy at a dance that summer.

It was like a line drawn in blood on the grass & I slid into another world.

Susan Browne, Rattle #72 Summer, 2021

Big Points for Trying

I was good to animals and small children.

Made room for the guy on the streetcar

who talked to himself.

Even gave him a few bucks.

But truth be told:

I never invited him home to tea.

 

Didn’t always take the easiest way,

but certainly enough times.

And, yes, vanity got in the way,

more than once —

the fight back from an ugly girlhood.

 

I frittered away talent,

pearls to swine, some might say,

churning out Annual Reports for rent money,

giving my all on corporate press tours,

with no energy left for the poem.

But a girl’s got to make a living,

long seemed a worthy excuse.

 

The world gives you too many reasons

to feel you’re not quite

good enough, talented enough.

accomplished enough.

And there was I —

Listening intently

to each

and every one.

Tricia McCallum, triciamccallum.com accessed on April 10, 2022 

You Who Casts Out Fear

You are the God from whom no secret is hidden, and so
we tell before you our great fears:
We have fear down to our toes because of the danger of the Covid-19 virus;
We have fear up to our ears from violence all around us;
We have fear for the fragility of our economy and our place in it;
We have fear for the threats our democracy faces;
We have fear for the safety of immigrants in need of refuge among us;
We have fear that causes us loss of sleep;
We have fear that skews our vision and distorts our judgment.

We know that fear is contagious; it passes among us; it flows from issue to issue, and our negative
adrenalin is magnified.

Our fear evokes our worst selves and summons us to shriveled, demeaned, and demeaning lives.

But then You! You as perfect love;
You who crowds in against our deep fears:
Cancel our fears!
Veto our anxiety;
Nullify our uneasiness!

O perfect love, cast out our fear;
cast out our parsimony,
that we may become generous in self-giving,
that we may gladly risk more and more of who we are
and what we have.

O perfect love, cast out our fear;
cast out our anger,
that we may become more forgiving,
that we may more readily transform circumstances of threat
into venues for shared wellbeing.

O perfect love, cast out our fear;
cast out our guarded isolation,
that we may be more welcoming of the “other” in our midst,
that we may be more accepting of those unlike us.

O perfect love, we turn to you so that we are not eaten alive by our fear.

In your presence we move toward fearlessness;
let us be fearless in our generosity;
let us be fearless in our forgiveness;
let us be fearless in our hospitality.

Let us put ourselves down in your deep embrace that holds us closely,
along with all those whom you love.

We pray in the fearless name of Jesus.  Amen.

Walter Brueggemann, churchanew.org December 16, 2021

English Class

Twelfth-grade reading lists stretched out

as endless as the sentences we diagrammed,

as orderly as the outlines for our senior essays—

“Humanism in England in the Fourteenth Century”

I think I wrote about, cobbling facts together

about Erasmus and the Church, forgetting

those were plague years, and Henry David

Thoreau’s pithy quotes, marching to a different

drummer, hooked me for a solitary ramble

of Walden, not knowing he’d dined every night

with Emerson and Alcott; and our teacher

always turned to us with hope, searching

for some sign that we’d found a spark,

an engaged liveliness, in all those endless

marching words—her eyes lit up, her thin hair

frizzed, her faith in us fixed, misplaced,

stirring fugitive regret in our adolescent gaze,

preoccupied with who to ask to the Swankette Ball

and who to sit with at the Friday football game

(whom, she’d certainly have made us say).

Robin Chapman, Six True Things (Tebor Bach Books, 2016)

There's Always the Guy

There's always the guy
At pub closings
Mall food courts
Wedding dinners.

He wants to sit you down
Straighten you out.
Tell you how things work.
You have it all wrong, you see.
He laughs in your face.

You listen
Because it's late, or it's early,
You have nowhere to go
And no one waiting.

His oldest kid is 27, hasn't seen him in years,
but good riddance.
And three exes, somewhere.
Hey, where do you think you're going?
He's yelling at your back.

Wait: Let me tell you about love.

Tricia McCollum, goodreads.com April 20, 2012 

Trust

It’s like so many other things in life
to which you must say no or yes.
So you take your car to the new mechanic.
Sometimes the best thing to do is trust.

The package left with the disreputable-looking
clerk, the check gulped by the night deposit,
the envelope passed by dozens of strangers—
all show up at their intended destinations.

The theft that could have happened doesn’t.
Wind finally gets where it was going
through the snowy trees, and the river, even
when frozen, arrives at the right place.

And sometimes you sense how faithfully your life
is delivered, even though you can’t read the address.

Thomas R. Smith, goingtowalden.com November 3, 2021 

The Changed Man

If you were to hear me imitating Pavarotti
in the shower every morning, you'd know
how much you have changed my life.

If you were to see me stride across the park,
waving to strangers, then you would know
I am a changed man—like Scrooge

awakened from his bad dreams feeling feather-
light, angel-happy, laughing the father
of a long line of bright laughs—

"It is still not too late to change my life!"
It is changed. Me, who felt short-changed.
Because of you I no longer hate my body.

Because of you I buy new clothes.
Because of you I'm a warrior of joy.
Because of you and me. Drop by

this Saturday morning and discover me
fiercely pulling weeds gladly, dedicated
as a born-again gardener.

Drop by on Sunday—I'll Turtlewax
your sky-blue sports car, no sweat. I'll greet
enemies with a handshake, forgive debtors

with a papal largesse. It's all because
of you. Because of you and me,
I've become one changed man.

Robert Phillips, Spinach Days (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000) 

Missa in tempore belli (Mass in Time of War)

1. Kyrie

Lord, have mercy on us,
if You are for us, who can be against us?
Christ, have mercy on us,
especially if our hours are numbered.
Lord, have mercy on us,
especially in days of war
Kyrie eleison.
Christe eleison
Kyrie eleison

5. Benedictus

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord in a glorious
and frightening time, a time of troubles, a time of war,
blessed are those who walk row by row, each one shall be a hero,
salvos three and into the ground they go.
And once again — Hosannah in the highest! Hosannah on high!
The further into battle, the fewer heroes left behind.

6. Agnus

Lamb of God, who has freed all people from deadly snares,
Lamb of God, who has borne the immeasurable weight of our sins,
Lamb of God, who has counted and pardoned every fall,
Lamb of God, have mercy on us all.
Lamb of God, Son of the Father, Light from true Light,
Lamb of God, Savior of constellations, planets and stars in the sky,
Lamb of God, who crown your iconostasis,
Lamb of God, have mercy on us.
Lamb of God, little lamb lain on the altar,
a time of war has come. Cinders rise from the earth.
Grant us peace, we are sated with eternal fire.
They say, “We’re starting a war again.”
Dona nobis pacem. Amen.

Boris Khersonsky, trans. from Russian by Martha M. F. Kelly, ("Los

Angeles Times Review of Books" February 27, 2022) 

Resistance

It’s war again: a family
   carries its family out of a pranged house
      under a burning thatch.

The next scene smacks
   of archive newsreel: platforms and trains
      (never again, never again),

toddlers passed
   over heads and shoulders, lifetimes stowed
      in luggage racks.

It’s war again: unmistakable smoke
   on the near horizon mistaken
      for thick fog. Fingers crossed.

An old blue tractor
   tows an armoured tank
      into no-man’s land.

It’s the ceasefire hour: godspeed the columns
   of winter coats and fur-lined hoods,
      the high-wire walk

over buckled bridges
   managing cases and bags,
      balancing west and east - godspeed.

It’s war again: the woman in black
   gives sunflower seeds to the soldier, insists
      his marrow will nourish

the national flower. In dreams
   let bullets be birds, let cluster bombs
      burst into flocks.

False news is news
   with the pity
      edited out. It’s war again:

an air-raid siren can’t fully mute
   the cathedral bells –
      let’s call that hope.

Simon Armitage, “The Guardian” March 11, 2022

Bird

For days now a red-breasted bird
has been trying to break in.
She tests a low branch, violet blossoms
swaying beside her, leaps into the air and flies
straight at my window, beak and breast
held back, claws raking the pane.
Maybe she longs for the tree she sees
reflected in the glass, but I’m only guessing.
I watch until she gives up and swoops off.
I wait for her return, the familiar
click, swoosh, thump of her. I sip cold coffee
and scan the room, trying to see it new,
through the eyes of a bird. Nothing has changed.
Books piled in a corner, coats hooked
over chair backs, paper plates, a cup
half-filled with sour milk.
The children are in school. The man is at work.
I’m alone with dead roses in a jam jar.
What do I have that she could want enough
to risk such failure, again and again?

Dorianne Laux, Awake (Carnegie Mellon Press, 1990)

Instruction Manuel for My Future Husband

I was raised on Disney movies, the princess ones

that always end with a wedding. I don’t know
what comes next, but I’ve been told
it’s happily ever after. I’m expecting a prince
who can dance and ride a horse and is good
with a sword. You will disappoint me.

Even if you can dance and ride
a horse and are good with a sword.
Don’t despair. Life is full of disappointments.
Try as you might to slay dragons or ogres,
avoid the evil stepmother or wicked witch,
I will cry. You won’t know why.

You won’t be able to fix me. But you
should still try. I will resent you for trying.
I will tell you I’m not a blender or a car
or one of the kids’ toys you can patch up
over the weekend. But I’ll resent you
even more if you don’t try. So, try.

You can buy flowers. Or chocolate.
Or wine. All of these are nice, and none
of these will work. Vain attempts to scale
a mountain you know nothing about.
Terrain here is dangerous; one wrong step
and off the ledge you go to your death.

You’ll wonder if I am worth dying for,
and what your ex is up to these days.
You will be confused. You will try
to recall everything your mother ever
taught you. You’ll wish you had a magic
wand. You’ll want to give up. Don’t.

Don’t waste your energy trying to solve
the troll’s riddle so you can pass safely.
There’s no safe passage in love. Every
path is a snow bridge. Think of me
as a woman in pieces, a puzzle with no
picture on the box. Start with the edges.

Marissa Glover, moriaonline.com, April 26, 2021