Lead

Here is a story

to break your heart.

Are you willing?

This winter

the loons came to our harbor

and died, one by one,

of nothing we could see.

A friend told me

of one on the shore

that lifted its head and opened

the elegant beak and cried out

in the long, sweet savoring of its life

which, if you have heard it,

you know is a sacred thing.,

and for which, if you have not heard it,

you had better hurry to where

they still sing.

And, believe me, tell no one

just where that is.

The next morning

this loon, speckled

and iridescent and with a plan

to fly home

to some hidden lake,

was dead on the shore.

I tell you this

to break your heart,

by which I mean only

that it break open and never close again

to the rest of the world.

 

Mary Oliver, New and Selected Poems Volume II (Beacon Press, 2005)

Ordinary Lives

Cradled in my hammock,
I watch clouds scud past
like a movie in which the director is drunk.

A whirling copper sun
with spinning crystals
splashes my newspaper
with rainbows as I read
about how Buzz Aldrin
celebrated his 93rd birthday
by taking his fourth wife,
ever the optimist.

Think of it! To walk on the moon —
the MOON — then return
only to weather
mundane disappointments
and sticky divorces
like any mortal.
How could anything on Earth
measure up
after stepping foot on the lunar surface?

Sparkle, flash
and otherworldly intensity enrich us —
but for now I’ll take
these ordinary hours.
All day, planes inscribe
the chalky, blue slate,
wind chimes clank
their clumsy songs,
a counterpoint
to the cooing
of mourning doves
preparing for sleep
as evening comes on

languid as syrup, the sky
in its vibrant last flush,
my love beside me
in the cushiony air,
where nothing happens
and absolutely everything happens
as we wait for the moon
and the planets
to switch on their lamps
one by one.

 

Terry Godbey, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily January 19, 2024 

Egg

I’m scrambling an egg for my daughter.
“Why are you always whistling?” she asks.
“Because I’m happy.”
And it’s true,
Though it stuns me to say it aloud;
There was a time when I wouldn’t
Have seen it as my future.
It’s partly a matter
Of who is there to eat the egg:
The self fallen out of love with itself
Through the tedium of familiarity,
Or this little self,
So curious, so hungry,
Who emerged from the woman I love,
A woman who loves me in a way
I’ve come to think I deserve,
Now that it arrives from outside me.
Everything changes, we’re told,
And now the changes are everywhere:
The house with its morning light
That fills me like a revelation,
The yard with its trees
That cast a bit more shade each summer,
The love of a woman
That both is and isn’t confounding,
And the love
Of this clamor of questions at my waist.
Clamor of questions,
You clamor of answers,
Here’s your egg.

 

C. G. Hanzlicek, Against Dreaming (University of Missouri, 1994)

To My Favorite 17-Year-Old Girl

Do you realize that if you had started
building the Parthenon on the day you were born,
you would be all done in only one more year?
Of course, you couldn’t have done it alone,
so never mind, you’re fine just as you are.
You’re loved for just being yourself.

But did you know that at your age Judy Garland
was pulling down $150,000 a picture,
Joan of Arc was leading the French army to victory,
and Blaise Pascal had cleaned up his room?
No wait, I mean he had invented the calculator.

Of course, there will be time for all that later in your life,
after you come out of your room
and begin to blossom, or at least pick up all your socks.

For some reason, I keep remembering that Lady Jane Grey
was Queen of England when she was only fifteen,
but then she was beheaded, so never mind her as a role model.

A few centuries later, when he was your age,
Franz Schubert was doing the dishes for his family
but that did not keep him from composing two symphonies,
four operas, and two complete Masses as a youngster.

But of course that was in Austria at the height
of romantic lyricism, not here in the suburbs of Cleveland.

Frankly, who cares if Annie Oakley was a crack shot at 15
or if Maria Callas debuted as Tosca at 17?

We think you are special just being you,
playing with your food and staring into space.
By the way, I lied about Schubert doing the dishes,
but that doesn’t mean he never helped out around the house.

 

Billy Collins, Aimless Love (Random House, 2013)

Into the Lincoln Tunnel

The bus rolled into the Lincoln Tunnel,
and I was whispering a prayer
that it not be today, not today, please
no shenanigans, no blasts, no terrors,
just please the rocking, slightly nauseating
gray ride, stop and start, chug-a
in the dim fellowship of smaller cars,
bumper lights flickering hello and warning.
Yes, please smile upon these good
people who want to enter the city and work.
Because work is good, actually, and life is good,
despite everything, and I don't mean to sound
spoiled, but please don't think I don't know
how grateful I should be
for what I do have —

I wonder whom I'm praying to.
Maybe Honest Abe himself,
craggy and splendid in his tall chair,
better than God to a kid;
Lincoln whose birthday I shared,
in whom I took secret pride: born, thus I was,
to be truthful, and love freedom.

Now with a silent collective sigh
steaming out into the broken winter sun,
up the ramp to greet buildings, blue brick
and brown stone and steel, candy-corn pylons
and curving guardrails massively bolted and men
in hard hats leaning on resting machines
with paper cups of coffee —

a cup of coffee, a modest thing to ask
Abe for,
dark, bitter, fresh
as an ordinary morning.

 

Deborah Garrison, Second Child (Random House, 2008)

To the Congress of the United States, Entering Its Third Century

because reverence has never been america's thing,
            this verse in your honor will not begin "o thou."
but the great respect our country has to give
may you all continue to deserve, and have.

         *         *         *
here at the fulcrum of us all,
the feather of truth against the soul
is weighed, and had better be found to balance
lest our enterprise collapse in silence.

for here the million varying wills
get melted down, get hammered out
until the movie's reduced to stills
that tell us what the law's about.

conflict's endemic in the mind:
your job's to hear it in the wind
and compass it in opposites,
and bring the antagonists by your wits

to being one, and that the law
thenceforth, until you change your minds
against and with the shifting winds
that this and that way blow the straw.

so it's a republic, as Franklin said,
if you can keep it; and we did
thus far, and hope to keep our quarrel
funny and just. though with this moral:—

praise without end for the go-ahead zeal
of whoever it was invented the wheel;
but never a word for the poor soul's sake
that thought ahead, and invented the brake.

 

Howard Nemerov, The Selected Poems of Howard Nemerov (Ohio University Press)

Without a Net

              Jesus said to them, “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.”
           And immediately they left their nets
           and followed him.
                                               —Mark 1.17-18

Jesus, Quiet One,
your call is not just the seashore challenge
to change my vocation.
You call every moment,
every conversation, every choice.
You whisper gently,
“Here. Come with me. This way.”

Am I radically open to your nudging,
ready to go an unexpected way?
What entangling nets must I let go of,
what habits and comforts must I leave behind,
what familiar safety net must I forgo,
what that I thought I knew
will I have to cease to know?

What nets have me?
Here, now, Beloved, draw me out. Set me free.

Working without a net.
Just your presence, your quiet, your love.

 

Steve Garnass-Holmes, unfoldinglight.net January 18, 2024 

At the Public Market Museum: Charleston, South Carolina

A volunteer, a Daughter of the Confederacy,

receives my admission and points the way.

Here are gray jackets with holes in them,

red sashes with individual flourishes,

things soft as flesh. Someone sewed

the gold silk cord onto that gray sleeve

as if embellishments

could keep a man alive.

 

I have been reading War and Peace,

and so the particulars of combat

are on my mind—the shouts and groans

of men and boys, and the horses' cries

as they fall, astonished at what

has happened to them.

                         Blood on leaves,

blood on grass, on snow; extravagant

beauty of red. Smoke, dust of disturbed

earth; parch and burn.

 

Who would choose this for himself?

And yet the terrible machinery

waited in place. With psalters

in their breast pockets, and gloves

knitted by their sisters and sweethearts,

the men in gray hurled themselves

out of the trenches, and rushed against

blue. It was what both sides

agreed to do.

 

Jane Kenyon, Otherwise: New and Selected Poems (Graywolf Press, 1996)

Martin

He would have been 95 on Monday.
He would have stirred us more, pressed us more.
And we still would have resisted.
Or he might have been killed another day.
Still, we have to decide.

Maybe he nudged us these last 56 years
no less than when he was alive,
because love and justice don't die,
the dream doesn't disappear,
the march doesn't stop.

The trouble with heroes is that we wait for them.
Yet what he was saying the whole time was
“You can do this. We all do it together.
Don't wait for me, or the next one.
We are all marching.”

We march against those whose tools
are violence, hate and poverty.
We march to block the streets of habits, even our own.
We march against our fears,
singing, always singing.

Martin is still calling, still marching.
And something in us
even without our knowing,
is singing, still singing.

 

Steve Garnass-Holmes, unfoldinglight.net January 12, 2023

Follow Me

             Jesus came to Galilee,
           proclaiming the good news of God, and saying,
           “The time is fulfilled,
           and the empire of God has come near;
           repent, and believe in the good news.”
                         —Mark 1.14-15


The Realm of God is the reality of God's rule,
God's desire for fullness of life for all living beings,
God's realm of infinite grace:
fundamental, unconditional, and open to everyone.
God's Empire is absolute. Grace is as non-negotiable as gravity.
The Empire of God
directly opposes the Roman Empire and all empires.

To repent is to renounce our loyalty to other empires,
to stop cooperating with systems
that pretend to regulate God's grace,
that claim blessing for some and not others.

To believe the good news
is to shuck off our blinders of fear and shame,
to shed the sword and shield of having to be good enough,
and, empty-handed, trust the grace given us.

Everything Jesus did, every word and deed,
was to connect people with God's life-giving grace,
to heal the wounds of separation,
and to undermine systems of exclusion.

When Jesus says “Follow me”
he means to do this.

Steve Garnass-Holmes, unfoldinglight.net January 16, 2024 

How to Live

I didn’t make it past how to—Google
interrupting with fill-ins—who knew

the most pressing quest is how to tie
a tie? People everywhere, it seems,

confounded by the length of slippery
silk, by life somehow insisting

on loops, tugs, knots at the throat,
when all I’d been searching for

was how to eat mussels, the specialty
of the bistro my husband and I

are dining at tonight, where, it turns out,
in front of the steaming black bowl,

I can just do what I see everyone
else doing—use a shell to pluck

the tastes of ocean and butter,
as I look at my husband and think

about ties—the maddening adjustments,
alignments, that drive to achieve

a certain ideal. And yet, it’s so easy—
loosening the pressure—already

knowing how to lean across the table,
to grab a kiss, to take that gamble.

 

Christine Rhein, autumnskypoetrydaily.com January 10, 2024

To My Favorite 17-Year-Old High School Girl

Do you realize that if you had started
building the Parthenon on the day you were born,
you would be all done in only one more year?
Of course, you couldn’t have done it alone,
so never mind, you’re fine just as you are.
You’re loved for just being yourself.

But did you know that at your age Judy Garland
was pulling down $150,000 a picture,
Joan of Arc was leading the French army to victory,
and Blaise Pascal had cleaned up his room?
No wait, I mean he had invented the calculator.

Of course, there will be time for all that later in your life,
after you come out of your room
and begin to blossom, or at least pick up all your socks.

For some reason, I keep remembering that Lady Jane Grey
was Queen of England when she was only fifteen,
but then she was beheaded, so never mind her as a role model.

A few centuries later, when he was your age,
Franz Schubert was doing the dishes for his family
but that did not keep him from composing two symphonies,
four operas, and two complete Masses as a youngster.

But of course that was in Austria at the height
of romantic lyricism, not here in the suburbs of Cleveland.

Frankly, who cares if Annie Oakley was a crack shot at 15
or if Maria Callas debuted as Tosca at 17?

We think you are special just being you,
playing with your food and staring into space.
By the way, I lied about Schubert doing the dishes,
but that doesn’t mean he never helped out around the house.

 

Billy Collins, Aimless Love (Random House, 2013)

Genius

was what they called you in high school
if you tripped on a shoelace in the hall
and all your books went flying.

Or if you walked into an open locker door,
you would be known as Einstein,
who imagined riding a streetcar into infinity.

Later, genius became someone
who could take a sliver of chalk and squire pi
a hundred places out beyond the decimal point,

or a man painting on his back on a scaffold,
or drawing a waterwheel in a margin,
or spinning out a little night music.

But earlier this week on a wooded path,
I thought the swans afloat on the reservoir
were the true geniuses,
the ones who had figured out how to fly,
how to be both beautiful and brutal,
and how to mate for life.

Twenty-four geniuses in all,
for I numbered them as Yeats had done,
deployed upon the calm, crystalline surface—

forty-eight if we count their white reflections,
or an even fifty if you want to throw in me
and the dog running up ahead,

who were at least smart enough to be out
that morning—she sniffing the ground,
me with my head up in the bright morning air.

 

Billy Collins, Aimless Love (Random House, 2013) 

Two Shadows

The little one belongs to her

and the taller one is mine, though I doubt 

she knows the shadows walking hand

in hand ahead of us in the field

are ours. If I walk behind her, mine,

without a word, overshadows 

all of hers, a magic I think she likes.

And when I walk at her side again,

the two of us return, a giant

and his long-legged little helper,

who’s new enough to walking still

she manages a wobble or swings

a foot in picking the place to put it.

None of this beautiful, secret love

will last. Other shadows will come

along, and she’ll see her own one day

apart from mine. But before those fates

arrive, I’m going to stretch my arms,

and tipping and twirling, I’ll show her how

to turn her shadow into a bird

and rest it softly in the tree,

and afterward, when she sees a shadow, 

perhaps she’ll think of birds or me.

 

Maurice Manning, Snakedoctor (Copper Canyon Press, 2023)

When the Song of the Angels is Stilled

When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and the princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flocks,
The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace between brothers and sisters,
To make music in the heart.

Howard Thurman 

Epiphany (January 6)

On Epiphany day,
     we are still the people walking.
          and the darkness looms large around us.    We are still people in the dark,
           beset as we are by fear,
                                        anxiety,
                                        brutality,
                                        violence,
                                        loss —
          a dozen alienations that we cannot manage.

We are — we could be — people of your light.
     So we pray for the light of your glorious presence
          as we wait for your appearing;
     we pray for the light of your wondrous grace
          as we exhaust our coping capacity;
     we pray for your gift of newness that
          will override our weariness;
     we pray that we may see and know and hear and trust
          in your good rule.

That we may have energy, courage, and freedom to enact
         your rule through the demands of this day.
         We submit our day to you and to your rule, with deep joy and high hope.

 

Walter Brueggemann, Prayers for a Privileged People (Abingdon, 2008)

By the Powers of Good

“When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die,” wrote Dietrich Bonhoeffer. This is his last poem. He was hanged at Flossenburg Concentration Camp on April 9, 1945.

With every power for good to stay and guide me,
Comforted and inspired beyond all fear,
I’ll live these days with you in thought beside me,
And pass, with you, into the coming year.

The old year still torments our hearts, unhastening;
The long days of sorrow still endure;
Father, grant to the souls thou hast been chastening
That thou hast promised, the healing and the cure.

Should it be ours to drain the cup of grieving
Even to the dregs of pain, at thy command,
We will not falter, thankfully receiving
All that is given by thy loving hand.

But should it be thy will once more to release us
To life’s enjoyment and its good sunshine,
That which we’ve learned from sorrow shall increase us,
And all our life be dedicated to thine.

Today, let candles shed their radiant greetings;
Lo, on our darkness are they not thy light
Leading us, haply, to our longed-for meeting?
Thou canst illumine even our darkest night.

When now the silence deepens for our hearkening,
Grant we may hear thy children’s voices raise
From all the unseen world around us darkening
Their universal paean, in thy praise.

While all the powers of good aid and attend us,
Boldly, we’ll face the future, come what may.
At even and at morn God will befriend us,
And oh, most surely on each newborn day!

 

All That I Have

We’re in a busy shopping mall, very crowded—

this was before the virus—and an ordinary-looking man 

walks out of the crowd into the center of the atrium. 

He’s middle-aged, wearing a leather jacket, hands in his pockets. 

And he starts to sing. He opens his mouth and starts to sing, 

loudly and clearly. At first you think he’s crazy, 

he’s some kind of crank, but then you realize, wait a minute, 

his voice is beautiful, it’s powerful—he’s singing 

a famous aria—he’s singing Nessun Dorma, from Puccini.

This guy’s a tenor, this ordinary man who has emerged 

from the crowd is a tenor, and he’s a great tenor, and his voice 

is building and rising, and people are stopping and looking, 

the expressions on their faces are changing, people who 

would never be caught dead at an opera, who don’t have any idea 

what opera is, they’re stopped in their tracks. One little girl 

turns around and looks up at her mother, amazement 

in her eyes. O look at the stars, the tenor sings, that tremble of love

and hope, and his voice builds and builds, it rises to its climax, 

and he hits that final, high note, and he holds it, holds it 

until it’s ringing in the air of that crowded mall, and something 

transcendent has happened, something wonderful has risen up 

out of that ordinary gray day, something excellent and pure, 

and everyone knows it, they feel it, and they burst into applause, 

burst into tears. They clap and clap. And the tenor smiles, 

and looks around, then puts his hands in his pockets and walks 

back into the crowd. He disappears. O that I might hold

my one note and walk away! O that I might disappear!

 

Chris Anderson, Rattle # 82 accessed on December 27. 2023